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<property name="context">{/doc/acs-core-docs/ {ACS Core Documentation}} {OpenACS Release Notes}</property>
<property name="doc(title)">OpenACS Release Notes</property>
<master>
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<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
<a name="release-notes" id="release-notes"></a>OpenACS Release Notes</h2></div></div></div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-10-0" id="release-notes-5-10-0"></a>Release 5.10.0</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>The release of OpenACS 5.10.0 contains the 93 packages of the
oacs-5-10 branch. These packages include the OpenACS core packages,
the major application packages (e.g. most the ones used on
OpenACS.org), and DotLRN 2.10.0.</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Functional improvements</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>Features:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>Support for range types in .xql files:</p><p>PostgreSQL supports range types since 9.5. When using range
types, square braces have to be used in SQL statements. Since
OpenACS uses always Tcl substitution in .xql files, and OpenACS
does NOT allow backslash substitution in these files, square
brackets could not be escaped and therefore not be used in .xql
files so far. This change allows now a developer to deactivate the
substitution by passing e.g. <code class="computeroutput">-subst
none</code> to the db_* command using the .xql file. Valid values
for <code class="computeroutput">-subst</code> are <code class="computeroutput">all</code>, <code class="computeroutput">none</code>, <code class="computeroutput">vars</code>, and <code class="computeroutput">commands</code>, default is <code class="computeroutput">all</code> which is exactly the behavior of
previous releases. Therefore, this change is fully backward
compatible.</p>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Registry for .js and .css libraries: allow besides classical
URLs symbolic names for loading external resources (e.g. jquery),
this makes it easier to upgrade libraries in multiple packages
(without running into problems with duplicate versions) and
supports switching between CDN and local pathsURN. The existing
implementation is based on URNs and extends the existing
template-head API to support registration for URNs. A URN provides
an abstraction and a single place for e.g. updating references to
external resources when switching between a CDN and a locally
stored resource, or when a resource should be updated. Instead of
adding e.g. a CDN URL via template::head::add_script, one can add
an URN and control its content from a single place. Use common
namespaces for OpenACS such as <code class="computeroutput">urn:ad:css:*</code> and <code class="computeroutput">urn:ad:js:*</code>.</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>Register URNs:</p><p>Example provider (e.g. in some theme):</p><pre class="programlisting">
   template::register_urn \ 
       -urn urn:ad:js:jquery \ 
       -resource /resources/xowiki/jquery/jquery.min.js
</pre>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>The registered URN can be used like classical URL after
registration.</p><p>Example consumer:</p><pre class="programlisting">
   template::head::add_javascript -src urn:ad:js:jquery
</pre>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Declare composite files: Provide an interface to define that a
.js file or a .css file contains multiple other .js/.css files in
order to reduce the number of requests.</p><pre class="programlisting">
   template::head::includes -container urn:js::style.js -parts {urn:ad:js:jquery ...}
</pre>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved API browser: Visualization for code dependencies (which
procs calls what, from where is a proc being called) and
test-coverage</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Warn site administrators about expiring certificates</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added text/markdown to the accepted text formats or rich-text
widget</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Additional input types (and widgets) for <code class="computeroutput">ad_form</code>:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>checkbox_text</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>color</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>email</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>tel</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>url</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>number</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>file (multiple)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>h5date and h5time: date and time fields using native HTML5
visualization and input normalization</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Added additional page_contract filter: oneof(red|green|blue)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
<code class="computeroutput">template::add_event_listener</code>
and <code class="computeroutput">template::add_confirm_handler</code> now can
target elements by CSS selector</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved support for streaming HTML: The new API function
<code class="computeroutput">template::collect_body_scripts</code>
can be used to get the content of template::script or CSP calls
(<code class="computeroutput">template::add_body_script</code>,
<code class="computeroutput">template::add_event_listener</code>,
<code class="computeroutput">template::add_body_handler</code>,
<code class="computeroutput">template::add_script</code>) when
streaming HTML (incremental HTML) is used. Before, these call could
bot be used for streaming HTML.</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Reforms:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>Login:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;"><li class="listitem"><p>Get rid of bugging "login page expired" messages. The
17 years old construct was replaced by newer means to avoid caching
of form values from the login form. Admins of existing sites should
set the kernel parameter <code class="computeroutput">LoginPageExpirationTime</code> to 0</p></li></ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Forums:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Removed hard-coded dependency with registered_users group when
checking forum permissions</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Don&#39;t rely so heavily on acs_permissions to model forum
configuration, as this can have unexpected consequences in
convoluted multi-group/multi-subsite scenarios. Prefer simpler
table attributes instead</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>New style of attachments to the forums, allowing multiple
attachments to a single message directly from the message post
page, using the multiple file input widget. Retain compatibility
with old style attachments, using the new 'AttachmentStyle'
package instance parameter. Currently, this supports two values:
'simple' (new behavior) and 'complex' previous
behavior.</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Chat:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Revamping of the GUI</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Responsiveness</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Full screen mode</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Skins support (minimal, classic and bubbles, included): Skins
are located in the new /packages/xowiki/www/resources/chat-skins/
directory. New skins can be created by just adding the css and js
files in the skins directory, and naming them accordingly
(chat-$SKIN_NAME.{js|css}).</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Avatars (can be enabled per room)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Number of active users in chat</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Tab notifications of new messages</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Web Notifications:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="listitem"><p>https://www.w3.org/TR/notifications/</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Notifications_API/Using_the_Notifications_API</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>acs-lang:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>admin pages:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Added the option to unregister (delete permanently the message
key from all locales) a message key that has been already marked as
deleted. Useful for cleaning up old message keys.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added the option to undelete, using the new ::message::undelete
proc.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Made number and category (untranslated/deleted/...) of messages
coherent in all pages.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added the columns 'total' and 'deleted' to the
index page.</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>object_id reference: it is now possible to associate a message
key to an object_id in a way that e.g. when the object is deleted,
so is the message key. This addresses cases such as the message
keys generated by group creation or by the new XoWiki localized
fields</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Notifications:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Improved scalability for notifications: One of the most
expensive operations in large site is the cleanup for
notification_requests in situations, where the user has lost
permissions on an object, on which the user wanted to receive
notifications. This check was performed previously in <code class="computeroutput">notification::sweep::cleanup_notifications</code>
via a permission check over all notification requests, which can be
very costly on large sites. This change moves this cleanup into the
actual notification sending, where the permissions have to be sent
anyhow.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>When sending a notification on behalf of a person, if the system
is not configured to process replies to notification, do not set
