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Silva 2.3 Released

21 Dec 2010 – Infrae is pleased to announce the final release of Silva 2.3. This release contains a gamut of new features for users, system administrators, and developers. The most important changes for users are support for mobile skins based on browser detection, and a robust reference management system that preserves links between resources. System administrators should note that Silva now supports WSGI servers and this is the recommended way to run it. Developers will enjoy a more consistent API and vastly improved testing infrastructure.

Silva for mobile devices

Silva integrates with Mobi, a middleware suite for detecting mobile devices. Mobi reads the user agent header in requests and categorizes it into one of three device types, then passes the category along. The silva.core.layout system then chooses the best presentation for the device. For more in-depth information see the Mobi technical site.

User features

  • A reference management system has been implemented. In a Silva Document (and in Silva News Network items), images and linked objects can be connected using references. Those images and links are not broken when referenced objects are moved or renamed.
  • Content cannot be deleted if it is the target of a reference. This prevents having broken links in documents. Silva Links, Silva Ghost Folders, Silva Ghosts, Silva Indexers and Silva Find also use the same reference mechanism. Managers have the option to break references if needed.
  • On Images and Files, it is possible to see in which documents  are referencing them. With this feature, it is also possible to identify site unused images and files.
  • The XML import/export has been improved, removing many bugs (export of acquired metadata for instance). It’s been extended to preserve proper references on import independent of the import and export location. One cannot export content objects that have a reference target outside of the export tree.
  • The forms editor has been removed from Silva Documents. However the underlying XML is still accessible for managers.
  • Many SMI screens have been refactored, removing a lot of back button bugs.

Extension features

  • Silva News Network has been refactored with improved calendaring functionality.
  • Silva Forum has been refactored and has new subscription and captcha features.
  • Silva Find, Silva Poll and Silva OAI have been refactored to work with Silva 2.3 and its requirements.
  • A new extension silva.security.overview has been written that provides an overview of who has security access where in the Silva site.
  • A new extension silva.security.logging has been created to log detailed user actions.

Sysadmin features

  • Silva supports WSGI servers. It is now the recommended way to run Silva. You can use Paster or Apache’s mod_wsgi.
  • With the WSGI support, error logs hae been improved. They give provide more information which helps facilitate debugging of production bugs.
  • HTTP headers for GET and HEAD requests have been optimized in order to improve caching with Squid and other reverse proxies.
  • Silva now uses PAS for authentication by default. This makes it easier to connect Silva to third party authentication systems like Active Directory, LDAP, Raduis, SQL. You no longer need to write custom code for this.
  • The 2.3 release uses Python 2.6 and Zope 2.12. It won’t work with Python 2.4 or any previous version of Zope.

Developer features

  • The z3c.form and zope.formlib components have been replaced by zeam.form.
  • The reference system silva.core.references is reusable in any Silva extension.
  • The SMI uses silva.core.layout and can be themed with a CSS of your choice.
  • The subscription feature has been refactored into an extension silva.app.subscriptions. It’s been built to be usable by any Silva extension (an extension can send any message it wishes to a list of subscribed people).
  • Zope Events have been added to much existing Silva functionality. This lets you plugin your extensions to the publication and security sub-systems.
  • Various code optimizations have been fine tuned.
  • A new test setup system makes testing easier.
  • Many tests have been added, cleaned, refactored and improved.

Removed products

  • The old SilvaLayout product is no longer distributed by default (the so-called Legacy Layout is still supported, but not installed by default).
  • The XMLWidgets components have been removed.

Check out docs.infrae.com

The http://docs.infrae.com/ site has been improved with extensive documentation.

What is Silva?

Silva is a powerful CMS for organizations that manage multiple or complex websites. Content is stored in clean and futureproof XML, independent of layout and presentation. Features include versioning, workflow system, integral visual editor, content reuse, sophisticated access control, multi–site management, extensive import/export facilities, fine–grained templating, and hi–res image storage and manipulation.

For more complete information, see the Silva product pages at http://infrae.com/products/silva.

Install

Silva 2.3 should be installed using buildout or using Paster and selecting the ‘simple-instance’ distribution: https://svn.infrae.com/buildout/silva/tag/Silva-2.3/

For more information on the Silva installation procedure see: http://docs.infrae.com/silva/2.3/buildout.html

Contact

FMI contact Sylvain Viollon, info at infrae com, +31 10 243 7051.
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