Developer discussion for Creative Commons technology and tools

[Jon Phillips <jon AT rejon.org>]

Hello all, ccHost 3.1 is now released into the world and is available on
our sourceforge.net page (http://sf.net/projects/cctools). 

As always, the ccHost community hopes to encourage new contributors to
the project to help us add features, fix bugs, translate the software
and write documentation. If you would like to help on the project,
please visit http://wiki.creativecommons.org/cchost and plug into ccHost
development.

Here is a brief synopsis from our freshmeat.net page:

This release is primarily aimed at making admins lives easier. Here is a
partial list of the user enhancements: Show last updated date, "What I
look for/use" browser, alphabetical browsing of people. And, here is a
list of admin features: paths admin for specifying per-installation
paths, major sample pool optimizations, site disabling, e-mail
notifications on moderation, new e-mail rules engine, and a new
experimental pseudo-file verifier that works alone or with getid3.
Please read the accompanying INSTALL.txt for upgrade instructions.


Here is a more detailed view of what is included in this release:



ccHost Release Notes
====================

Version: 3.1

This release is an 'admin' release with only a few feature. It is 
geared toward addressing the needs specifically called out with the 
3.0 release.

New features (user)
========================

Show Last Updated Date
-----------------------
ccHost is now tracking the last time a major change
was made to an upload (files added, deleted, etc.)
and displays it along with the operation on the 
upload's main page.

'What I Look For/Pound On' Browser
-----------------------------------
These two user profile fields are now cross referenced
in a new browser. Click on a 'looking for' link in a 
user's profile and you this:

http://ccmixter.org/media/search/people/lookinfor/acid#acid

Alpha-Browser of Users
-----------------------
The generic 'people' page now allows for browsing by
first letter of name. Example here:

http://ccmixter.org/media/people?p=n


New features (admin)
========================

Paths Admin
-------------------
As of this release, all paths used by ccHost can be specified
by admin including templates, caches, plugins, etc. This is
the last update that requires customization be done within
the ccHost tree and the last update admins will be required
to move their customization files 'out of the way' when doing
an update.

Major Sample Pool Improvements
------------------------------
Sample pools has been greatly optimized (several
times faster for display) and users can now browse by
artists' first initial. Example is here:

http://ccmixter.org/freesound/pools/pool/4/n


Site Disabling
---------------
Admins can temporarily disable the site in a 'friendly' way
that doesn't look like the site is broken. 


eMail Notifications on Moderation
---------------------------------
Admins can decide whether to automatically notify via email owners
of recently moderated (banned) uploads and specify the message to
be sent.


New eMail Rules Engine
-----------------------
Admins can configure who can mail how often based on several criteria
including who they are mailing to. This is an attempt to strike a 
balance between spamming and legitamate contact between community
members.


Experimental: Psuedo-Verification of Uploads
--------------------------------------------
For file formats unknown to getID3, admins can now specify a 
'fall-back' handler built into ccHost that will try to identify
the file via the signature at the beginning of the file. This
allows for a much wider (if less secure) variety of files not
supported before (e.g. plain text, auto-cad, pdf, etc.) This
feature is experimental and potentially (if not likely) a 
source of virus and trojan distribution if not used very
carefully.


Bug Fixes
============
    
    Fixed in 3.1

    * 'Array' is not a suitable email address
    * don't try to process bogus requests in pools ui
    * fixed double-slashing skin name in Settings
    * forum index was showing sticky thread as latest
    * image should be uploader's url in xspf
    * more php5 compat
    * notify on edpick code was incomplete
    * removing admin tags didn't work
    * search from top bar was broken for non-pretty urls
    * should not assume all uploads are audio in xspf
    * tag count was off after upload Delete
    * template paths were choking on xspf
    * timestamp on upload was taken at wrong time
    * typo in default aliases

    Other UI Tweaks, Tools and Optimizations in 3.1

    * admin: cc-gen-robots-txt.php tool
    * admin: moved mixter specific skin out
    * admin: new url admin/tags/reset to resync counts
    * admin: subdue error on hack attempts
    * admin: we now kill menu cache on every call to update=1
    * code: more refactoring for easier overriding
    * code: refactored form handler
    * code: template refactoring
    * optimization: pools ui optimization (now usuable)
    * ui: now returning more consistant 404s on bogus requests
    * ui: 'system tags' link a pretty button now
    * ui: more descriptive menu text for tags
    * ui: refactor admin UI in templates
    * ui: stylesheet needs to be fully pathed during site disabling


    Fixed in 3.0.2

    * More graceful error recovery when menu has been destroyed
    * empty nav tab set was breaking site
    * add items to empty menu caused havoc
    * viewing sample pool item caused errors
    * remixedby feeds caused errors
    * deleted user's reviews caused errors
    * podcast of deleted record broke feed
    * editing menus for vroots broken
    * editing properties for sample pools caused errors
    * fixed up the xspf 1.0 feeds which were breaking

    Fixed in 3.0.1

    * saving user profile blows away menu and submit form changes
    * title of review feed was not properly scrubbed for '&'


Version: 3.0

New features (end-user)
========================

    Native forums support
    ---------------------
    Fully functioning hierarchical forums, totally integrated with user 
    profiles Admins can create forum groupings, sticky announcements,
    move threads, etc.
    

    e-mail notifications
    --------------------
    Registered users can get email notifications when they have
    been reviewed, rated or remixed, when someone else has uploaded
    or have been remixed


    'Recent reviews'
    ----------------
    New sidebar content list out the latest reviewers in the system


    'How I Did It' browser now sortable
    -----------------------------------
    Users can now sort based on artist or date


    Stats and more stats
    --------------------
    Now track number of reviews, forum messages and times remixed.


    Language Support (i18n Localization/Internationalization)
    ----------------
    ccHost now supports the Free and Open Source standard gettext 
    language utilities for language support. This is turned on by
    default in the admin interface, but the end-user support is still
    experimental. There are translation for Mainland Chinese, 
    Taiwanese Chinese, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, and German 
    at present.


    XSPF 1.0 Playlist Support
    -------------------------
    We now have support for the xspf playlist standard as a feed.


    Support for SVG file format (using getid3(
    ---------------------------
    If you use the latest getid3 which has support for scalable vector
    graphics (SVG), ccHost supports this filetype onw.


    Feed Dumping
    ------------
    ccHost includes a script and admin interface for dumping


New/Improved (admin):
========================

    * FTP-less file manager
    * Bayesian rating scheme
    * Suggested tags in submit forms
    * Sub navigation tabs
    * File permissions now settable within ccHost
    * Thumbnails can be turned on/off
    * Configure min number of tags for BrowseTags
    * Ability to control cchost's chmod level
    * Added more site metadata: description and keywors
    * Added phpdoc generation to the repository
    * Added capability to make snapshots of the packages and the
      installation
    * Removed old-style ChangeLog and added capability to just pull the
      latest
      from our repository.
    * Cleaned up, added proper licenses, and added some new maintenance 
      scripts to our bin folder.
    * Added basic admin language support screens
    * Added Google Summer of Code script, publishcchost which allows 
      one to publish a file to an installation of ccHost from the 
      commandline


Compatibility
=============

    * PHP5 support
    * Sharedhost support (e.g. dreamhosters)
    * non-getid3 installatoin


Bugfix
======

    * getID3 can be disabled
    * fixed template tags
    * Removed old phpbb2 dependency and issues associated with it
    * thumbnails now display once more


Security
========    
    
    * Certain URLs allowed escaping out of mySQL