YACS 6.6: dates, votes and petitions, digest newsletters, Flash videos
A new module and one overlay have been added to better handle the time dimension. Add events to any of your sections, and YACS will list all of them in views for one month, one year, etc. The index for dates always introduces forthcoming events. All companies that are looking for a straightforward way to present their future events will appreciate.
Another module has been added to record decisions. Also, two overlays are provided to handle votes and petitions. The aim is to support on-line communities to take objective and collective decisions. YACS offers: polls for fast and dirty feed-back, petitions for gathering electronic signatures, and votes to express motivations and take decisions. Which one will you used today?
Previous versions of YACS were already able to send newsletters by e-mail to community members. For the production of article digests, YACS now modulates the list to automatically avoid duplicates. If one article is mentioned in a letter, it won't be mentioned in the next letter. Previously you had to take care of this manually, but YACS is also aiming to reduce admin time as much as possible.
By the way, YACS now supports several flavors of newsletters: announcements, digests, and releases. Use announcements to send any kind of message to community members. Digests are lists of recent articles, and their production has been streamlined, as explained previously. Releases only mention featured articles, and they should be reserved to servers used for periodic publications.
YACS now integrates a small player to render Flash videos from within articles.
Another module has been added to record decisions. Also, two overlays are provided to handle votes and petitions. The aim is to support on-line communities to take objective and collective decisions. YACS offers: polls for fast and dirty feed-back, petitions for gathering electronic signatures, and votes to express motivations and take decisions. Which one will you used today?
Previous versions of YACS were already able to send newsletters by e-mail to community members. For the production of article digests, YACS now modulates the list to automatically avoid duplicates. If one article is mentioned in a letter, it won't be mentioned in the next letter. Previously you had to take care of this manually, but YACS is also aiming to reduce admin time as much as possible.
By the way, YACS now supports several flavors of newsletters: announcements, digests, and releases. Use announcements to send any kind of message to community members. Digests are lists of recent articles, and their production has been streamlined, as explained previously. Releases only mention featured articles, and they should be reserved to servers used for periodic publications.
YACS now integrates a small player to render Flash videos from within articles.
202 files have been modified or created since the previous release.
The new release is available for immediate download, at [article=download]. If you are already running a YACS server we highly recommend you to smoothly upgrade your server. For further information check How to achieve incremental upgrades of a YACS server?.
Here is a list of new or updated features coming with this release:
A new module has been added to handle dates. New scripts have been introduced to paint time lines for one month, one year, etc. Look in directory
An overlay has been added to tick dates on the calendar. See overlays/day.php.
A new module has been added to handle decisions. Look in directory
The Content Assistant now also allows for the creation of one vote, petition, or poll. See control/populate.php.
A new member function
An overlay has been added to process petitions. See overlays/petition.php.
An overlay has been added to handle electronic votes. See overlays/vote.php.
Overlays now have a chance to contribute to all lists of articles, including boxesandarrows, tables, etc.
Some bug has been fixed in the overlay for polls. See overlays/poll.php.
Several kinds of newletters can now be handled by YACS: announcement (based on a free web form), digest (list of recent articles) and web release (list of featured pages). See letters/new.php.
The maximum number of recipients for newsletters has been augmented to 1,000. See letters/new.php.
A new layout has been added for digests. See articles/layout_articles_as_digest.php.
A new YACS-based theme has been added to every reference skin, to better support S5 presentations. To use this in your derivated skin, copy
YACS now supports Flash videos (
Flash videos are also recognized in collections. See collections/collections.php.
Code
The layout used for blogs (articles/layout_articles_as_daily.php) better handle draft articles.
Categories can now be attached to one or more sections. This is set from any section page (sections/view.php) and reflected in category pages (categories/view.php).
The engine used to transform codes has been enhanced to better process complex implicit and explicit lists. See codes/codes.php.
The option '
Previous versions of YACS could display part of the site map at the front page. Another option has been added to have content of only one section displayed at the front page. See index.php.
More options are available for articles featured at the home page (aka, articles attached to the 'Featured' category). The number of featured pages can be adjusted in configuration panel. Also, featured pages can be scrolled or rotated, to better catch eyes.
Results from search requests are now sorted by date, with most recent entries coming first. This has been proven more useful than using mySQL pertinence algorithm. See categories/categories.php.
The control used to move articles around now correctly lists sub-sections of special sections. See sections/sections.php.
Links and comments have been removed from the scope of the integrated search engine. See search.php.
A number of small bugs have been fixed in the web form used to edit comments. See comments/edit.php.
Small comment images have been turned to web links in all layouts. See for example comments/layout_comments.php.
The script used to restore database content has been changed to not use the flawed PHP function
The configuration panel used to enter database parameters now behave as expected for parameters relatedto the user table. See control/configure.php.
A script to import CSV data to a server has been added, thanks to Tof. See control/import_csv.php.
Anchors have been split in pieces in articles and comments to accelerate some complex SQL statements, such as the one used to construct the public list of threads. See articles/articles.php and comments/comments.php.
The script used to duplicate pages has been revised because of a small bug raised by Fernand. See articles/duplicate.php.
phpDoc of the front page, and of the configuration panel for rendering parameters have been heavily revised and updated. Check index.php and skins/configure.php.
New parameters have been added to the configuration panel for rendering parameters. Also, the panel has been revisited to simplify its usage. See skins/configure.php.
Based on a suggestion from GnapZ every call to
GMT dates are supposed to be better handled with this version. Look for example at the script used to publish articles: articles/publish.php.