the reply-to address to anything different than the sender</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Notifications: proper cleanup of acs_objects resulting from the
deletion of dynamic notification requests</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>User/Person/Party API: rework and rationalize caching of all
party, person and user API, create separate caches for each of
these types, make the API and return dicts. acs_user::get will not
fail anymore with non-existing user.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>User Portrait: created API to retrieve and create, store and
delete the user&#39;s portrait. Also address leftover child
relationships from the past and delete them properly.</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Non-functional Changes</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>Improved automated regression test infrastructure and test
coverage</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>All packages in the <code class="computeroutput">oacs-5-10</code> branch pass regression test</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Web testing was separated from non-maintained tcltest and was
built on the standard OpenACS infrastructure</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Include web testing per default in standard regression
testing</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Introduced new test authentication authority, allowing to run
many user administration tests outside the context of a "real
authority": in cases where the real authority depends on
external services to proof identity, (e.g. Kerberos), those tests
would just fail.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Introduce the display of warnings in the UI of automated
testing</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added test coverage information in the automated testing pages,
using the new proc-coverage API and providing test coverage
information for packages and system wide.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Increased overall coverage of public API</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>New tests checking various data-model properties and smells</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Improved scalability:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Provided lock-free implementation of <code class="computeroutput">ad_page_contract_filters</code> and <code class="computeroutput">ad_page_contract_filter_rules</code>. This change
improves parallel processing of requests and is primarily
interesting for sites with a few mio page views per days. These
locks were among the most frequent nsv locks</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Reduced locks on util_memoize_cache my more invariants values
into per-thread caching (<code class="computeroutput">acs_lookup_magic_object</code>, <code class="computeroutput">ad_acs_version</code>, .... ) and by avoiding
specialized calls, which can be realized by already optimized ones
(<code class="computeroutput">apm_package_installed_p_not_cached
ref-timezones</code> was most frequently used util_memoize_cache
entry). These changes are necessary to avoid full still-stand on
the unfortunate long-time locks on util_memoize_cache stemming from
permission and user management with wild-card flush operations,
which require to iterate over all cache entries (which might be on
a busy server several hundred thousands)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added new interface for cache partitioning to reduce lock
latencies on high load websites</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added new interface for lock-free per-thread and per-request
caching to avoid scattered ad-hoc implementations</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Better reuse of DB handles (reduced expiring/reopen/etc.),
faster access to handles</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Improved startup time:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>When the package acs-automated-testing is disabled, startup time
is reduced by avoiding loading of support functions and tests; the
size of the blueprint is reduced</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>xowf: loading of at-jobs is significantly improved.</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Security improvements:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Strengthened page contracts</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>CSP support for application packages</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>CSP fine tuning  </p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Better exception handling based on Tcl 8.6 exception handlers
(<code class="computeroutput">try</code> and <code class="computeroutput">throw</code>, also available in Tcl 8.5)</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Provided a new <code class="computeroutput">ad_try</code>
implementation based on Tcl&#39;s <code class="computeroutput">try</code> replaces now the old <code class="computeroutput">ad_try</code>, <code class="computeroutput">with_catch</code> and <code class="computeroutput">with_finally</code>, which are marked as
deprecated</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>The new <code class="computeroutput">ad_try</code> is in essence
Tcl&#39;s <code class="computeroutput">try</code> but with
predefined handling of <code class="computeroutput">ad_script_abort</code> and should be also used
instead of <code class="computeroutput">catch</code>, when the
OpenACS API is used (which might use script aborts)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>All core packages use the new <code class="computeroutput">ad_try</code> instead of the deprecated
versions.</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Connection close reform:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>NaviServer/AOLserver continue after connection closing commands
to execute a script. This is in many situations not desired,
especially, when for the page as well a .adp file exists, which
will try to deliver this on the already closed connection. This can
lead to errors in the error.log file, which are sometimes hard to
analyze</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Due to this cleanup, developers should use in most such cases
cases <code class="computeroutput">ad_script_abort</code>
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Connection closing commands are e.g. <code class="computeroutput">ad_returnredirect</code>, <code class="computeroutput">ad_redirect_for_registration</code>, <code class="computeroutput">cr_write_content</code>, <code class="computeroutput">ad_page_contract_handle_datasource_error</code>,
<code class="computeroutput">ad_return_string_as_file</code>,
<code class="computeroutput">ad_return_complaint</code>,
<code class="computeroutput">ad_return_error</code>, <code class="computeroutput">ad_return_forbidden</code>, <code class="computeroutput">ad_return_warning</code>, <code class="computeroutput">ad_return_exception_page</code>, <code class="computeroutput">ns_returnredirect</code>, <code class="computeroutput">ns_return</code>, <code class="computeroutput">ns_returnerror</code>
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>The new version has made on most occasions explicit, when the
script should abort.</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>API changes (new and extended API calls):</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>New API call <code class="computeroutput">category::get</code>
to obtain category description for a category_id and locale</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>New utility <code class="computeroutput">ad_pad</code> emulating
both lpad and rpad typically available in DBMSs</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>New proc lc_content_size_pretty, prettify data size given in
bytes. It supports three different standards (SI base-10, IEC
base-2 and the old JEDEC base-2), default is SI base-10.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>New flag <code class="computeroutput">-export</code> for
<code class="computeroutput">ad_form</code>: this flag uses
<code class="computeroutput">export_vars</code> under the hood and
supports all of this API&#39;s features (e.g. :multiple, :sign,
:array). This addresses a long standing TODO</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
<code class="computeroutput">util::pdfinfo</code>: simple
poppler-utils wrapper to extract pdf information</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>util::http: leverage new ns_http features such as request file
spooling. Native implementation will now be used only on NaviServer
&gt;= 4.99.15.</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Database API:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>
<code class="computeroutput">db_foreach</code>: queries executed
inside of a db_foreach will not be issued using a different handle
and will therefore be safe to use in a transaction</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
<code class="computeroutput">db_list_of_lists</code>: new
<code class="computeroutput">-with_headers</code> flag, which will
make the first element of the returned list to be the column names
as defined in the query</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Groups API:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Logics to delete a group type have now been included in the
API</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Allow to filter group members by member_state in the API</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Deprecated commands:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Many deprecated API calls were included in the code (and
sometimes still in use) sometimes more than 10 years after these
calls have been deprecated. In case a site modification still uses
deprecated code, the user is warned about this. The OpenACS 5.10
code base does not depend on deprecated code.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Move deprecated code into separate files</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Made loading of deprecated code optional (can be controlled via
parameter "WithDeprecatedCode" in section
"ns_section ns/server/${server}/acs" of the config file.
