YACS 6.3 has been released : FCKEditor, user support, PHP5, MySQL5

572 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:


 YACS now supports FCKEditor. Actually, the famous WYSIWYG, which is LGPL, exactly like YACS, is part of the YACS distribution. Look in included/fckeditor.


 YACS will feature either FCKEditor, or the legacy textarea, depending on user preference, as set in individual user profile. This apply to all web forms where some descriptive text may be entered, including articles, sections, categories, images, files, actions, etc.


 Authenticated members can visit their profile page, and select individually to use either the legacy textarea+codes approach, or the WYSIWYG FCKEditor tool. This applies to articles, sections, categories, comments, etc. See users/edit.php and shared/surfer.php. See users/edit.php.
 Even if YACS now supports a WYSIWYG editor, we are still improving on codes. New codes have been added to achieve up to 5 levels of headers (see the help page on titles). Also, the engine acts smarter on bulleted lists and has been improved on long lines of codes. Incremental styles, useful for S5 rendering, are now supported. See codes/codes.php.


 YACS folds long lines of code in comments, because this may screw up some skins (e.g., alfresco). See skins/skin_skeleton.php.


 Alignment of cells in tables was already available. This new release adds alignment of header cells as well. See skins/skin_skeleton.php.


 YACS now allows for e-mail validation. Set adequate settings in the configuration panel for users (users/configure.php), and new registrants will receive a mail message with a link to activate their account. They have to click on this link to become real members.


 A confirmation message is sent to new members, and also on password change. We are aiming to help new members to remember their credentials, and to avoid queries to associates to reset passwords. See users/users.php


 The automatic post of electronic messages to authors and watchers has been limited to item creation (e.g., new comment, new file, etc.). Comment updates are not signaled anymore. See articles/article.php.


 Members can select to not receive message alerts, if they prefer to browse the server from time to time. See users/edit.php.


 To improve on security, YACS asks to replay a random string on password change. See users/password.php.


 A last resort password has been implemented, to let you authenticate as an associate, even if you have lost access to the database. In case of emergency, and if you have completely lost access to the server, you can edit manually the main configuration file to mention the pass phrase to use. Then authenticate using any nick name and repeat the pass phrase, and YACS will recognize you as a valid associate. Don't look for a password in YACS source code, such a thing does not exist. Also, open the configuration panel and save parametersis enough to kill the last resort password putin it previously. See users/users.php.


 When the validation script is invoked through the web, user profile is changed from Subscriber to Member. See users/validate.php.


 The bug that prevented YACS to insert multiple images in articles posted by e-mail has been fixed. For those interested, this was due to the caching in memory of a mutable object...


 With previous versions of YACS you could blog and post complete pages (with attached files, and images) by e-mail. Now you can reference an article or a section in your messages to have these posted as comments of the main page. See agents/messages.php.


 The Control Panel now features system information, such as the software version of YACS, of PHP, of Apache. See control/index.php.


 The index page of members now features a navigation menu at the bottom of the page. See users/index.php.


 RSS feeds attached to sections now also list content of sub-sections. YACS drills down in a maximum of three levels of depth. See sections/feed.php.


 A new layout, 'alistapart' has been made available as a new option in sections. Select this option' to have only the most recent article visible on the section page. You can use this to manage some event with pages that are rotated periodically, such as a race with daily results, etc. This used to be available for the front page only. With release 6.3 this can be used at the section level as well. See articles/layout_articles_as_alistapart.php.


 The inline layout lists up to 50 items per section, to be compared to 7 previously. See sections/layout_sections_as_inline.php.


 The YABB layout, used in forums, has been enhanced. Section editors are listed explicitly as moderators. Sub-sections are listed as well, to enable faster navigation. See sections/layout_sections_as_yabb.php.


 YACS displays up to 50 threads per page in any discussion board. Also, for very long threads, shortcuts to subsequent comment pages are added. Hovering help titles have been added as well. table headers have been centered. See articles/layout_articles_as_yabb.php.


 Compact lists of articles now feature the 'new' and 'updated' flags. For example, this will help members to identify updated threads when visiting their own user profile. See articles/layout_articles_as_compact.php.


 YACS displays 10 most recent articles per blog page, instead of 5 previously. See articles/layout_articles_as_daily.php.


 Long lines of codes in comments are now folded or cut to avoid rendering issues with the alfresco skin. But the overall size of comments is not capped anymore. See comments/layout_comments.php.


 Also, the layout of comments in threads has been improved, to avoid the potential disappearing of some text on the right. See skins/layout_comments_as_yabb.php


 Comments may be prevented by adding the option 'no_comments' in a section. Otherwise members can post new comments, or anonymous surfers if either anonymous comments (parameter 'users_with_anonymous_comments' set to 'Y'), or teasers (parameter 'users_without_teasers' not set to 'Y') have been enabled.
 Associates now have a command to promote a comment to an article. See comments/view.php, articles/article.php and sections/section.php.


 Special sections created by YACS (covers, etc.) are configured to disable sub-sections. See sections/populate.php.


 Sections can now be deleted by their creator. This enables members to actually manage their own personal web space. See sections/delete.php.


 The creation of a new section is recorded, to enable proper tracking of personal web spaces. See sections/edit.php.


 YACS creates a default section to host links gathered through RSS aggregation. This section will appear in the regular site map, which was not the case in previous version. See feeds/feeds.php


 If a section has been configured to appear at the front page of the site, either as a gadget box or as an extra box, it will list sub-sections as well, if any. See index.php.


 When a section is configured to not display sub-section, the creation of sub-section is prevented as well (sections/view.php). Also, this has been reflected in scripts that create reference sections (e.g., the section for menus, for cover pages, etc.)


 The insertion of images in posted articles, sections, etc. has been streamlined, in order to achieve an acceptable layout without additional action.