The maximum size of a web object fetched by YACS has been augmented from 512k to 5120k. See links/link.php.
The dotted notation for article ranks is not supported anymore.
IP address of remote user is not checked anymore, because soem ISP balance connections over a full range of addresses. See shared/global.php and shared/surfer.php.
Virtual servers are better supported through usage of
YACS also better supports servers where persistent connections to the database are not allowed. See shared/global.php.
GMT offset is now dynamically computed at execution time, assuming the underlying operating system handles daylight savings. See shared/global.php.
A number of typos and errors have been fixed. See privacy.php or actions/indx.php for example.
The PHP function
Similarly, calls to PHP function
The new release is available for immediate download, at [article=download]. If you are already running a YACS server we highly recommend you to smoothly upgrade your server. For further information check How to achieve incremental upgrades of a YACS server?.
Here is a list of new or updated features coming with this release:
A new module has been added to handle dates. New scripts have been introduced to paint time lines for one month, one year, etc. Look in directory dates. An overlay has been added to tick dates on the calendar. See overlays/day.php. A new module has been added to handle decisions. Look in directory decisions. The Content Assistant now also allows for the creation of one vote, petition, or poll. See control/populate.php. A new member function allows() has been added to the overlay interface, to enable more intelligent behavior in YACS extensions.
This is used for example to protect votes from those who want to view vote results in advance... See overlays/vote.php. An overlay has been added to process petitions. See overlays/petition.php. An overlay has been added to handle electronic votes. See overlays/vote.php. Overlays now have a chance to contribute to all lists of articles, including boxesandarrows, tables, etc. Some bug has been fixed in the overlay for polls. See overlays/poll.php. Several kinds of newletters can now be handled by YACS: announcement (based on a free web form), digest (list of recent articles) and web release (list of featured pages). See letters/new.php. The maximum number of recipients for newsletters has been augmented to 1,000. See letters/new.php. A new layout has been added for digests. See articles/layout_articles_as_digest.php. A new YACS-based theme has been added to every reference skin, to better support S5 presentations. To use this in your derivated skin, copy template_s5.php and the directory s5/yacs from any reference skin. YACS now supports Flash videos (.flv), and integrates a small player to render these within articles. See files/files.php. Flash videos are also recognized in collections. See collections/collections.php. Code [flash=id, width, height] has been introduced to play Flash within articles. See codes/codes.php. The layout used for blogs (articles/layout_articles_as_daily.php) better handle draft articles. Categories can now be attached to one or more sections. This is set from any section page (sections/view.php) and reflected in category pages (categories/view.php). The engine used to transform codes has been enhanced to better process complex implicit and explicit lists. See codes/codes.php. The option 'no_links' now prevents trackback from articles. See articles/view.php. Previous versions of YACS could display part of the site map at the front page. Another option has been added to have content of only one section displayed at the front page. See index.php. More options are available for articles featured at the home page (aka, articles attached to the 'Featured' category). The number of featured pages can be adjusted in configuration panel. Also, featured pages can be scrolled or rotated, to better catch eyes. Results from search requests are now sorted by date, with most recent entries coming first. This has been proven more useful than using mySQL pertinence algorithm. See categories/categories.php. The control used to move articles around now correctly lists sub-sections of special sections. See sections/sections.php. Links and comments have been removed from the scope of the integrated search engine. See search.php. A number of small bugs have been fixed in the web form used to edit comments. See comments/edit.php. Small comment images have been turned to web links in all layouts. See for example comments/layout_comments.php. The script used to restore database content has been changed to not use the flawed PHP function file(). See control/backup/php. The configuration panel used to enter database parameters now behave as expected for parameters relatedto the user table. See control/configure.php. A script to import CSV data to a server has been added, thanks to Tof. See control/import_csv.php. Anchors have been split in pieces in articles and comments to accelerate some complex SQL statements, such as the one used to construct the public list of threads. See articles/articles.php and comments/comments.php. The script used to duplicate pages has been revised because of a small bug raised by Fernand. See articles/duplicate.php. phpDoc of the front page, and of the configuration panel for rendering parameters have been heavily revised and updated. Check index.php and skins/configure.php. New parameters have been added to the configuration panel for rendering parameters. Also, the panel has been revisited to simplify its usage. See skins/configure.php. Based on a suggestion from GnapZ every call to mysql_escape_string() has been changed to mysql_real_escape_string(). Through updates YACS is aiming to preserve your server from obsolescence... GMT dates are supposed to be better handled with this version. Look for example at the script used to publish articles: articles/publish.php. The maximum size of a web object fetched by YACS has been augmented from 512k to 5120k. See links/link.php. The dotted notation for article ranks is not supported anymore. IP address of remote user is not checked anymore, because soem ISP balance connections over a full range of addresses. See shared/global.php and shared/surfer.php. Virtual servers are better supported through usage of $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'], thanks to suggestion of GnapZ. See shared/global.php. YACS also better supports servers where persistent connections to the database are not allowed. See shared/global.php. GMT offset is now dynamically computed at execution time, assuming the underlying operating system handles daylight savings. See shared/global.php. A number of typos and errors have been fixed. See privacy.php or actions/indx.php for example. The PHP function file() has proven to be buggy, and alternate code has been put in place where applicable. Similarly, calls to PHP function session_regenerate_id() have been removed, because of sad side effects... chmod() has been invoked at several places, as a desesperate attempt to streamline the management of file permissions at some servers.Rate this page
Posted by Bernard on Jul. 3 2006, (popular)
