YACS 5.7 has been released: nested sections, custom home page, performance and more
YACS used to have a flat model of sections, and cascaded categories were used to classify everything, and to host web links. The version 5.7 offers a more simple approach of content management: nested sections host server content (articles, files, links, comments), and the role of categories is restricted to, well, categorization. You can now create folders of sections, to any depth. You also have more flexibility to aggregate RSS feeds directly in sections of your choice. Of course, the Content Assistant has been extended to help you take the most of nested sections.
The home page has been deeply re-engineered to allow for complete customization. Some ways to achieve the home page you are dreaming of:
We have profiled SQL statements related to key scripts, including the home page, the browsing of a section and of an article. The net result is an optimised usage of cached information, a lighter stress of the database back-end and, more importantly, a faster and scalable YACS server. Enjoy!
The home page has been deeply re-engineered to allow for complete customization. Some ways to achieve the home page you are dreaming of:
- create a cover page of your own to introduce yourself, your server, etc.
- include a reduced version of the site map if you wish
- create articles to be used as gadget boxes
- configure some sections to list their content as gadget pages
- configure some categories to list related pages as gadget boxes
- to introduce recent articles, select one layout among the 8 available
- use hooks to invoke you rown PHP script at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of the home page
- add optional elements, such as a Flash-based dynamic banner for recent articles
- edit a skin of your own to wrap everything
We have profiled SQL statements related to key scripts, including the home page, the browsing of a section and of an article. The net result is an optimised usage of cached information, a lighter stress of the database back-end and, more importantly, a faster and scalable YACS server. Enjoy!
264 files have been updated or created since the previous release.
It is highly recommended to ask YACS 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:
Sections can now be nested like branches of a tree, or like a directory, and this change has significant impact on all scripts related to sections, most notably sections/view.php, sections/edit.php andsections/sections.php.
Previously YACS supported links in categories. Now the aggregation is done directly in sections.
YACS offers several layouts for sub-sections of a section:
Most layouts that were available for the home page have been made available for individual sections, and you have now following choices:
Any section can now act as a standalone blog, and not only the home page. The layout is invoked in sections/view.php and implemented in articles/layout_articles_as_daily.php.
Several methods are offered to list articles of one section in the index page of its parent section:
Articles of a section can now appear as a list of thumbnail images, thanks to the layout articles/layout_articles_as_thumbnails.php. This can be used for example to introduce logos of partners at some root section.
Sections now support activation dates. Combined with expiration dates, they allow webmasters to manage content visibility asynchronously. See sections/edit.php.
The Content Assistant has been updated and it is now able to create a folder of sections. See control/populate.php.
The usability of the form used to post and to modify articles has been enhanced. Several checkboxes (i.e., to signal draft, formatted or hardcoded content) have been added to avoid keywords in the field for options. Also, to insert images from the library click on their ids. See articles/edit.php and images/layout_images.php.
The trackback form has been revisited for better usability. See links/trackback.php.
Visited pages are now tracked via cookies (articles/view.php), and this information is displayed to authenticated members by every reference skins. The web version of bread crumbs...
New types have been added to comments (comments/comments.php), and a new set of icons is provided with every reference skin. At the moment YACS supports following comment types:
The main configuration panel (control/configure.php) is more explicit on friendly URLs (thanks Kedare)
The script used to publish a page now allows for explicit pings and for the parsing of featured links. See articles/publish.php.
A new script has been added to change the review date, the expiry date, or even the publication date. See articles/stamp.php.
The rating script is more explicit then ever. See articles/rate.php.
Shortcuts have been added near box titles to help associates manage site content. Previously, to change some gadget box, you had to browse the site map, to click on the special section for gadget boxes, and to select the article to modify. Now, from the home page, you just have to click on the '»' link near the box title to achieve the same result. One click instead of three!
To enable the invocation of external scripts three hooks have been added to the home page (index.php). Use the id '
The configuration panel for skins (skins/configure.php) has been extended to better support the customization of the home page.
The number of sections handled at the home page (as tabs, as a menu bar, or as a reduced version of the site map) is now a parameter set in the Configuration Panel for skins. See skins/configure.php.
The home page (index.php) has been optimized through SQL profiling. For example, gadget boxes are now handled by the caching engine. As a positive result of these tedious efforts, and despite the possible richness of its interface, YACS is faster than before, and more scalable than ever.
The normal behaviour of YACS is to substitute a thumbnail image to large files (more than 20 kbytes by default). Now associates have an option to force the display of original images, whatever their sizes. See images/edit.php and codes/codes.php.
Attaching a personal avatar image to own user profile has been streamlined. See images/edit.php.
