[pmwiki-announce] Announcement: pmwiki 0.6.1 released with MAJOR layout change (template skins)

[Patrick R. Michaud]

PmWiki 0.6.1 has just been released, and it has a major change to
the way layouts are created to make them much easier to create,
modify, and distribute.

Normally a change like this would involve a major revision number
change as well (i.e., to 0.7.0), but since we just released 0.6.0
four days ago it seems a bit odd to make that jump.  So, I'm releasing
this as 0.6.1, and just kinda pretending that 0.6.0 never existed.  :-)

This version essentially returns PmWiki to the layout variables that
existed in 0.5, with the major difference being that one now can load
those variables through the use of a template file that contains
HTML markup and comments instead of using PHP programming statements.
The template file syntax is very easy to understand and modify for 
people who are already somewhat familiar with HTML.  

This also greatly simplifies the coordination of content and .css files,
since the template file explicitly specifies the css files it needs
and can reside in the same directory as the css file (as well as any
image files needed).  The best way to see it is to look at the template
files that are now distributed with PmWiki and other examples are 
available at http://www.pmichaud.com/pmwiki/pub/skins.  It's quite
straightforward.

I know that this may pose difficulty for those who struggled through
the 0.6.0 code and just got it working, and for that I really apologize.
For those who are running older versions of PmWiki, I'll be happy to
provide a lot of conversion assistance.

If anyone wants to use the layout variables and scheme that were
introduced in 0.6.0, contact me via email and I'll walk you through 
it.  

PmWiki 0.6.1 still provides a layout-0.5 compatibility script that
generally restores the variables and structures used in 0.5.27, for 
those who are upgrading from 0.5.x and don't want to redevelop 
their layouts just yet.

Other features of the 0.6.1 release:

* Author names in the page history function now link to the corresponding
  profile page, if it exists.

* Variable names in wiki pages now link to the documentation for that
  variable.

For those who are new to PmWiki, I can assure you that major changes
like this don't occur very often--generally speaking minor upgrades 
are pretty seamless.

Thanks to all for your patience and continued support of PmWiki.  Feel
free to email me or the list with any questions or comments you may
have.

Pm