By default, deprecated procs are still loaded</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>When deprecated code is not loaded, the blueprint of the
interpreter is smaller. The following number of lines of code can
be omitted when loading without the deprecated procs:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>acs-tcl: 3178</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>acs-templating: 450</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>xotcl-core http-client-procs: 830</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>acs-content-repository: 1717 (including .xql files)</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Bugfix and Code Maintenance:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Made sure all party emails are stored as lowercase through the
API</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Fixed long standing regression in template::list: we were
looping through the list "elements", rather than the
"display_elements". This prevents specifying different
sets of columns to be returned depending on the <code class="computeroutput">-formats</code> and <code class="computeroutput">-selected_format</code> options in
template::list::create.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>acs-content-repository: New HEIC and HEIF mimetypes</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>acs-mail-lite: handle <code class="computeroutput">to_addr</code> specified as "DisplayName
&lt;email&gt;" without errors</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Fixed invalidating of all existing user logins, (aka)
"Logout from everywhere" feature, useful e.g. to make
sure no device still holds a valid login when we change our
password on a device</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Don&#39;t lose the return URL when one tries to join a subsite
before being logged in</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added <code class="computeroutput">doc(base_href)</code> and
<code class="computeroutput">doc(base_target)</code> for setting
&lt;base&gt; element via blank-baster (see issue #3435)</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Groups:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>When a new group is created, flush all the group::get_id caches
with the same name so that the new group can be fetched correctly
in case it replaces a previously deleted one</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Cleanup message keys coming from groups in acs-translations when
a group is deleted</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>acs-lang:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>
<code class="computeroutput">lang::util::convert_to_i18n</code>:
do not always register a en_US translation, which would be always
overridden. Instead, let <code class="computeroutput">lang::message::register</code> make sure that a
en_US message exists and create one only as a fallback.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
<code class="computeroutput">lc_time_fmt</code>: leverage Tcl
clock to address shortcomings such as handling of dates in
Julian/Gregorian calendar and impossible dates such as 1999-02-29,
implement missing formats, support previously undocumented formats
explicitly</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>search: make sure objects in the search indexer queue still
exist by the time they are swept by the indexer (e.g. items deleted
before the indexer could sweep them)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
<code class="computeroutput">attribute::delete</code>: fix proc
so it leverages stored procedure capability of dropping the
database table as well</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
<code class="computeroutput">util::http</code>: fix UTF-8
encoding issues for some cornercases</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Localization: Complete Italian and Spanish localization for the
whole .LRN set of packages (including themes). Message keys for new
and previously localized packages have also been updated</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>General cleanup/maintenance</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Improved handling of server implementation-specific code:
server-specific code can be optionally loaded via specifying the
server family in the filename. Provided <code class="computeroutput">*-procs-aolserver.tcl</code> and <code class="computeroutput">*-procs-naviserver.tcl</code> similar to
*.postgresql.xql and *.oracle.xql where appropriate</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Modernization of Tcl idioms.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Compliance of files, proc names, ... to the naming
conventions.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>White space cleanup, indentation changes.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improvement of public API documentation</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Adjustment of proc protection levels (public, private)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Adjustment of log severity</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Cleanup of obsolete files</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Replacement of handcrafted forms by ad_form</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Typo fixing</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Editor hints</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Replacement of deprecated calls</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Addition of missing contracts</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>...</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>SQL cleanup:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>Cleanup of obsolete nonportable SQL constructs in a way Oracle
and PostgreSQL code base divergency is reduced:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>"nvl" -&gt; "coalesce"</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>"sysdate" / "now()" -&gt; standard
"current_date" or "current_timestamp"</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Use standard-compliant "dual" table where appropriate
(required by Oracle, supported by PostgreSQL)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Use non-dialectal cast idioms when appropriate</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Adopt CTE idioms in Oracle codebase as well (e.g. connect -&gt;
with recursive)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>... (reference Oracle version will be 11gr2 as is oldest version
officially supported by Oracle (See <a class="ulink" href="http://www.oracle.com/us/support/library/lifetime-support-technology-069183.pdf" target="_top">here</a> and <a class="ulink" href="https://n4stack.io/oracle-11g-end-of-life/" target="_top">here</a>)</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Reduced superfluous .xql queries</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>acs-subsite: delete 21 files with un-referenced .xql queries</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>acs-tcl: delete 4 files</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>news: 3 files</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>file-storage: 1 file</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>dotlrn: 9 files</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>New Packages:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>cookie-consent: alerting users about the use of cookies on a
website</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>boomerang: performance of your website from your end
user&rdquo;™s point of view</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>xooauth: OAuth implementation, including LTI (Learning Tools
Interoperability)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>dotlrn-bootstrap3-theme: Bootstrap 3 theme for DotLRN</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>xowf-monaco-plugin: Integration of Monaco editor with for code
exercise types in xowf</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>proctoring-support: utilities and user interfaces to implement
proctoring of the user session, mainly intended in the context of
distance education and online exams. The main proctoring feature
relies only on web technologies and does not require any plugin or
additional software. Optional support for the Safe Exam Browser has
also been introduced. The package is currently at the core of WU
Online Exam infrastructure and is integrated in the inclass exam
implementation for xowf</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Require Tcl 8.6, XOTcl 2.1, PostgreSQL 9.6 (PostgreSQL 9.5 EOL:
<a class="ulink" href="https://www.postgresql.org/support/versioning/" target="_top">February 2021</a>), tdom 0.9</p></li>
</ul></div><p>Altogether, OpenACS 5.10.0 differs from OpenACS 5.9.1 by the
following statistics</p><pre class="programlisting">
 3445 files changed, 215464 insertions(+), 193642 deletions(-) 
</pre><p>contributed by 7 committers (Antonio Pisano, Gustaf Neumann,
Günter Ernst, Hector Romojaro, Michael Aram, Stefan
Sobernig, Thomas Renner) and additional 13 patch/bugfix providers
(Felix Mödritscher, Florian Mosböck,
Frank Bergmann, Franz Penz, Hanifa Hasan, Keith Paskett, Markus
Moser, Maurizio Martignano, Monika Andergassen, Nathan Coulter,
Rainer Bachleitner, Stephan Adelsberger, Tony Kirkham). All
packages of the release were tested with PostgreSQL 13.* and Tcl
8.6.*.</p><p>For more details, consult the <a class="ulink" href="http://openacs.org/changelogs/ChangeLog-5.10.0" target="_top">raw
ChangeLog</a>.</p>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-9-1" id="release-notes-5-9-1"></a>Release 5.9.1</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>The release of OpenACS 5.9.1 contains the 88 packages of the
oacs-5-9 branch. These packages include the OpenACS core packages,
the major application packages (e.g. most the ones used on
OpenACS.org), and DotLRN 2.9.1.</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Summary of changes:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>Refactoring of rich-text editor integration</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Driving force: Debian packaging (e.g. js minified code is not
allowed)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Moved out code from acs-templating, provided interfaces to add
many different richtext editors as separate packages</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>New OpenACS packages:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>richtext-xinha</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>richtext-tinymce</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>richtext-ckeditor4 (has ability to choose between CDN and local
installation via web interface)</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Improving admin interface</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>New theme manager:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>Goals:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Make it easier to keep track of themes with local
modifications</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Make it easier to create local modification a new themes and to
update these</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Show differences between default theme parameter (in DB) and
actual settings (in subsite parameters)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Allow to delete unused themes</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Give site admin hints, which theme is used at which subsite</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Ease theme switching</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Added a subsite::theme_changed callback to be able to handle
theme changes in custom themes (was also necessary for proper
integration with DotLRN theming)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added support for these features under subsite admin
(/admin/)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved support for themed templates via
[template::themed_template]</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved (broken) interface to define/manage groups over web
interface</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Allow to send as well mail, when membership was rejected</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>New functions [membership_rel::get_user_id],
[membership_rel::get] and [membership_rel::get_group_id] to avoid
code duplication</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added support to let user include %forgotten_password_url% in
self-registration emails (e.g. in message key
acs-subsite.email_body_Registration_password)</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Improved subsite/www/members</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Make it possible to manage members of arbitrary groups</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved performance for large groups</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved configurability: when ShowMembersListTo is set to
"3", show list to members only, when this is not the
whole subsite</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved user interface for /admin/applications for large number
of applications</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Various fixes for sitewide-admin pages (under /acs-admin)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Update blueprint in "install from repository"
(currently just working in NaviServer)</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>SQL</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>Further cleanup of .xql files (like what as done for acs-subsite
in OpenACS 5.9.0):</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>36 files deleted</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Removed more than 100 obsolete named queries</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Stripped misleading SQL statements</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Marked redundant / uncalled SQL functions as deprecated</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Replaced usages of obsolete view
"all_object_party_privilege_map" by
"acs_object_party_privilege_map"</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Removed type discrepancy introduced in 2002:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>acs_object_types.object_type has type varchar(1000), while</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>acs_object_types.supertype has type varchar(100)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>... several more data types are involved, using
acs_object_types.object_type as foreign key</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Simplified core SQL functions by using defaults:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Number of functions reduced by a factor of 2 compared to OpenACS
5.9.0 (while providing compatibility for clients using old
versions),</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Reduced code redundancy</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Affected functions:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Reduced content_item__new from 12 versions to 6,</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Reduce content_revision__new from 7 to 4</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Similar in image__new, image__new_revision, content_item__copy,
content_item__get_title, content_item__move</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>PostgreSQL 9.5 supports named parameter in the same syntax as in
Oracle. Further reduction of variants will be possible, once
OpenACS requires at least PostgreSQL 9.5</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Reduced usage of deprecated versions of SQL functions (mostly
content repository calls)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Reduced generation of dead tuples by combining multiple DML
statements to one (reduces costs of checkpoint cleanups in
PostgreSQL)</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Permission queries:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Improved performance</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Support PACKAGE.FUNCTION notation for PostgreSQL to allow calls
permission queries exactly the same way as in Oracle (e.g.
