2.0.1 Being Prepped for Release (Updated)

Tuesday, September 20, 2011 Tags: preview

Fresh on the heels of the stable release of 2.0, the development  team is busily preparing to release version 2.0.1 at the end of Septermber.  In addition to those fixes already posted as an easily uploaded patch, there are additional bug fixes, feature additions, and some relatively major changes 'under-the-hood.'

The most anticipated change is the addition of 'iOS5' compatability in the WYSIWYG editor. While we'd like to take credit for adding this feature for iPad, etc... users, it's actually the result of upgrading our 3rd party libraries and the upcoming OS release from Apple.

However, the biggest change in 2.0.1 is moving toward fully using the YUI3 javascript libraries, which also changes how the YUI loads the older YUI2 based code.  While YUI2 is still supported, any custom code using the older YUI2 calling conventions may have to be updated to continue working.  However, this should only concern designers and developers who use YUI in their custom themes and modifications, but may include any customized javascript menu views or templates.

Additionally, we've fully migrated the Administration and Login modules to the 2.0 (controller) format which may appear to disable any custom views or modifications made to those modules, especially if they are hard-coded into a theme.  The main interface to Exponent 2.0 Administration has always been the 'slingbar' but some of the old 0.9x methods still appeared to work.  This is not the case in 2.0.1 since the administration 'module' has been fully replaced by the administration 'controller'.  Likewise, since many custom themes include a hard-coded 'login' module, it may no longer be displayed ('view is missing' error) since the login 'module' has become the new login 'controller' and the view names have changed. An example of the needed change would be:

2.0 method:
<?php expTheme::module(array("module"=>"login","view"=>"Expanded")); ?>
2.0.1 method:
<?php expTheme::showController(array("controller"=>"login","action"=>"showlogin","view"=>"showlogin_expanded")); ?>

Additionally, there will be a new user configurable theme and a variation to the simpletheme to show off the new theme configuration and preview features.

And finally, unlike the path to the 2.0 stable release, we now plan to release incremental revisions (aka 'upgrades') to the system on a somewhat regular basis, and not delve into an alpha, beta, release candidate release scenario. This should simplify decisions to upgrade Exponent and also help to determine the relative age of an installation.

We hope you have already begun using Exponent 2.0 and will be pleased with these useful updates and changes.