Radiant 0.8.0 "Asterism" Release

Ruby
1

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

http://radiantcms.org/download/

Radiant 0.8.0 “Asterism” features a new and more compliant caching
mechanism based on Rack::Cache, and numerous bugfixes and small
enhancements.
Also included are:

  • An extensive integration suite using Cucumber and Webrat
  • Rails 2.3.2 (previously 2.1.2)
  • Highline 1.5.1
  • Haml 2.0.9

Many thanks to our contributors and committers for their contributions.

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?

  • Warn about using the RedCloth 3 fallback. [Sean C., Jason G.]
  • Prevent stty errors on JRuby while running bootstrap. [Sean C.]
  • Moved template_name to ApplicationController [Jim G., Michael
    Kessler]
  • Remove vizres plugin. [Sean C.]
  • Update instance config/environments to remove ResponseCache [Jim G.]
  • Remove :order option from <r:children:count />, which causes errors on
    postgresql. [Sean C.]
  • Prevent recursion via the <r:content /> tag. [Sean C.]
  • Update Highline. [Sean C.]
  • Update Cucumber and RSpec, clean up some features and fix specs. [Sean
    Cribbs]
  • Set the protected attributes for users in User.protected_attributes
    [Jim G.]
  • Don’t allow a nil ETag in SiteController. [David Cato]
  • Prevent failed login message from sticking around. [Kunal Shah]
  • Fix failing test regarding extension order. [Brett McHargue]
  • Catch ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound in Admin::ResourceController
    [Jim G.]
  • Catch missing template errors for show routes [Jim G.]
  • Fix with_error in render_matcher not causing the spec to fail when no
    exception raised. [Jason G.]
  • Make features task run in instance mode. [Sean C.]
  • Remove Admin::AbstractModelController. [Sean C.]
  • Cleanup deprecated Gem::manage_gems. [Sean C.]
  • Add begin…rescue blocks to rspec.rake [Sean C.]
  • Add begin…rescue blocks for requiring cucumber. [Matt Henry]
  • Deprecate ResponseCache, add Radiant::Cache based on Rack::Cache.
    [Sean C.]
  • Use app name for session cookie. [Josh F.]
  • Upgrade to Rails 2.3.2. [Sean C., Rick DeNatale, Josh F.,
    Kunal Shah]
  • Populate config.extensions so extensions can be disabled easily.
    [Jason G.]
  • Convert integration specs to Cucumber stories and update RSpec. [Sean
    Cribbs]
  • Use ActionView::PathSet instead of normal arrays for view paths. [Pat
    Allan]
  • Don’t raise exception on unauthenticated request to /admin/logout.
    [Josh F.]
  • Reverse view paths order in extension loader. [Sean C., Brent
    Kroeker]
  • Remove obviated Ruby 1.8.7 compatibility patch. [Sean C.]
  • Adjust StandardTags#relative_url_for for case when relative_url_root
    is nil. [Sean C.]
  • Correct rendering error in extensions controller. [Sean C.]
  • Correct typo in config/boot.rb. [Sean C.]
  • Major refactoring and simplification of LoginSystem. [Sean C.]
  • Update Haml to 2.0.7. [Sean C.]
  • Upgrade to Rails 2.2.2. [Sean C.]
  • Cleanup the config class a little, add some more documentation. [Sean
    Cribbs]
  • Avoid bootstrap errors related to Radiant::Config by checking for
    table existence. [Sean C.]
  • Correct status code typo in Admin::ResourceController. [Sean C.]

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 0.6.5-0.6.9 AND 0.7.x

  1. Update the Radiant gem:

    % gem update radiant

  2. Change the RADIANT_GEM_VERSION constant in config/environment.rb
    to “0.8.0”.

  3. Run the update rake task:

    % rake radiant:update

  4. Run migrations:

    % rake db:migrate

  5. Restart the server

UPGRADING FROM 0.5.x-0.6.4

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:

Michael Kessler Kunal Shah Brett McHargue
Jim G. Jason G. Kunal Shah
Matt Henry Rick DeNatale Pat Allan
Josh F. Brent Kroeker Sean C.

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 D. Cribbs
for the Radiant CMS Dev Team
http://radiantcms.org