"acs_permission.permission_p()"). This helps to reduce
the number of postgres specific .xql files.</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Modernize SQL:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Use real Boolean types instead of character(1) (done for
new-portal, forums, faq, attachments, categories, dotlrn,
dotlrn-forums, evaluation)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Use real enumeration types rather than check constraints (done
for storage_type text/file/lob)</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>CR hygienics (reduce cr bloat)</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>Provided means to avoid insert/update/delete operations in the
search queue:</p><p>OpenACS adds for every new revision often multiple entries to
the search_queue, without providing any means to prevent this. This
requires for busy sites very short intervals between queue sweeps
(otherwise too many entries pile up). Another consequence is that
this behavior keeps the PostgreSQL auto-vacuum daemons permanently
active. Many of these operations are useless in cases where the
content repository is used for content that should not be provided
via search. The changed behavior should honors a publish-date set
to the future, since it will not add any content with future
publish dates to the search-queue.</p>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Reduced number of insert cr_child_rels operations, just when
needed:</p><p>cr_child_rels provide only little benefit (allow one to use
roles in a child-rel), but the common operation is a well available
in cr_items via the parent_id. cr_child_rels do not help for
recursive queries either. One option would be to add an additional
argument for content_item__new to omit child-rel creation (default
is old behavior) and adapt the other cases.</p>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Security improvements</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>Added support against <a class="ulink" href="/xowiki/CSRF" target="_top">CSRF</a> (cross site request forgery)</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>OpenACS maintains a per-request CSRF token that ensures that
form replies are coming just from sites that received the form</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>CSRF support is optional for packages where CSRF is less
dangerous, and such requests are wanted (e.g. search and
API-browser)</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Added Support for W3C "Upgrade-Insecure-Headers" (see
https://www.w3.org/TR/upgrade-insecure-requests/):</p><p>For standard compliant upgrade for requests from HTTP to
HTTPS</p>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Added support for W3C "Subresource Integrity" (SRI;
see https://www.w3.org/TR/SRI/)</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Added support for W3C "Content Security Policy"
(<a class="ulink" href="/xowiki/CSP" target="_top">CSP</a>; see
https://www.w3.org/TR/CSP/)</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Removed "javascript:*" links (all such URLs are
removed from the 90 packages in oacs-5-9, excluding js libraries
(ajaxhelper) and richtext code)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Removed "onclick", "onfocus",
"onblur", "onchange" handlers from all .adp and
.tcl files in the 90 packages in oacs-5-9 (excluding js libraries
(ajaxhelper) and richtext code)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added optional nonces to all &lt;script&gt; elements with
literal JavaScript content</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Removed "generic downloader", which allowed to
download arbitrary content items, when item_id was known
(bug-fix)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved protection against XSS and SQL-injection (strengthen
page contracts, add validators, added page_contract_filter
"localurl", improve HTML escaping, and URI encoding)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Fixed for potential traversal attack
(acs-api-documentation-procs)</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Improvements for "host-node mapped" subsites</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Fixed links from host-node mapped subsite pages to swa-functions
(must be always on main subsite)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Made "util_current_directory" aware of
host-node-mapped subsites</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added ability to pass "-cookie_domain" to make it
possible to use the same cookie for different domains</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Fixed result of affected commands
"util_current_location", "ad_return_url",
"ad_get_login_url" and "ad_get_logout_url" for
HTTP and HTTPS, when UseHostnameDomainforReg is 0 or 1.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved UI for host-node maps when a large number of site nodes
exists</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Reform of acs-rels</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Made acs-rels configurable to give the developer the option to
specify, whether these are composable or not (default fully
backward compatible). This is required to control transitivity in
rel-segments</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>The code changes are based on a patch provided by Michael
Steigmann. For details, see:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p><a class="ulink" href="http://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=4031049" target="_top">http://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=4031049</a></p></li><li class="listitem"><p><a class="ulink" href="http://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=5330734" target="_top">http://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=5330734</a></p></li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Improved status code handlers for AJAX scenarios</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Don&#39;t report data source errors with status code 200 (use
422 instead)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Let "permission::require_permission" return forbidden
(403) in AJAX calls (determined via [ad_conn ajaxp])</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Improved Internationalization</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>Extended language catalogs for</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Russian (thanks to v v)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Italian (thanks to Antonio Pisano)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Spanish (thanks to Hector Romojaro)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>German (thanks to Markus Moser)</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Added (missing) message keys</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved wording of entries</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added message keys for member_state changes, provide API via
group::get_member_state_pretty</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Improved online documentation (/doc)</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Fixed many broken links</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Removed fully obsolete sections</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved markup (modernize HTML)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Updated various sections</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Misc code improvements:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>18 issues from the OpenACS-bug-tracker fixed</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Made code more robust against invalid/incorrect input
(page_contracts, validators, values obtained from header fields
such as Accept-Language)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Fixed quoting of message keys on many places</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved exception handling (often, a "catch" swallows
one too much, e.g. script_aborts), introducing
"ad_exception".</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Generalized handling of leading zeros:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Fixed cases where leading zeros could lead to unwanted octal
interpretations</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Switch to use of " util::trim_leading_zeros" instead
of "template::util::leadingTrim",
"dt_trim_leading_zeros" and
"template::util::leadingTrim", marked the latter as
deprecated</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>URL encoding</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>"ad_urlencode_folder_path": new function to perform an
urlencode operation on the segments of the provided folder path</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>"export_vars": encode path always correctly, except
-no_base_encode is specified</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Fixed encoding of the URL path in
"ad_returnredirect"</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Improvements for "ad_conn":</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Added [ad_conn behind_proxy_p] to check, whether the request is
coming from behind a proxy server</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added [ad_conn behind_secure_proxy_p] to check, whether the
request is coming from behind a secure proxy server</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added [ad_conn ajax_p] to check, whether the request is an AJAX
requests (assumption: AJAX request sets header-field
Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest")</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added [ad_conn vhost_url] to obtain the url of host-node-mapped
subsites</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Added various missing upgrade scripts (missing since many years)
of changes that were implemented for new installs to reduce
differences between "new"-and "old" (upgraded)
installations</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Templating</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Get rid of various pesky "MISSING FORMWIDGET:
...formbutton:ok" messages</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved support for JavaScript event handlers in
template::head</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>New functions "template::add_event_listener" and
"template::add_confirm_handler"</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Fix handling, when "page_size_variable_p" is set (was
broken since ages)</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Improved location and URL handling:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Refactored and commented "util_current_location" to
address security issues, handle IPv6 addresses, IP literal
notation, multiple drivers, "</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved "security::get_secure_location" (align with
documentation)</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>New functions:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="listitem"><p>"util::configured_location"</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>"util::join_location",
"util::split_location"</p></li>
</ul></div><p>for working on HTTP locations to reduce scattered regexps
handling URL components</p>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved IPv6 support</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Use native "ns_parseurl" when available, provide
backward compatible version for AOLserver</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>MIME types:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Added more Open XML formats for MS-Office to allowed content
types</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Modernized entries to IANA recommendations</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>New function "cr_check_mime_type" centralizing the
retrieval of the mime_type from uploaded content</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Finalized cleanup of permissions (started in OpenACS 5.9.0):</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;"><li class="listitem">
<p>Get rid of "acs_object_context_index " (and therefore
on "acs_object_party_privilege_map " as well) on
PostgreSQL.</p><p>Reasons:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="listitem"><p>huge table,</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>expensive maintenance, used only in a few places,</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li></ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Misc new functions:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>"lang::util::message_key_regexp": factor out scattered
regexp for detecting message keys</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>"ns_md5" and "ns_parseurl": improve
compatibility between AOLserver and NaviServer</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>"ad_dom_sanitize_html": allow one to specify different
sets of tags, attributes and protocols and
"ad_dom_fix_html", which is a light weight tidy
variant.</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved HTML rendering (acs-api-browser), provide width and
height to speed up rendering</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved ADP files (e.g. missing doc(title))</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added usage of "ad_include_contract" on more
occasions</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Modernize Tcl and HTML coding</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Reduced dependency on external programs (use Tcl functions
instead)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved robustness of "file delete" operations all
over the code</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved documentation, fix demo pages</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Aligned usages of log notification levels (distinction between
"error", "warning" and "notice") with
coding-standards</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Cleaned up deprecated calls:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Removed usage of deprecated API functions (e.g.