The browsing of articles (articles/view.php) has been optimized through SQL profiling. For example, poster profiles are now cached properly. We told you, YACS is faster than before, and more scalable than ever.
Thumbnail images are now displayed with label underneath, thanks to the new function
Common flags (e.g., 'new', 'updated', etc.) have been turned to constants (using
The search engine now allows for requests limited to a single section. Also, surfers can page in search results. See search.php.
The page selector (go.php) now also considers keywords in categories. From the perspective of Content Management, this means YACS helps you to take the most of your classification efforts. For example, at our corporate server, I have added a category to list pages talking about XML. Thanks to the new selector, anyone can jump to
Oldest articles can now be stamped while browsing the review queue, without changing the last edition date. A straightforward way to keep the control of all the content posted at your site over time. See articles/review.php and articles/articles.php.
Referrals are now visible only to associates. Of course, they can be showed to anybody again by changing a parameter from a Configuration Panel. Also, as an outcome of a previous poll, referrals has been translated to 'références externes' in French everywhere. Many thanks to people who have expressed their vote.
You may now purge one section from all related articles, with two clicks. Useful for bulk operations! See sections/purge.php
A new parser has been implemented in articles/article.php to process submitted articles, and is now used for posts through XML-RPC (services/blog.php), by e-mail (agents/messages.php), and by file transfer (agents/uploads.php). The new parser looks for several attributes (e.g., introduction, categories) related to the new article, and allows for streamlined code.
References to Microsoft and IBM have been removed from the about page (about.php).
New icons have been added to reference skins to flag: expired, new, updated and popular pages. An icon has been added as well for fldering sub-sections.
The standard skin skeleton now automatically provides the width and the height of provided images. See skins/skin_skeleton.php.
During the installation YACS now generates a warning if it cannot create the file '
iso-8859-1 has been changed to iso-8859-15, because of the euro sign...
Almost all calls of
A new function has been added to determine the MIME type of files to download, to ensure every file extensions supported by YACS are processed correctly. See files/files.php.
A little bug has been fixed in phpDoc. See scripts/phpdoc.php. Other minor bugs have been fixed as well.
The transcoding routines used in shared/utf8.php are now based on static structures to save on CPU cycles.
The quoting HTML entity (
The Anchor interface has been slightly changed to better support caching mechanisms. See shared/anchor.php.
Several topics can be provided at once to the cache engine to speed the clearing process. See shared/cache.php.
It is highly recommended to ask YACS 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:
Sections can now be nested like branches of a tree, or like a directory, and this change has significant impact on all scripts related to sections, most notably sections/view.php, sections/edit.php andsections/sections.php. Previously YACS supported links in categories. Now the aggregation is done directly in sections. YACS offers several layouts for sub-sections of a section:
- a decorated list of sections
- a compact list, like DMOZ
- a Yahoo-like map of sections
- inline, including content of sub-sections
Most layouts that were available for the home page have been made available for individual sections, and you have now following choices:
- 'decorated' - a decorated list of articles
- 'daily' - a blog -- Yes, YACS now allows for a section to appear as a blog
- 'boxesandarrows' - click on titles to access articles
- 'jive' - display most part of articles content
- 'manual' - a hierarchy of article titles
- 'yabb' - a discussion forum
- 'none' - do not display articles - reserved to special cases
Any section can now act as a standalone blog, and not only the home page. The layout is invoked in sections/view.php and implemented in articles/layout_articles_as_daily.php. Several methods are offered to list articles of one section in the index page of its parent section:
- in the main panel (as a What's New? box)
- list thumbnail images at the bottom of the main panel (e.g., to show partner's logos)
- in the extra panel
Articles of a section can now appear as a list of thumbnail images, thanks to the layout articles/layout_articles_as_thumbnails.php. This can be used for example to introduce logos of partners at some root section. Sections now support activation dates. Combined with expiration dates, they allow webmasters to manage content visibility asynchronously. See sections/edit.php. The Content Assistant has been updated and it is now able to create a folder of sections. See control/populate.php. The usability of the form used to post and to modify articles has been enhanced. Several checkboxes (i.e., to signal draft, formatted or hardcoded content) have been added to avoid keywords in the field for options. Also, to insert images from the library click on their ids. See articles/edit.php and images/layout_images.php. The trackback form has been revisited for better usability. See links/trackback.php. Visited pages are now tracked via cookies (articles/view.php), and this information is displayed to authenticated members by every reference skins. The web version of bread crumbs... New types have been added to comments (comments/comments.php), and a new set of icons is provided with every reference skin. At the moment YACS supports following comment types:
- attention - it's worth the reading
