[pmwiki-announce] Announcement: PmWiki 0.6.0 released

Wed Feb 18 11:12:04 EST 2004

All-

I'm very pleased to announce the official release of PmWiki version 0.6.0,
available now from http://www.pmichaud.com/pub/pmwiki .  There may still
be a few quirks floating about here and there, but the basic package
appears to be pretty stable and solid.  Most of the existing documentation 
has been updated for the new release, but many of the new features of
0.6.0 still need documentation.  Major features include author tracking,
more complete internationalization support, a greatly improved layout 
scheme (including built-in support for sidebars, skins, and stylesheets), 
numerous markup improvements, and overall better XHTML output.

Acknowledgements and thanks go to the many people who helped with this 
version of PmWiki, including 
  Reimer Behrends, Sim? Albert Beltran, Glenn Blalock, Bram Brambring,
  James Davis, Bob Dively, Scott Duff, John Feezell, Jean-Claude Gorichon,
  Dawn Green, Tom Hoover, Nathan Jones, Christian Kehl, Nils Knappmeier,
  Ross Kowalski, Steven Leite, Nick Loui, Ruediger Marwein, Dave Noonan,
  Jason Perkins, John Rankin, Christian Ridderstr?m, E. Duncan Scott,
  Robin Sheat, Thomas -Balu- Walter.
If I missed anyone on this list, I truly apologize (let me know and
I'll make amends somehow).  

If you find PmWiki to be useful or helpful, you can now express your support
and thanks in cash, see http://www.pmichaud.com/wiki/PmWiki/SendPmMoney :-).

Below are the release notes for 0.6, also available in the release itself
and on pmichaud.com.  People upgrading from existing 0.5 sites should
read the release notes carefully, as many substantial changes have been
incorporated into this release.  In addition, check out
http://www.pmichaud.com/wiki/PmWiki/Upgrade6Notes for comments and
hints about migrating from version 0.5 to 0.6.

Thanks again for your continued support of PmWiki.

Major changes from version 0.5.27
=================================

* PmWiki 0.6 requires PHP version 4.1.0 or higher. 

* Site-wide configurations should now be stored in local/config.php. 
  The 0.5 local.php and local/local.php files continue to work, but 
  may be removed in a release in the distant future.

* PmWiki's default page layout scheme has been changed substantially 
  for 0.6. Sites can restore the old layout scheme by adding 
  include_once("scripts/layout-0.5.php"); at the beginning of config.php. 

* The $ScriptDir variable no longer exists (unless the layout-0.5.php 
  script above is loaded), and has been replaced somewhat by $PubDirUrl. 
  Sites that need $ScriptDir defined can explicitly set its value in 
  local/config.php. 

* A new directory (pub/) has been added for files that need to be 
  accessed externally by browsers. 

* The $WikiImg and $WikiImgUrl variables no longer exist (unless the 
  layout-0.5.php script above is loaded). $WikiImg is replaced by 
  $PageLayoutFmt['wikilogo'], and $WikiImgUrl is replaced by $PageLogoUrlFmt. 

* The characters |, `, and ^ are now excluded from URI paths by default. 

* Generation of tags has been greatly optimized, and can be 
 changed entirely through the $HTMLVSpace variable.

* The new default stylesheet settings remove the browser-default 
 margins around lists (<ul>, <ol>, <dl>) and preformatted text (<pre>).

* PmWiki automatically generates <meta> tags to prevent robots from 
 indexing edit pages, page history, etc., as well as the pages in 
 the PmWiki WikiGroup.

* The ISBN InterMap entry has been changed to reflect a new URI 
  structure at the target site. 

* Added a Cookbook: InterMap link. 

* [=...=] links work more "naturally" around directives such as 
  [[noheader]], [[nofooter]], etc. 

* By default, the WikiWord "PmWiki" is only converted to a link the 
  first time it appears (controlled by the setting of $WikiWordCount['PmWiki']). 
* The notify.php and printable-page.php scripts have been removed from 
  the distribution. Notify.php will appear in the Cookbook, 
  printable-page.php is now print.php. 

New features in PmWiki 0.6.0
============================

* The default layout scheme has been significantly reworked to be 
  more consistent with current web standards and to make it easier 
  to use stylesheets and skins. It has built in support for sidebars 
  and also makes it easier to switch from one layout skin to another. 
  For more details, see LayoutBasics. 

* PmWiki now has built-in support for tracking authorship of edits, 
  and introduces a {{~name}} markup for referring to author profiles 
  on the site. See PmWiki.AuthorTracking. 

* PmWiki now has extensive support for internationalization (i18n), 
  including accented characters in page titles and WikiWords. 
  See PmWiki.Internationalizations. 

* A new markup sequence has been defined for creating breaks in text; 
 placing '\\' at the end of a line generates a HTML tag. Adding 
 more \'s at the end of the line increases the number of s. The 
 historic [[<<]] markup is still available to generate 
 tags.

* A new markup sequence (->) has been defined for indented text. More 
  hyphens produce larger indents. 

* Many HTML tags now include appropriate CSS selectors. 

* The page history (formerly "page revisions") feature has been 
  substantially reworked. Page history output can now be fully 
  internationalized, and includes options to hide minor edits and to 
  display changes to the source markup instead of the rendered output. 
  The output display is also largely controlled via stylesheets.

* InterMap links can now be parameterized so that the URI-text following 
  the InterMap name can appear in the middle of a URI instead of at the 
  end. See PmWiki.CustomInterMap. 

* Search results can now be embedded in any wiki page. Furthermore, the 
  WikiAdministrator can use $SearchExcludePatterns to exclude certain 
  pages (e.g., RecentChanges) from appearing in the search results. 

* The display and rendering of WikiWords can be greatly controlled: 
  - $WikiWordPagePathFmt allows a WikiAdministrator to specify alternate 
    pages to search for when encountering a bare WikiWord. By default 
    it will look for a WikiWord link in the same group, then in a group 
    with the same name as the WikiWord. 
  - $WikiWordCountMax allows a WikiAdministrator to specify the maximum 
    number of times WikiWords should be converted to links within a page. 
    $WikiWordCount[] allows this number to be determined on a per-WikiWord 
    basis. 
  - $WikiWordReplaceFmt[] allows a WikiAdministrator to specify the 
    replacement text to be used for specific WikiWords. 

* WikiGroup names can now be specified as part of FreeLinks, thus the 
  markup {{PmWiki/free links}} refers to PmWiki.FreeLinks and displays as 
  free links. 

* Printable view functionality is included by default. It can be 
  customized via stylesheets and the $PrintSkin variable. 

* Setting $SpaceWikiWords=2 selects a different form of WikiWord spacing. 

* Greatly improved the contents and structure of sample-config.php, and 
  moved it to the base pmwiki directory. 