[ANN] Radiant CMS 0.6.8 "Incise" Release

Looks like it’s time for another release of Radiant:

http://radiantcms.org/download/

Radiant 0.6.8 “Incise” adds a number of new features that enhance
support for
extensions and completes the project’s move to github. Of special note
are:

  • Extension installer/uninstaller scripts (script/extension) and a
    global
    ‘extension registry’ at http://ext.radiantcms.org
  • Support for freezing edge Radiant using ‘git’
  • Remember-me functionality for the admin UI

This should be a seamless upgrade for users of 0.6.7 and should require
only
minor adjustments for versions 0.6.5+.

WHAT IS RADIANT CMS?

Radiant is a no-fluff content management system made for designers and
programmers and is ideal for use on small teams. It is similar to
Movable Type or Textpattern, but is much more than a blogging engine.

Radiant features:

  • An elegant user interface
  • The ability to arrange pages in a hierarchy
  • Flexible templating with layouts, snippets, page parts, and a
    custom tagging language (Radius: http://radius.rubyforge.org)
  • A dynamic extension system
  • A simple user management/permissions system
  • Support for Markdown and Textile as well as traditional HTML
    (it’s easy to create other filters)
  • Operates in two modes: dev and production depending on the URL
  • A caching system which expires pages every 5 minutes
  • Built using Ruby on Rails (which means that extending Radiant is
    as easy as any other Rails application)
  • Licensed under the MIT-License
  • And much more…

There’s even a live demo over on the project Web site:

http://radiantcms.org/demo/

WHAT’S NEW IN THIS RELEASE?

  • Hide page publish date selector unless page.edit.published_date?
    config is
    set. [Sean C.]
  • Add <r:yield /> tag to support snippets that accept blocks. [Andrew
    Neil]
  • Fix bug with FileNotFoundPage subclasses and draft status. [cradle]
  • Update radiant:freeze:edge task to support BRANCH, TAG, and REVISION.
    [John
    Muhl]
  • Update to Haml 2.0.1. [Jim G.]
  • Fix radiant:update:configs task to properly evaluate environment.rb
    [Sean C.]
  • Fix page subclass loading issues. [Sean C.]
  • Add <r:unless_ancestor_or_self> and <r:unless_self> tags. [Tim
    Gossett]
  • Add specific installation modes for gzip and bzip2 compression. [Sean
    Cribbs]
  • Added extension installation scripts. [Sean C.]
  • Added find attr to r:if_content and r:unless_content to expand based
    on
    finding ‘any’ or ‘all’ specified parts [Jim G.]
  • Added inherit attr to r:if_content and r:unless_content to search for
    parts
    independently in the page tree. [Jim G.]
  • Update radiant:freeze:edge task to use git and GitHub. [John M.]
  • Update login page layout from prototype. [Sean C.]
  • Change order of extension paths to prefer project extensions over
    Radiant’s.
    [John M.]
  • Switch default session store to cookies [Josh F.]
  • Add remember-me function to login [Josh F.]
  • Allow an inclusive list of parts in r:if_content and r:unless_content
    [Jim G.]
  • Added a defaults.page.filter config setting for setting a default page
    filter. [Alex W.]
  • Fix Users fixtures for extensions that still use test/unit. [Nick
    Plante]
  • Don’t search for missing Page subclasses before bootstrap. [Sean
    Cribbs]
  • Added tolerance for missing Page class definitions. [Loren J.]
  • Don’t require an authenticity token check on the login action. [Sean
    Cribbs]
  • Make sure region sets are reloaded when activating extensions in
    development
    mode. [Sean C.]
  • Fix Haml rendering errors. [Thomas W. Steen]

INSTALLATION

We’ve worked hard to make it easy to install Radiant. For starters you
can download it with Ruby Gems:

% gem install radiant

Once the Radiant gem is installed you have access to the radiant
command. The radiant command is similar to the rails command (if you
are from the Rails world. It’s how you generate a new Radiant project
for a website. So cd to the directory where you would like your
instance to be installed and type:

% radiant -d [mysql|postgres|sqlite3] .

Next, edit config/database.yml to taste. Then run the rake bootstrap
task:

% rake production db:bootstrap

And start up the test server:

% script/server -e production

Finally, hit the /admin/ URL and you should be off to the races. See the
README file in the release for additional details.

If you are interested in other download options, visit the download
page: http://radiantcms.org/download/.

UPGRADING FROM 0.6.x

  1. Update the Radiant gem:

    % gem update radiant

  2. Change the RADIANT_GEM_VERSION constant in config/environment.rb
    to “0.6.8”.

  3. Run the update rake task:

    % rake radiant:update

  4. Run migrations:

    % rake db:migrate

  5. Restart the server

UPGRADING FROM 0.5.x

The upgrade process changed significantly from last release, so listen
up! To upgrade an existing installation, BACKUP YOUR DATABASE, update
the gem, and create a new Radiant project using the instructions above.
Then point Radiant to the right database by editing config/database.yml
and execute the following command in your project directory:

% rake db:migrate

If you have problems during the upgrade, please let us know.

CONTRIBUTORS

Radiant wouldn’t be possible without the help of some fine people. The
following people have made contributions to this release:

Andrew N. cradle Tim G.
John M. Josh F. Jim G.
Alex W. Nick Plante Loren J.
Sean C. Thomas W. Steen

Thanks guys! If you’d like to hop on the development band wagon head on
over to our dev site (http://dev.radiantcms.org/).

SUPPORT

The best place to get support is definitely on the Radiant mailing list.
There’s a crowd of people there who have been hanging around for many
moons now. Newbie questions are welcome! To sign up, go to:

http://radiantcms.org/mailing-list/

The Radiant mailing list is also accessible via Ruby forum:

http://www.ruby-forum.com/forum/21

Enjoy!


Sean C.
for the Radiant CMS Dev Team
http://radiantcms.org