- done - job has been completed
- idea - to submit a new suggestion
- information - answering a previous request
- question - please help
- thumbs down - I dislike it
- thumbs up - I enjoy this
- warning - you should take care
The main configuration panel (control/configure.php) is more explicit on friendly URLs (thanks Kedare) The script used to publish a page now allows for explicit pings and for the parsing of featured links. See articles/publish.php. A new script has been added to change the review date, the expiry date, or even the publication date. See articles/stamp.php. The rating script is more explicit then ever. See articles/rate.php. Shortcuts have been added near box titles to help associates manage site content. Previously, to change some gadget box, you had to browse the site map, to click on the special section for gadget boxes, and to select the article to modify. Now, from the home page, you just have to click on the '»' link near the box title to achieve the same result. One click instead of three! To enable the invocation of external scripts three hooks have been added to the home page (index.php). Use the id 'index.php' to include some code in the middle, before the list of recent articles. You can also use ids 'index.php#prefix' to include code just after the cover article, or 'index.php#suffix' to include code at the end of the home page. The configuration panel for skins (skins/configure.php) has been extended to better support the customization of the home page. The number of sections handled at the home page (as tabs, as a menu bar, or as a reduced version of the site map) is now a parameter set in the Configuration Panel for skins. See skins/configure.php. The home page (index.php) has been optimized through SQL profiling. For example, gadget boxes are now handled by the caching engine. As a positive result of these tedious efforts, and despite the possible richness of its interface, YACS is faster than before, and more scalable than ever. The normal behaviour of YACS is to substitute a thumbnail image to large files (more than 20 kbytes by default). Now associates have an option to force the display of original images, whatever their sizes. See images/edit.php and codes/codes.php. Attaching a personal avatar image to own user profile has been streamlined. See images/edit.php. The browsing of articles (articles/view.php) has been optimized through SQL profiling. For example, poster profiles are now cached properly. We told you, YACS is faster than before, and more scalable than ever. Thumbnail images are now displayed with label underneath, thanks to the new function build_image() in skins/skin_skeleton.php. Common flags (e.g., 'new', 'updated', etc.) have been turned to constants (using define()) to improve on response times. The search engine now allows for requests limited to a single section. Also, surfers can page in search results. See search.php. The page selector (go.php) now also considers keywords in categories. From the perspective of Content Management, this means YACS helps you to take the most of your classification efforts. For example, at our corporate server, I have added a category to list pages talking about XML. Thanks to the new selector, anyone can jump to go.php/xml. Oldest articles can now be stamped while browsing the review queue, without changing the last edition date. A straightforward way to keep the control of all the content posted at your site over time. See articles/review.php and articles/articles.php. Referrals are now visible only to associates. Of course, they can be showed to anybody again by changing a parameter from a Configuration Panel. Also, as an outcome of a previous poll, referrals has been translated to 'références externes' in French everywhere. Many thanks to people who have expressed their vote. You may now purge one section from all related articles, with two clicks. Useful for bulk operations! See sections/purge.php A new parser has been implemented in articles/article.php to process submitted articles, and is now used for posts through XML-RPC (services/blog.php), by e-mail (agents/messages.php), and by file transfer (agents/uploads.php). The new parser looks for several attributes (e.g., introduction, categories) related to the new article, and allows for streamlined code. References to Microsoft and IBM have been removed from the about page (about.php). New icons have been added to reference skins to flag: expired, new, updated and popular pages. An icon has been added as well for fldering sub-sections. The standard skin skeleton now automatically provides the width and the height of provided images. See skins/skin_skeleton.php. During the installation YACS now generates a warning if it cannot create the file 'switch.on', and advises on manual ways to finalize the installation. See setup.php. iso-8859-1 has been changed to iso-8859-15, because of the euro sign... Almost all calls of mysql_query() have been replaced with calls of query(), a new private function declared in shared/global.php. This change allows for streamlined code and for a better processing of SQL errors, if any. A new function has been added to determine the MIME type of files to download, to ensure every file extensions supported by YACS are processed correctly. See files/files.php. A little bug has been fixed in phpDoc. See scripts/phpdoc.php. Other minor bugs have been fixed as well. The transcoding routines used in shared/utf8.php are now based on static structures to save on CPU cycles. The quoting HTML entity (") is now properly transcoded in RSS feeds. See shared/utf8.php. The Anchor interface has been slightly changed to better support caching mechanisms. See shared/anchor.php. Several topics can be provided at once to the cache engine to speed the clearing process. See shared/cache.php.Rate this page
Posted by Bernard on Jul. 24 2005, (popular)