"cc_lookup_email_user", "cc_email_from_party",
"util_unlist", ...)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Moved more deprecated procs to acs-outdated</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Marked remaining (and unused) "cc_*" functions as well
as deprecated.</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved Oracle and windows support</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Fixed common spelling errors and standardize spelling of product
names all over the code (comments, documentation, ...)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Many more small bug fixes</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Packages:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;"><li class="listitem">
<p>New Package Parameters</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>acs-kernel:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="listitem"><p>MaxUrlLength: remove hard-coded constant in request processor
for max accepted url paths</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>SecureSessionCookie: Let site admin determine, whether or not to
use secured session cookies (useful, when not all requests are over
HTTPS)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>CSPEnabledP: activate/deactivate CSP</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>acs-kernel (recommended to be set via config file in section
"ns/server/${server}/&gt;acs"</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="listitem"><p>NsShutdownWithNonZeroExitCode: tell NaviServer to return with a
nonzero return code to cause restart (important under windows)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>LogIncludeUserId: include user_id in access log</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>acs-api-browser:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;"><li class="listitem"><p>ValidateCSRFP: make checking of CSRF optional (default 1)</p></li></ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>acs-content-repository:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;"><li class="listitem"><p>AllowMimeTypeCreationP: Decides whether we allow unknown mime
types to be automatically registered (default: 0}</p></li></ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>news-portlet:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;"><li class="listitem"><p>display_item_lead_p: Should we display news leads in the
portlet? (default 0)</p></li></ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>search:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;"><li class="listitem"><p>ValidateCSRFP: make checking of CSRF optional (default 1)</p></li></ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>xotcl-request-monitor:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;"><li class="listitem"><p>do_track_activity: turn activity monitoring on or off (default
0)</p></li></ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li></ul></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;"><li class="listitem">
<p>New OpenACS packages:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>richtext-xinha</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>richtext-tinymce</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>richtext-ckeditor4 (has ability to choose between CDN and local
installation via GUI)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>openacs-bootstrap3-theme (as used on openacs.org)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>dotlrn-bootstrap3-theme</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li></ul></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>xotcl-core:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Improved XOTcl 2.0 and NX support (e.g. api-browser)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added "-debug", "-deprecated" to ad_*
defined methods (such as e.g. "ad_instproc")</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Make use of explicit "create" statements when creating
XOTcl/NX objects (makes it easier to grab intentions and to detect
typos)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added parameter to "get_instance_from_db" to specify,
whether the loaded objects should be initialized</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added support for PostgreSQL prepared statements of SQL
interface in ::xo::dc (nsdb driver)</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>xowiki:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Named all web-callable methods www-NAME (to make it clear, what
is called, what has to be checked especially carefully)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Moved templates from www into xowiki/resources to avoid naming
conflicts</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved ckeditor support</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added usage of prepared statements for common queries</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved error handling</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Better value checking for query parameter, error reporting via
ad_return_complaint</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added option "-path_encode" to methods
"pretty_link" and "folder_path" to allow one to
control, whether the result should be encoded or not (default
true)</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Form fields:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Improved repeatable form fields (esp. composite cases),
don&#39;t require preallocation (can be costly in composite
cases)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added signing of form-fields</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added HTML5 attributes such as "multiple" (for
"file") or "autocomplete"</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Fixed generation of "orderby" attribute based on
form-field names</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>richtext: allow one to specify "extraAllowedContent"
via options</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved layout of horizontal check boxes</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Menu bar:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Added dropzone (requires bootstrap): drag and drop file
upload</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added mode toggle (requires bootstrap)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Extended default policies for handling e.g. dropzone
(file-upload method)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Distinguish between "startpage"
(menu.Package.Startpage) and "table of contents"
(menu.Package.Toc)</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Notifications:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Added support for better tailorable notifications: introduced
method "notification_render" (similar to
"search_render")</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added support for tailorable subject lines (method
"notification_subject")</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved bootstrap support, use "bootstrap" as
PreferredCSSToolkit</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Switched to ckeditor4 as PreferredRichtextEditor</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved handling of script-abort from within the payload of
::xowiki::Object payloads</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added parameter to "get_all_children" to specify,
whether the child objects should be initialized</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>xowf:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Added property "payload" to
"WorkflowConstruct" in order to simplify customized
workflow "allocate" actions</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Internationalized more menu buttons</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>xotcl-request-monitor</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Added class "BanUser" (use. e.g. ip address to
disallow requests from a user via request monitor)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added support for optional user tracking in database</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added support for monitoring response-time for certain URLs via
munin</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Increased usage of XOTcl 2.0 variable resolver (potentially
speed improvement 4x)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Performed some refactoring of response-time handling to allow
site-admin to make e.g. use of NaviServer&#39;s dynamic connection
pool management (not included in CVS)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added support for partial times in long-calls.tcl to ease
interpretation of unexpected slow calls</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>last100.tcl: Don&#39;t report hrefs to URLs, except to SWAs</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>chat:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Introduced new options to set chat rooms so login and/or logout
message are not issued every time a user enters/exits a chat-room
(important for chats with huge number of participants)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Parameterized viewing of chat-logs</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Fixed cases of over-/under-quoting</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Fixed JavaScript for IE, where innerHTML can cause problems</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>file-storage:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Don&#39;t show action keys, when user has no permissions</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added support for copying of same-named files into a folder
(adding suffix)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Fixed old bugs in connection with "views" package</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div><p>Altogether, OpenACS 5.9.1 differs from OpenACS 5.9.1 by the
following statistics</p><pre class="programlisting">
       3548 files changed, 113292 insertions(+), 90507 deletions(-)
    
</pre><p>contributed by 5 committers (Michael Aram, Gustaf Neumann,
Antonio Pisano, Hector Romojaro, Thomas Renner) and 8 patch/bugfix
providers (Frank Bergmann, Günter Ernst, Brian
Fenton, Felix Mödritscher, Marcus Moser, Franz Penz,
Stefan Sobernig, Michael Steigman). All packages of the release
were tested with PostgreSQL 9.6.* and Tcl 8.5.*.</p><p>For more details, consult the <a class="ulink" href="" target="_top">raw ChangeLog</a>.</p>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-9-0" id="release-notes-5-9-0"></a>Release 5.9.0</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>The release of OpenACS 5.9.0 contains the 78 packages of the
oacs-5-9 branch. These packages include the OpenACS core packages,
the major application packages (e.g. most the ones used on
OpenACS.org), and DotLRN 2.9.0.</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Summary of changes:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>SQL:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Improved performance of acs-object deletion.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Replaced many manual referential integrity calls by built-in
handing in PostgreSQL.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Removed various manual bookkeeping and deletion operations in
the content repository by built-in handing in PostgreSQL.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Removed tree_sortkey on acs-objects to reduce its size and to
speedup operations, where the context-id is changed (could take on
large installation several minutes in earlier versions)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Removed several uncalled / redundant SQL statements and
functions.</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Cleanup of .xql files in acs-subsite:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Some cleanup of .xql files: removed misleading sql-statements
from db_* calls, which were ignored due .xql files</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Removed bug where same query-name was used in different branches
of an if-statement for different SQL statements, but the query-name
lead to the wrong result.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Removed multiple entries of same query name from .xql files
(e.g. the entry
"package_create_attribute_list.select_type_info" was 7
(!) times in a single .xql file)</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Web Interface:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Improve Performance of WebSites created with OpenACS: e.g. move
core.js to a body requests, provide kernel parameter
ResourcesExpireInterval to specify expiration times for
