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Posts Tagged ‘Releases’

Release 0.8.1

Sunday, October 26th, 2008

I know with each release I say how excited I am by this release, but that’s usually because with each release there’s some great new feature that makes me either proud to have developed it, or to proud to be associated with it. Mack 0.8.1 is definitely no exception.

Before I get into what has to be my favorite feature since the distributed features of 0.7.0, and quite possibly my favorite feature in Mack today, let’s talk about a few of the other features in this release.

More Routing Enhancements

There are a few great new features in the routing system in this release. The first off is a real crowd favorite, Nested Resources. Just like Rails you can now nest resources in Mack.

http://www.mackery.com/routing/nested_resources

In Mack 0.8.0 we introduced the ability to put host information in the routes file. This would be used to match the host when matching a route as well as building the url for that route when using the url helpers. This made dealing with subdomains very easier. Well, to really give everyone that subdomain fu everybody loves, we’ve added the ability to put embedded parameters in the host parameter in routes. It’s pretty dang cool, let me tell you. Checkout these examples:

http://www.mackery.com/routing/misc

Pagination API

There is now a pagination API that’s part of the mack-orm API. The first implementation of this in the mack-data_mapper package. At its heart it’s extremely easily to implement for new ORMs, one method, and using it is just as easy. There will be a write up on using the API in the forth coming days.

Jabber Support

The mack-notifier package can now send notifications using the Jabber protocol.

!!Portlets!!

Portlets are what components in Rails should’ve been and they’re what slices in Merb should be. Portlets are a way off packaging a full Mack application into a Ruby Gem so they can easily be shared and used in other Mack applications. As you’re about to see, this simple page is all the information you need to know about developing, testing, packaging, and using Portlets.

Portlets encapsulate a whole Mack application, from controllers to views to models to configuration settings to your images, stylesheets and javascripts. This makes it possible to develop extremely rich applications and share them with other Mack applications.

http://www.mackery.com/portlets/developing
http://www.mackery.com/portlets/testing
http://www.mackery.com/portlets/packaging
http://www.mackery.com/portlets/using

Bug Fixes and Minor Feature Updates

As always there are great bug fixes and feature updates. Below is the changelog that outlines those improvements.

Changelog:

[#217] Fixed rake mack:dump:routes throws errors
[#216] Added ability to turn off view caching in distributed app
[#215] Asset path lookup flow update
[#213] Fixed the params method should be case insensitive
[#211] Added a pagination API to mack-data_mapper
[#210] Added a pagination API to mack-orm
[#209] inline form built by link_to should include authenticity token
[#208] Added support for DataMapper repository context per request
[#207] Fixed session cookie not being deleted properly
[#206] Portlet now have access to its base_path
[#205] Fixed testing of nested parameters and file uploads breaks
[#204] Resource routes can now take options when being defined.
[#203] Updated distributed: view_cache to include Mack::ViewHelpers instead of Mack::ViewHelpers::LinkHelpers
[#200] INCOMPATIBILITY NOTICE: mack-notifier configatron namespaces have changed from *_settings to * (e.g. smtp_settings to smtp)
[#198] Added Embedded parameters in ‘host’ for Routes
[#196] Extlib 0.9.8 support
[#195] DataMapper 0.9.6 support
[#193] Portlet Support
[#192] mack-localization now supports portlet
[#191] Asset-Packager support for Portlet
[#143] Nested resources in Routes
[#134] Form elements are now ‘errorfied’.
[#131] Date/Time select boxes can now be easily re-arranged.
[#78] Jabber support
gem: configatron 2.1.5
gem: extlib 0.9.8

Posted in General, Releases, Updates | Comments Off

Release 0.8.0

Monday, October 6th, 2008

Here it is the 0.8.0 release of Mack! What a fun and exciting release it is as well. There are a few big changes under the hood, all for the better of course, but there’s only really one that will cause existing Mack projects some conversion pain. However, we’ve tried to take the sting out of that with a helpful rake task.

Configatron Support

Mack 0.8.0 replaces the old application_configuration system with the new ultra sexy and cool, Configatron system. This is a much better way of doing system configurations, and I’m sure you’ll agree once you give it a spin. We’ve tried to take the edge off the conversion of these configuration systems with a helpful little rake task:

$ rake mack:update:configuration

For most cases, that task should do just fine. There might be a few places you have to tweak, such as in your own code, but once you do that, you’ll love Configatron!

For more information about using Configatron checkout this page:

http://www.mackery.com/configuration/configatron

A New Router

That’s right, the router in Mack has been completely rewritten from the ground up, yet unlike other frameworks, we’ve managed to keep our external API the same, so you don’t have to change your routes.rb at all. That’s a bit of good news, isn’t it?

What do you get with the new router? Well, for one, it should be faster, that’s always a plus. You can also now do ‘wildcard’ parameters in routes, use procs, extended ‘resourced’ routes, define ‘host’ and ‘scheme’ parameters, use regular expressions, and a few other little nifty things. Plus, because of the rewrite, it’s going to make it easier to extending the routing system to be even more powerful! In a future release, sometime in the 0.8.x series, you’ll even be able to plugin in your own router just by implementing a few API methods.

For more information about the new router, and what you can do, check out:

http://www.mackery.com/routing/index

Asset Management

There is now a really great asset management system that easily allows you to build bundles of CSS and JavaScript files to help keep your code neat and easy to use. Bundle that with the new mack-asset_packager gem, and support for asset hosts, you get a simple, easy, and fast way to compress and deliver your assets.

For more information, checkout these helpful pages from the user guide:

http://www.mackery.com/views/asset_mgr
http://www.mackery.com/views/asset_host

Misc.

As always, there’s a bunch of other great stuff just lurking around in this release. A better logger, for a start, more helpers, bug fixes, better error reporting, default 404 and 500 pages, and more. Please download and enjoy the release, I’m sure you’ll find worth it. Enjoy!