[pmwiki-announce] 2.0.beta44 released, major new features and changes

[Patrick R. Michaud]

I've just released 2.0.beta44, which is a major revision with quite
a number of changes.  The biggest changes are the introduction of the
new Site group, markup to generate simple input forms, a markup-based 
edit page, and support for accesskeys.

This will be the last release containing any sort of major
modifications until after 2.0.0 is released.  All that remains 
between now and the 2.0.0 release is to clean up the documentation and
other minor bugfixes.  I'm planning to declare a 2.0.0 release before
the end of July (likely sooner).

The release notes for 2.0.beta44 are at the end of this message, and
they're somewhat lengthy.  Because this release does contain some 
relatively significant changes, it's probably a good idea to back up 
existing installations prior to upgrading.  I don't expect there to 
be a lot of significant difficulties in upgrading (and the release 
comes with settings that should simplify the transition), but there 
may be some.  Of course, if things don't work out an admin can 
always "downgrade" to a previous version of PmWiki.  

Some internationalization files (XLPages) need to be adjusted to 
work properly with the new release; I'll be working on these 
throughout the day.  Some cookbook scripts will also need
adjusting; I'll be glad to help with any adjustments for scripts
that need them.

Comments and feedback regarding upgrading to this release are
particularly important.  In addition, to move towards the 2.0.0
release it would be very helpful to hear evaluations of the 
current process of performing "new" PmWiki installations to determine
if there are any pages or files missing, default settings that 
should be changed, etc.

Thanks again to all for continued suggestions and improvements to
PmWiki.

Pm

===Release Notes for 2.0.beta44===

This release has a number of major changes, and is hopefully the last 
such "major" release before 2.0.0.

Included with this release is a special transition.php script that 
reconfigures PmWiki as needed to cause it to work as it did in 
previous releases.  This should help sites that are upgrading from
prevous versions.  In the release notes below any changes that are 
handled by the transition script are marked by [+]. This transition 
script is automatically loaded by default so the site admin doesn't 
need to do anything to use it.

Eventually the transition script will also provide diagnostic 
options to inform site admins of places where they may be relying 
on outdated or deprecated features, and how they can change their 
settings to be up-to-date.

PmWiki now sets CSS stylings so that all images within a page are 
displayed without a border (HTML's default is a 1-pixel border). 
To restore the behavior of previous versions, add the following 
to local/config.php:

    $HTMLStylesFmt['img'] = ' img { border:1px solid; } ';
    $ImgTagFmt="<img src='\$LinkUrl' style='border:0px;' alt='\$LinkAlt' />";

With this release we are officially initiating use of the "Site" 
group discussed on the pmwiki-users mailing list. The Site group is 
intended to hold a variety of utility and configuration pages used 
by PmWiki, and many of PmWiki's pages have moved from the "Main" 
group into this new location. More on this in a bit.

The major internal change is that this release provides support 
for input forms. Notably, the "Edit Page" form layout can now be 
specified using wiki markup in the Site.EditForm page. ( [+] However, 
PmWiki still honors the $PageEditFmt variable for those sites or 
skins that may have customized edit forms.)

The edit form now includes a "change summary" line where authors 
can summarize the edits. The edit form can also contain a "Save 
and edit" button to save changes but continue editing, and a 
"Cancel" button for abandoning changes.

The $EditMessageFmt variable for displaying messages to authors 
is now the $MessagesFmt array, which can be displayed using the 
(:messages:) markup. [+] The transition script takes care of 
moving messages between $EditMessageFmt and $MessagesFmt as needed 
to preserve correct operation.

A number of traditional locations for pages have now been moved 
into the Site group, many of which are handled by the transition script:

* The new location for the AllRecentChanges page is 
  Site.AllRecentChanges. [+] However, if Main.AllRecentChanges exists 
  then it will continue to be updated also. Administrators may wish to 
  move Main.AllRecentChanges to Site.AllRecentChanges and/or remove 
  Main.AllRecentChanges entirely.

* The search results page is now Site.Search instead of Main.SearchWiki. 
  Main.SearchWiki still exists in the distribution but will be removed 
  entirely in a future release. [+] The transition script takes care of 
  mapping some instances of Main.SearchWiki in links to Site.Search.

* Approved urls are now stored in Site.ApprovedUrls . [+] However, if 
  Main.ApprovedUrls exists it is used and updated as appropriate.

* Main.SideBar is now Site.SideBar. Unfortunately, it's very difficult 
  to manage this particular change among all possible skin combinations, 
  so it's up to the admin to correctly move existing sidebar pages into 
  the appropriate group, or to update the skin template accordingly.

* PmWiki.EditQuickReference and PmWiki.UploadQuickReference are now 
  stored in the Site group.

* PmWiki.WikiHelp is being deprecated and will be removed from a 
  future release. 

The $PagePreviewFmt variable no longer exists in standard PmWiki 
(it's now handled by Site.EditForm). [+] However, to preserve backwards 
compatibility it is loaded by the transition script in certain situations.

The $PageName substitution (deprecated in 2.0.devel14) is now gone. 
Use $FullName instead.

The GUI buttons can now have accesskeys associated with them.

GUI buttons are now displayed via a (:e_guibuttons:) directive in 
Site.EditForm, instead of being attached to $EditMessagesFmt.

This release now provides the ability for user and browser-specific 
preferences and customizations, including accesskeys and form element 
sizes. More details about this will be forthcoming in documentation.

The release adds standard (:noleft:) and (:noright:) directives for 
suppressing the display of the left and right sidebars (depending on 
skin template).