resources.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Much better protection against XSS attacks.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved HTML validity (especially for admin pages)</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Improved admin interface:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Placed all installation options to a single page.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added pagination to /admin/applications (was unusable for large
sites)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>New admin pages for subsites linked from site-wide-admin package
(/acs-admin).</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added explanatory text to several admin pages.</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem"><p>Add lightweight support for ckeditor4 for templating::richtext
widget (configurable via package parameter
"RichTextEditor" of acs-templating. ckeditor4 supports
mobile devices (such as iPad, ...)</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Templating:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Improved theme-ability: Moved more information into theme
packages in order to create responsive designs, reduce hard-coding
of paths, HTML etc.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved include-handling: All includes are now theme-able,
interfaces of includes can be defined with
"ad_include_contract" (similar to ad_page_contract).</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved them-ability for display_templates. One can now provide
a display_template_name (similar to the SQL statement name) to
refer to display templates. This enables reusability and is
theme-able.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Dimensional slider reform (ad_dimensional): Removed hard-coded
table layout from dimensional slider. Add backwards compatible
templates Move hard-coded styles into theme styling</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Notification chunks are now theme-able as well (using
ad_include_contract)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Complete template variable suffixes (adding noi18n, addressing
bug #2692, full list is now: noquote, noi18n, literal)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added timeout and configurable secrets for signed url parameters
to export_vars/page_contracts. This can be used to secure sensitive
operations such as granting permissions since a link can be set to
timeout after e.g. 60 seconds; after that, the link is invalid. A
secret (password) can be set in section ns/server/$server/acs
parameter "parametersecret". For example, one can use now
"user_id:sign(max_age=60)" in export_vars to let the
exported variable expire after 60 seconds.</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Misc:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Added ability to show ns_log statements of current request to
developer support output when developer support is activated
(controlled via package parameter
"TclTraceLogServerities" in the acs-tcl package
parameters)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Added ability to save data sent by ns_return in files on the
filesystem. This can be used to validate HTML content also for
password protected pages (controlled via package parameter
"TclTraceSaveNsReturn" in the acs-tcl package
parameters)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>New API function "ad_log" having the same interface as
ns_log, but which logs the calling information (like URL and
call-stack) to ease tracking of errors.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Use per-thread caching to reduce number of mutex lock operations
and lock contention on various caches (util-memoize, xo_site_nodes,
xotcl_object_types) and nsvs (e.g. ds_properties)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved templating of OpenACS core documentation</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Improved Russian Internationalization</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Make pretty-names of acs-core packages more consistent</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Mark unused functions of acs-tcl/tcl/table-display-procs.tcl as
deprecated</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Many more bug fixes (from bug tracker and extra) and performance
improvements.</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Version numbers:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Require PostgreSQL 9.0 (End Of Life of PostgreSQL 8.4 was July
2014)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Require XOTcl 2.0 (presented at the Tcl conference in 2011).</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Changes in application packages:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;"><li class="listitem"><p>Various bug fixes and improvements for e.g. file-storage,
forums, news, notifications, xowiki.</p></li></ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div><p>Altogether, OpenACS 5.9.0 differs from OpenACS 5.8.1 by the
following statistics</p><pre class="programlisting">
      3658 files changed, 120800 insertions(+), 97617 deletions(-)
    
</pre><p>contributed by 4 committers (Michael Aram, Victor Guerra, Gustaf
Neumann, Antonio Pisano) and patch/bugfix providers (Frank
Bergmann, Andrew Helsley, Felix Mödritscher, Markus
Moser, Franz Penz, Thomas Renner). These are significantly more
changes as the differences in the last releases. All packages of
the release were tested with PostgreSQL 9.4.* and Tcl 8.5.*.</p><p>For more details, consult the <a class="ulink" href="" target="_top">raw ChangeLog</a>.</p>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-8-1" id="release-notes-5-8-1"></a>Release 5.8.1</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>The release contains the 78 packages of the oacs-5-8 branch.
These packages contain the OpenACS core packages, major application
packages (e.g. most the ones used on OpenACS.org), and DotLRN.</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>All packages have the following properties:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="listitem">
<p>SQL:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>All packages are PostgreSQL 9.1+ compatible (tested with
PostgreSQL 9.3)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>All SQL files with stored procedures use the recommended $$
quoting</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>All SQL-functions have regular function arguments instead of the
old-style aliases</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>The function_args() (query-able meta-data) are completed and
fixed</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Incompatible functions (e.g. for sequences) are replaced.</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>Tcl:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>All packages were brought up Tcl 8.5, including the actual Tcl
idioms where appropriate (e.g. using the safer expand operator,
range indices, dict, lassign, etc.)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>The code was updated to prefer byte-compiled functions instead
of legacy functions from ancient Tcl versions.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>The code works with NaviServer and AOLserver.</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li><li class="listitem">
<p>API:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: square;">
<li class="listitem"><p>All packages are free from calls to deprecated code (157
functions are marked as deprecated and will be moved into an
"outdated" package in the 5.9 or 6.0 release)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>General overhaul of package management</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Install-from-local and install-from-repository can be used to
install the provided packages based on a acs-core installation.
This means that also DotLRN can be installed from repository or
from local into an existing OpenACS instance.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Install-from-repository offers filtering functions, allows to
install optionally from head-channel (for packages not in the base
channel of the installed instance). Install-from-repository works
more like an app-store, showing as well vendor information</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Packages can be equipped with xml-based configuration files
(e.g. changing parameters for style packages)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Package developers can upload .apm packages via workflow for
review by core members and for inclusion to the repository. The
option is integrated with package management, the link is offered
for local packages. We hope to attract additional vendors
(universities, companies) to make their packages available on this
path.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>New management-functions for package instances (list, create,
delete package instances)</p></li><li class="listitem">
<p>Substantially improved API browser:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Show just relevant parts of .xql files for a function</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Provide syntax-highlighting for www scripts as well</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Handle more special cases like e.g. util_memoize</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Provide links to Tcl functions depending on the installed Tcl
version</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Provide links to NaviServer or OpenACS functions depending on
installed version</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Syntax highlighter uses CSS rather than hard-coded markup</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Significant performance improvement for large installations</p></li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div>
</li>
</ul></div><p>Altogether, OpenACS 5.8.1 differs from OpenACS 5.8.0 in about
100,000 modifications (6145 commits) contributed by 5
committers.</p>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-8-0" id="release-notes-5-8-0"></a>Release 5.8.0</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Compatibility with PostgreSQL 9.2: The new version installs
without any need for special parameter settings in new PostgreSQL
versions. This makes it easier to use e.g. shared or packaged
PostgreSQL installations.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Compatibility with NaviServer 4.99.5 or newer</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Performance and scalability improvements</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Various bug fixes</p></li>
</ul></div><p>Altogether, OpenACS 5.8.0 differs from OpenACS 5.7.0 in more
than 18.000 modifications (781 commits) contributed by 7
committers.</p>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-7-0" id="release-notes-5-7-0"></a>Release 5.7.0</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;"><li class="listitem"><p>Made changes that extend acs-kernel&#39;s create_type and
create_attribute procs, so they&#39;re optionally able to create
SQL tables and columns. Optional metadata params allow for the
automatic generation of foreign key references, check exprs,
etc.</p></li></ul></div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-6-0" id="release-notes-5-6-0"></a>Release 5.6.0</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;"><li class="listitem">
<p>Added new package dependency type, "embeds". This is a
variant of the "extends" package dependency type added in
OpenACS 5.5.0. It allows one to write embeddable packages, with
scripts made visible in client packages using URLs which include
the embedded package&#39;s package key. An example embeddable
package might be a rewritten "attachments" package. The
current implementation requires a global instance be mounted, and
client packages generate URLs to that global instance. Among other
things, this leads to the user navigating to the top-level subsite,
losing any subsite theming that might be associated with a
community. Using "embeds", a rewritten package would run
in the client package&#39;s context, maintaining theming and
automatically associating attachments with the client package.</p><p>Added global package parameters - parameters can now have scope
"local" or "global", with "local"
being the default..</p><p>Fixes for ns_proxy handling</p><p>Significant speedup for large sites</p><p>Optional support for selenium remote control
(acs-automated-tests)</p><p>New administration UI to manage mime types and extension map</p><p>Added acs-mail-lite package params for rollout support</p><p>Support for 3-chars language codes in acs-lang</p><p>Added OOXML mime types in acs-content-repository</p>
</li></ul></div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-5-0" id="release-notes-5-5-0"></a>Release 5.5.0</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;"><li class="listitem">
<p>PostgreSQL 8.3 is now fully supported, including the use of the
built-in standard version of tsearch2.</p><p>TinyMCE has been upgraded to 3.2.4.1 with language pack
support.</p><p>acs-mail-lite now correctly implements rollout support.</p><p>Added new package dependency type, "extends".
