Xaraya 2.0.0 Beta 4 (Jamaica) Released

The fourth beta release of Xaraya 2.0.0 (Jamaica) is now available at 
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xaraya/.

The past month has seen a significant increase in the level of activity 
in terms of commits, but also in terms of innovative ideas and 
experiments. A number of scenarios have been merged into the main branch 
that bring new flexibility to the framework. A lot of the current work 
is focussed on driving the development of DynamicData forward with a 
view to supporting DD based versions of such modules as Articles.


The changes in Xaraya 2.0.0 Beta 4 are listed in detail below.


Changes with planned further evolution in future releases

1. Most of the blocks in the core modules have been converted to 
classes. The exceptions are the content blocks: html, php, text etc.
2. Jamaica now supports different layouts for its lib, code and html 
directories.
3. The Blocklayout tags have been moved to separate directories 
according to whether they are specific to the Blocklayout language, to 
Xaraya (e.g. the module and block tags) or to a given module. Custom 
tags in modules are only loaded if the corresponding module is active.
4. Changes have been made to conceptually "split" a standard Xaraya 
install into a front end (user accessed public area) and a back end 
(admin area, restricted, "standard" presentation and layout). Use of the 
dashboard as a separate "theme" has been deprecated.
5. The load sequence in the installer has been simplified. Core modules 
are now installed in 4 steps:
  a. initial install of Base and Modules modules
  b. loading of all core modules into the modules table
  c. initialization of remaining core modules
  d. activation of the core modules
6. Introduction of the PHP5 autoload function for loading classes.
7. Dependencies of the BL compiler on the Xaraya core have been further 
reduced.
8. Dependencies of the Xaraya core on module specific calls  have been 
further reduced.
9. UI handler classes have been added to DynamicData to simplify object 
handling.
10. Most xarQuery calls in the core modules have been converted to 
hardwired SQL statements. The class has been moved to lib/structures for 
those modules that require it.
11. Further typecasting in the core to ensure what we think is an 
integer actually is, and so on.
12. Hooks code in the core has been split off from 
lib/xaraya/modules.php into its own file
13. Object visibility has been introduced in DynamicData. Similar to OO 
convention dataobjects can be defined as public, protected or private.
14. Object hooks have been introduced in DynamicData as an object 
extension mechanism.


Completed changes with no currently planned further evolution in future 
releases:

1. xarSecConfirmAuthKey returns false by default if invalid, rather than 
throwing an exception.
2. The usermenu code in the core modules has been simplified.
3. Tags of unknown properties (those that have been disabled or do not 
correspond to known properties of an object) are silently ignored rather 
than cause a nasty blowup.
4. Standard modvars were added to allow admin and user menu links to be 
enabled/disabled in the menu blocks
5. The topnav admin menu is now available in all core modules.
6. Support for the HTML title attribute of a property label has been 
added where the text is set in the property configuration.
7. The Social Profiles property has been added to the Roles module, 
allowing users to manage their identities on about 100 social network sites.
8. The properties listing/modification page in DynamicData has been 
rewritten to allow updating without the need to open each property 
listed. The page also now supports point and click reordering of properties.
9. Not found and forbidden pages (404 errors and friends) are now 
redirected to custom message templates.
10. Improvements to the DD import function for booleans, textareas, and 
backward compatibility enhancements; similar improvements to the export 
function.
11. Replaced a number of function calls with class method calls. The 
former remain support for the time being.
12. Better support for tables and joins in DynamicData.
13. Improvements to the pager in DynamicData.
14. More removal of deprecated PHP constructs.
15. Numerous performance enhancements in the core and in DynamicData.
16. Removed unused code in DynamicData relating to parent objects. The 
concept will no longer be supported.
17. The directory structure has been simplified. All adjunct directories 
(tests, bin etc.)are grouped in the new developer directory. All 
documentation pages are grouped in the html/docs directory.
18. Numerous fixes and improvements to the code, in particular to 
DynamicData properties, SimpleLogger.
19, Improvements to the images and icons in the installer themes.


The next beta release of Jamaica, which can be expected in about the 
same time frame, will incorporate:

- Further steps in the evolution of the first group above
- The probable merge of the classrename scenario, to complete the 
changes initiated using the autoload function.
- Consistent implementation of server and user timezones throughout 
Jamaica. (previously promised, still pending)
- Simplification of the modvar datasource code
- Dataproperty enhancements for outputting formatted fields and 
calculated fields.
- The possible merge of the tableddl scenario, which replaces  PHP 
database initialization code with XML files.
- Further fixes to ensure compatibility with PHP 5.3.
- Fixes and changes as per any feedback received.
- Any feature requests received will be reviewed as to their feasibility 
in the next or future releases, and feedback will be given.

Please direct all bugs to the new "App - Core Jamaica" product at 
http://bugs.xaraya.com/.