 The RSS feed attached to a user profile lists up to 50 most recent pages, instead of 20 previously. See users/feed.php.


 The login page has been enhanced with useful and common shortcuts, to save on clicks. See users/login.php.


 Collections have been sligthly improved. First, you can add .header and .header files in directories to add text to browsing pages. Second, files starting with chars . and ~ are never listed. Third, collections visibility can be adjusted to being visible by anybody, or by members, or only by associates. Lastly, the getid3 parser, which is GPL, may be removed if you wish. See collections/browse.php.


 YACS now supports files with extensions .mp4 and .vob. And yes, these can be used for video on demand with VLC. See collections/collections.php and files/files.php.


 Teasers have been limited to 12 words (instead of 100) when the introduction field is empty. See articles/article.php.


 The configuration panel for skins now features folded boxes to ease the handling of the many options available. See skins/configure.php.


 The maximum number of navigation boxes has become a global parameter that can be changed from the configuration panel for skins. See skins/configure.php


 The maximum number of sections to display at the home page is not abruptely changed by YACS anymore. See skins/configure.php.


 Several options have been added to the configuration panel for the rendering engine. See skins/configure.php


 Article details (author name, dates, etc) can be hidden with global parameter content_without_details. In that case details can be made visible again in some sections, by setting the option with_details. See skins/configure.php.


 History navigation can be disabled to prevent shortcuts to previous pages. See skins/configure.php.


 The configuration panel for collections is making heavy usage of folded boxes, to improve on usability. See collections/configure.php.


 The bug that prevented the proper transmission of every pieces of information submitted by the bookmarking bookmarklet has been fixed in links/edit.php.


 The anchor of links is now preserved throughout modifications. Previously incorrect information was displayed in the modification form (links/edit.php).


 Bug that prevented the post and modifications of location records has been fixed. See locations/edit.php.


 YACS now detects staging files of zero size, to prevent script corruption in tricky situation. See scripts/stage.php.


 A new layout has been created to allow sub-sections and their content to be displayed as folded boxes. See sections/layout_sections_as_folded.php.


 The feeding box listing links to RSS can be disabled as well. See skins/configure.php.


 YACS now accepts the upload of images of up to 20Mbytes (to be compared to 2MB previously), to better adapt to high resolution cameras available now. Note that server settings (PHP.INI) may prevent users to reach this limit. Also, YACS may shrink images to a smaller size more adapted to web navigation. See images/edit.php.


 Most code related to the handling of images in the file system has been moved to a single location, in images/image.php. The immediate effect is a better support of images throughout post-by-e-mail (agents/messages.php). Also this will facilitate the support of images in files entry, planned for a next version.


 An option also allows to mask available bookmarklets in sections, articles, etc. See skins/configure.php.


 A global parameter may also prevent YACS to display the several means to reference a page, a section, etc. Guess yourself! See skins/configure.php


 The Google sitemap script now features 25 sections and 25 categories instead of 7 of each previously; See sitemap.php.


 The post of new files by anonymous surfers has been restricted to the upload of actual files. This to prevent spammers to only reference files located elsewhere. The usage of external references is limited to authenticated members. See files/edit.php.


 YACS is LGPL, but is compatible with some GPL software, such as the getid3 library and the Freemind Java applet. In some cases GPL software may have to be removed. YACS will now just degrade smoothly if this happens.


 All pieces of software that are external to YACS have been moved to the directory included, to make it easier to handle. Previously the Freemind applet was in the files directory, now it is loaded from included/browser. Feel free to put additional applets here if you like.


 YACS generates a warning on install when server runs in safe mode. See setup.php.


 The maximum number of extra boxes, which used to be 7, is now a global parameter that can be changed in the configuration panel for rendering. See skins/configure.php and sections/view.php


 The rendering of server profiles has been streamlined, in order to make it simpler to associates. See servers/view.php.


 YACS used to feature prefix and suffix attributes, to be configured in sections or in articles. The new release allows to used YACS code in these, to further improve on rendering. See shared/anchor.php.


 Most PHP code from reference templates has been moved to single place, at skins/page.php. This means that templates are more easy to develop by webmasters with little knowledge of PHP. Look at new reference templates, and you will clearly understand that point. Also, using the Page object in template.php is the most straightforward way to benefit from YACS future evolutions, despite customized templates.


 Images that are used to flag new and updated pages have been changed in reference skins alfresco, boxesandarrows, and joi.


 Cascaded style sheets of reference skins have been modified to better cope with thumbnail and floating images.


 Faulty MySQL statements put by webmaster in table objects now indicates the id of these objects to streamline debugging steps. See tables/tables.php.


 Cover page and site map were conflicting at the front page. Now both can appear simultaneously. See index.php.


 YACS now records the time of each click in user profiles (in shared/global.php). Therefore, presence information is maintained and made available in the index page for users. Also, you can create a table object, with a customized MySQL query, to further track browsing members if you wish.


 The search engine now displays target tokens in page title. Quite useful when reverting to a previous page in browser history. Also, accented characters (aka, UTF-8 strings) are now properly supported. See search.php.


 An associate can now purge log and debug files from the purge page, accessible from the Control Panel. See control/purge.php.


 Dates of last modification for generic pages (e.g., about.php, privacy.php) are only shown to associates, and hidden to other surfers.


 Web forms are now identified by ids instead of names, because this is what XHTML strict standard dictates.


 The bug that prevented navigation among several pages has been fixed (e.g., agents/index.php, articles/index.php, comments/index.php)


 The comma is accepted as a valid character in URLS.


 The comma character has been removed in full names build up upon first and last names.


 PHP version 5 has introduced some glitches on simple functions. For example, the first letter of sections at the site map became duplicated. This has been fixed in version 6.3.