Posts in Category: Releases

Version 20050407 Bug Fix Release

I just released a new set of deployment binary packages. The only files that have changed are the dlls in the bin folder.  Its available now on the download page.

The following bugs were fixed.

RSS Feed module didn't work unless the date time format was in GMT

The Register Link was using https even when SSLIsAvailable was set to false.

In the MySQL version, there was a bug in the Gallery that would only effect Galleries not configured in  Compact Mode. This bug was introduced in the upgrade from ByteFX to the newer MySQL Connector.

I recommend you back up your current dlls then replace them with the new ones. You may need to restart apache.

A New Release this Sunday

I'm planning a new release this sunday. 

New things to look forward to include support for PostgreSQL thanks to Joseph Hill of GotMono.com.  Also with much thanks to Joseph Hill, a new RSS Feed Aggregation module to allow you to show one or many feeds on a page.  Joseph sent me the code he is currently using on GotMono.com for the bloggers page and I turned it into a module that can be plugged into any page in a mojoPortal site.  You can configure the cache time, the maximum age of posts to show and a maximum number of posts to show per feed and a few other settings.

Also a few bug fixes and improvements.

Release 20050320 alpha

Well I didn't think I would make a new release one day after my last release but I was able to complete 2 important features yesterday and also found out about a bug in the data layer for MS SQL.

The new release includes the ability to move content modules between pages and also to create "pages" in the menu hierarchy that are just links to other pages which can be either on site or off site.  You can also configure whether to open the page in a new window.  There is a new page setting to Show Child Pages Menu, but this feature is not implemented yet and checking the box will have no effect.

If you installed yesterday's release you will need to add 4 new columns to the mp_Pages table, see the create tables script for details. If you are using MS SQL you should also update the stored procedures.
If you are trying to upgrade from any previous version, be sure and backup both your site and current db before you start making changes in case things get messed up and you want to go back.  Upgrading while the project is in the alpha stage is a manual process, I will try to add some guidlines under the Documentation menu soon.  Eventually I will have an automated upgrade process.

The bug that was fixed in the MS SQL data layer would only have revealed itself if you configured an Html Module for multiple items like articles or announcements.

I also added some documentation to the site today under Documentation > Creating Skins and Documentation > Securing mojoPortal

I will be upgrading this site and my demo sites to the new version sometime in the next few days.  If you are viewing the site while I'm doing the upgrade you may get a page not found error or some other server error but rest assured it will only be for a few minutes when it happens.

Update 3/21/2005
I just finished upgrading this site as well as the demo sites and my personal site to the new version

Release 20050319 alpha is now available

See the download page for details.  mojoPortal now supports multiple sites using one installation and db. 
Each site must have a different host name entered in the mp_SiteHosts table, if no matching host name is found the first site in the mp_Sites table is returned.  The sites sharing a single installation each have separate users and content but they do share the same culture.  To support a different culture, you still need a separate installation and db.

As always, if you have any trouble with mojoPortal, please post in the forums and I will try to help as soon as possible.

Next steps in the development plan

Support for PostgreSQL is coming soon thanks to Joseph Hill of GotMono.com!

Page/Menu hierarchy improvements.
Currently, you can't create more than one menu item that points to the same page and you can't create menu items that point outside the page hierarchy either on site or off site.  I am going to change this so you can create "pages" that just point to a link which can be an exisiting page in the site or an external link.  You will also be able to configure whether it opens in the same window or a new one.  Also I will implement a feature so that a page can be configured to automatically display  links to its child pages.  For example, consider the Documentation menu item on this site, it is really just a container menu for other pages with specific documentation.  With the current implementation I had to add an Html Module to that page and manually add links to its child pages.  The next version will have a checkbox in the page configuration to do this automatically.

Moving content modules to different pages is a much needed feature that should be pretty easy to implement.  It can be done now manually by changing the PageID of the module in the database but I will make this very easy to do.

Module Consolidation
Not long ago I added features to the Html Module to allow configuring it for multiple items to support articles and announcements.  Now I see that there is almost a feature overlap with the blog module.  If the Html module had RSS, Comments and Archive capabilities the blog module would not be needed because the Html module could be configured as a blog.  I am planning to create a new Content Module that will combine all these features and will also add a content rating system and the ability to attach a threaded discussion to any content.  At that point I will move the current Blog and Html Modules out of the core and into separate assemblies.  This will provide backward compatibility for users with exisiting installations that are already using the Blog and Html modules and will also provide a reference architecture for others who may want to build external modules that plug in to mojoPortal.

Search
I had been thinking I would use Lucene.NET as the search engine for the site but now I'm leaning back toward using traditional db search capabilities.  My reasoning on this is that pages in mojoPortal can be configured as only visible to users in certain roles. I think the search needs to take into account whether the user is logged in and what roles the user is a member of in order to only display content that the user has rights to view.  I can easily pass the user id as a parameter for searching in the db and limit results to content on pages the user can see.  I haven't figured out a way to do something similar with Lucene but I am open to suggestions if those of you more familiar with Lucene.NET see something I am missing.

Release 20050227 alpha is now available

A new release is available on the download page, including the new Shared Files Module for securely sharing files without directly exposing the file system.  To the user, it looks and feels just like the File Manager module.

Also the Blog Module now has an option to notify you if someone posts a comment as well as some new features to customize the rss feed.

A number of miscellaneous bug fixes are also included.

Also a daily tarball of the VS.NET Solution source files are now available from Novell Forge in addition to anonymous svn checkout, see the download page for details.

If you have any questions or difficulties, please post in the forums.