Implements a weak form of package inheritance (parameters and,
optionally, templates). Multiple inheritance is supported. For
instance, the non-core "layout-managed-subsite" extends
the "acs-subsite" and "layout-manager"
packages, resulting in a package that combines the semantics of
both.</p><p>Added new package attribute "implements-subsite-p"
(default "f"). If true, this package may be mounted as a
subsite and is expected to implement subsite semantics. Typically
used by packages which extend acs-subsite.</p><p>Added new package attribute "inherit-templates-p"
(default "t"). If true, the package inherits templates
defined in the packages it extends. This means that the package
only needs to specify templates where the UI of an extended package
is modified or extended. This greatly reduces the need to fork base
packages when one needs to customize it. Rather than modify the
package directly, use "extends" rather than
"requires" then rewrite those templates you need to
customize.</p><p>Added a simple mechanism for defining subsite themes, removing
the hard-wired choices implemented in earlier versions of OpenACS.
The default theme has been moved into a new package,
"openacs-default-theme". Simplifies the customization of
the look and feel of OpenACS sites and subsites.</p><p>The install xml facility has been enhanced to allow the calling
of arbitrary Tcl procedures and includes various other enhancements
written by Xarg. Packages can extend the facility, too. As an
example of what can be done, the configuration of .LRN communities
could be moved from a set of interacting parameters to a cleaner
XML description of how to build classes and clubs, etc.</p><p>Notifications now calls lang::util::localize on the message
subject and body before sending the message out, using the
recipient locale if set, the site-wide one if not. This will cause
message keys (entered as <span style="color: red">&lt;span&gt;#&lt;/span&gt;</span>....# strings) to be
replaced with the language text for the chosen locale.</p>
</li></ul></div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-4-2" id="release-notes-5-4-2"></a>Release 5.4.2</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;"><li class="listitem">
<p>This is a minor bugfix release.</p><p>Site node caching was removed as doesn&#39;t work correctly</p><p>Critical issues with search on oracle were fixed</p><p>More html strict work etc</p>
</li></ul></div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-4-1" id="release-notes-5-4-1"></a>Release 5.4.1</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;"><li class="listitem"><p>This is a minor bugfix release.</p></li></ul></div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-4-0" id="release-notes-5-4-0"></a>Release 5.4.0</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;"><li class="listitem">
<p>New Templating API added to add scripts, css, etc to the HTML
HEAD and BODY sections of the generated HTML document. Please see
/packages/acs-templating/tcl/head-procs.tcl or visit the
template::head procs in the API browser for details.</p><p>Templates have been modified to comply with HTML strict</p><p>The Search package&#39;s results page has been improved</p><p>TinyMCE WYSIWYG support has been added, RTE and HTMLArea support
dropped</p><p>acs-mail-lite&#39;s send has been cleaned up to properly encode
content, to handle file attachments, etc. "complex-send"
will disappear from acs-core in a future release.</p>
</li></ul></div>
</div><p>The ChangeLogs include an annotated list of changes (<a class="xref" href="">???</a>) since the last release and in the entire
5.9 release sequence <a class="xref" href="">???</a>.</p><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-3-1" id="release-notes-5-3-1"></a>Release 5.3.1</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;"><li class="listitem">
<p>Bug fixes.</p><p>New TIPs implemented.</p><p>All Core Automated Tests for Postgres pass.</p><p>New Site and Blank master templates and CSS compatible with the
.LRN Zen work. Compatibility master templates are provided for
existing sites.</p>
</li></ul></div>
</div><p>The ChangeLogs include an annotated list of changes (<a class="xref" href="">???</a>) since the last release and in the entire
5.9 release sequence <a class="xref" href="">???</a>.</p><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-3-0" id="release-notes-5-3-0"></a>Release 5.3.0</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;"><li class="listitem">
<p>Bug fixes.</p><p>New TIPs implemented.</p><p>All Core Automated Tests for Postgres pass.</p>
</li></ul></div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-2-0" id="release-notes-5-2-0"></a>Release 5.2.0</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;"><li class="listitem">
<p>Bug fixes.</p><p>New TIPs implemented.</p><p>This release does <span class="strong"><strong>not</strong></span> include new translations.</p>
</li></ul></div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-1-4" id="release-notes-5-1-4"></a>Release 5.1.4</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;"><li class="listitem">
<p>Bug fixes.</p><p>The missing CR Tcl API has been filled in, thanks to Rocael and
his team and Dave Bauer.</p><p>This release does <span class="strong"><strong>not</strong></span> include new translations.</p>
</li></ul></div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-1-3" id="release-notes-5-1-3"></a>Release 5.1.3</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;"><li class="listitem"><p>Bug fixes, primarily for .LRN compatibility in support of
upcoming .LRN 2.1.0 releases. This release does <span class="strong"><strong>not</strong></span> include new translations since
5.1.2.</p></li></ul></div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-1-2" id="release-notes-5-1-2"></a>Release 5.1.2</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Translations synchronized with the translation server. Basque
and Catalan added.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>For a complete change list, see the Change list since 5.1.0 in
<a class="xref" href="">???</a>.</p></li>
</ul></div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-1-1" id="release-notes-5-1-1"></a>Release 5.1.1</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>This is the first release using the newest adjustment to the
versioning convention. The OpenACS 5.1.1 tag will apply to OpenACS
core as well as to the most recent released version of every
package, including .LRN.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Translations synchronized with the translation server.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
<a class="ulink" href="http://openacs.org/bugtracker/openacs/com/acs-lang/bug?bug%5fnumber=1519" target="_top">Bug 1519</a> fixed. This involved renaming all
catalog files for ch_ZH, TH_TH, AR_EG, AR_LB, ms_my, RO_RO, FA_IR,
and HR_HR. If you work with any of those locales, you should do a
full catalog export and then import (via <a class="ulink" href="/acs-lang/admin" target="_top">/acs-lang/admin</a>) after
upgrading acs-lang. (And, of course, make a backup of both the
files and database before upgrading.)</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Other bug fixes since 5.1.0: <a class="ulink" href="http://openacs.org/bugtracker/openacs/bug?bug_number=1785" target="_top">1785</a>, <a class="ulink" href="http://openacs.org/bugtracker/openacs/bug?bug_number=1793" target="_top">1793</a>, and over a dozen additional bug fixes.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>For a complete change list, see the Change list since 5.0.0 in
<a class="xref" href="">???</a>.</p></li>
</ul></div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-1-0" id="release-notes-5-1-0"></a>Release 5.1.0</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Lots of little tweaks and fixes</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Complete Change list since 5.0.0 in Changelog</p></li><li class="listitem"><p><a class="ulink" href="http://openacs.org/bugtracker/openacs/core?filter%2efix%5ffor%5fversion=125273&amp;filter%2estatus=closed" target="_top">Many Bug fixes</a></p></li>
