[ckan-dev] Recent CKAN development

Fri Sep 23 15:36:57 UTC 2016

Hello everyone,

I'd like to draw attention to a few features recently added to ckan master.

1. Private datasets are now included on main /dataset/ search page.

We used to have to go to the organization pages to see private datasets, but
now they are included in the normal search page. The package_search
API is more complete now too, if you want private datasets returned
just pass include_private=True. This change will be available in the
upcoming CKAN 2.6 release. Full details are in
https://github.com/ckan/ckan/pull/3191

2. New interface for fine-grained permissions

It used to be very difficult to enforce custom dataset permission
rules by overriding the package_show auth and overriding the
package_search controller. Now we have a single simple interface that
lets us set which users can see which datasets: IPermissionLabels.
This change will be available in the upcoming CKAN 2.7 release. Full
details are in https://github.com/ckan/ckan/pull/3192

3. New standard for background jobs

CKAN 2.7 will come with a standard way to schedule, query and cancel
background jobs based on python-rq. This will greatly simplify all
sorts of extensions that operate on uploaded data or call out to
external services. Full details are in
https://github.com/ckan/ckan/pull/3165

There's lots more coming in the next few months, including our first
controller fully migrated to Flask; extending and improving
activities; per-plugin extras for users, datasets, groups and orgs.

A big thanks to everyone involved, and if you're coming to CKANCon
I'll see you in about 10 days!

Ian