</ul></div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-0-4" id="release-notes-5-0-4"></a>Release 5.0.4</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;"><li class="listitem"><p>New translations, including for .LRN 2.0.2.</p></li></ul></div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-0-3" id="release-notes-5-0-3"></a>Release 5.0.3</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;"><li class="listitem"><p>Bug fixes: <a class="ulink" href="http://openacs.org/bugtracker/openacs/bug?bug%5fnumber=1560" target="_top">1560</a>, <a class="ulink" href="http://openacs.org/bugtracker/openacs/bug?bug%5fnumber=1556" target="_top">#1556. Site becomes unresponsive, requires
restart</a>
</p></li></ul></div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-0-2" id="release-notes-5-0-2"></a>Release 5.0.2</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Bug fixes: <a class="ulink" href="http://openacs.org/bugtracker/openacs/bug?bug%5fnumber=1495" target="_top">#1495. Croatian enabled by default</a>, <a class="ulink" href="http://openacs.org/bugtracker/openacs/bug?bug%5fnumber=1496" target="_top">#1496. APM automated install fails if files have
spaces in their names</a>, <a class="ulink" href="http://openacs.org/bugtracker/openacs/bug?bug%5fnumber=1494" target="_top">#1494. automated upgrade crashes (halting the upgrade
process)</a>
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Complete Change list since 5.0.0 in Changelog</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>File tagging scheme in CVS changed to follow <a class="ulink" href="http://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=161375" target="_top">TIP #46: (Approved) Rules for Version Numbering and
CVS tagging of Packages</a>
</p></li>
</ul></div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-0-1" id="release-notes-5-0-1"></a>Release 5.0.1</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>All work on the translation server from 7 Nov 2003 to 7 Feb 2004
is now included in catalogs.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>One new function in acs-tcl, util::age_pretty</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Complete Change list since 5.0.0 in Changelog</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Many documentation updates and doc bug fixes</p></li>
</ul></div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="release-notes-5-0-0" id="release-notes-5-0-0"></a>Release 5.0.0</h3></div></div></div><p>This is OpenACS 5.0.0. This version contains no known security,
data loss, or crashing bugs, nor any bugs judged release blockers.
This version has received manual testing. It has passed current
automated testing, which is not comprehensive. This release
contains work done on the translation server
http://translate.openacs.org through 7 Nov 2003.</p><p>Please report bugs using our <a class="ulink" href="http://openacs.org/bugtracker/openacs/" target="_top">Bug
Tracker</a> at the <a class="ulink" href="http://openacs.org/" target="_top">OpenACS website</a>.</p><p>You may want to begin by reading our installation documentation
for <a class="xref" href="unix-installation" title="a Unix-like system">the section called &ldquo;a
Unix-like system&rdquo;</a>. Note that the Windows
documentation is not current for OpenACS 5.9.0, but an alternative
is to use John Sequeira&#39;s <a class="ulink" href="http://www.jsequeira.com/oasis/about.html" target="_top">Oasis VM
project</a>.</p><p>After installation, the full documentation set can be found by
visiting <code class="filename">http://yourserver/doc</code>.</p><p>New features in this release:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>Internationalization support. A message catalog to store
translated text, localization of dates, number formatting, timezone
conversion, etc. Allows you to serve your users in their
language.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>External authentication. Integrate with outside user databases
through e.g. LDAP, RADIUS, Kerberos, MS Active Directory. Imports
user information through IMS Enterprise 1.1 format. Easily extended
to support other authentication, password management, account
creation, and account import mechanisms. This includes improvements
to the basic cookie handling, so logins can be expired without the
user&#39;s identity being completely lost. You can set login to
expire after a certain period (e.g. 8 hours, then password must be
refreshed), or you can have all issues login cookies expired at
once, e.g. if you have left a permanent login cookie on a public
machine somewhere.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>User interface enhancements. All pages, including site-wide and
subsite admin pages, will be templated, so they can be styled using
master template and site-wide stylesheets. We have a new
default-master template, which includes links to administration,
your workspace, and login/logout, and is rendered using CSS. And
there&#39;s a new community template
(/packages/acs-subsite/www/group-master), which provides useful
navigation to the applications and administrative UI in a subsite.
In addition, there&#39;s new, simpler UI for managing members of a
subsite, instantiating and mounting applications, setting
permissions, parameters, etc. Site-wide admin as also seen the
addition of a new simpler software install UI to replace the APM
for non-developer users, and improved access to parameters,
internationalization, automated testing, service contracts, etc.
The list builder has been added for easily generating templated
tables and lists, with features such as filtering, sorting, actions
on multiple rows with checkboxes, etc. Most of all, it&#39;s fast
to use, and results in consistently-looking, consistently-behaving,
templated tables.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Automated testing. The automated testing framework has been
improved significantly, and there are automated tests for a number
of packages.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Security enhancements. HTML quoting now happens in the
templating system, greatly minimizing the chance that users can
sneak malicious HTML into the pages of other users.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Oracle 9i support.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Who&#39;s online feature.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Spell checking.</p></li>
</ul></div><p>Potential incompatibilities:</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li class="listitem"><p>With the release of OpenACS 5, PostgreSQL 7.2 is no longer
supported. Upgrades are supported from OpenACS 4.6.3 under Oracle
or PostgreSQL 7.3.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>The undocumented special handling of ~ and +variable+ in
formtemplates, found in <code class="filename">packages/acs-templating/resources/*</code>, has been
removed in favor of using &lt;noparse&gt; and \\@variable\\@ (the
standard templating mechanisms). Locally provided formtemplate
styles still using these mechanisms will break.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Serving backup files and files from the CVS directories is
turned off by default via the acs-kernel parameter ExcludedFiles in
section request-processor (The variable provides a string match
glob list of files and is defaulted to "*/CVS/* *~")</p></li>
</ul></div><div class="cvstag">($&zwnj;Id: release-notes.xml,v 1.39.2.7 2023/07/10
08:36:09 gustafn Exp $)</div>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="idp105548897762760" id="idp105548897762760"></a>Release 4.6.3</h3></div></div></div><p><a class="ulink" href="release-notes-4-6-3" target="_top">Release Notes for 4.6.3</a></p>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="idp105548897764168" id="idp105548897764168"></a>Release 4.6.2</h3></div></div></div><p><a class="ulink" href="release-notes-4-6-2" target="_top">Release Notes for 4.6.2</a></p>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="idp105548897765576" id="idp105548897765576"></a>Release 4.6</h3></div></div></div><p><a class="ulink" href="release-notes-4-6" target="_top">Release Notes for 4.6</a></p>
</div><div class="sect2">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="idp105548897766984" id="idp105548897766984"></a>Release 4.5</h3></div></div></div><p><a class="ulink" href="release-notes-4-5" target="_top">Release Notes for 4.5</a></p>
</div>
</div>
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