[ckan-discuss] CKAN 1.5 release

Wed Nov 9 16:01:05 GMT 2011

We're proud to announce a major new release of CKAN! Version 1.5
represents a big step forward since our last major release in May.
Alongside our usual PyPI release, we are now also releasing regular
Ubuntu 10.04 packages, for easy installation.

So now it's (almost) as simple as "apt-get install ckan" and
"ckan-create-instance"
Here are the docs:
http://docs.ckan.org/docs/ckan/en/ckan-1.5/install-from-package.html

Major changes since 1.4:
 * official government data stores are usually Read-Only to the
public, but now we've added Moderated Edits, to allow the public to
suggest changes and correct metadata. Once suggestions are moderated
by the officials, everyone can benefit from the improvements.
 * we got rid of a form framework that was difficult to customise. Now
web designers can play about with the form's HTML/CSS/Javascript to
get it exactly how they want. They can do take advantage of
autocomplete and other tools in our new powerful Action API. And when
the form submits, the data goes through a new schema validation
system. We spent a long time planning this, evaluating all sorts of
systems and now we're really pleased with the results.
 * total visual overhaul for viewing and editing datasets
 * vastly improved informatinoa about CKAN and user documentation
(ckan.org, wiki.ckan.org & docs.ckan.org)

Plus hundreds of little things like: Captcha to keep spammers at bay,
calling them 'datasets' rather than pushing our concept of 'packages'
and fixing the odd bug that crops up too

We're also really proud of the recent work in CKAN extensions, such as
for handling geographic data, harvesting data from other data stores
and providing APIs for data in the catalogue with Web Store.

I've included below the changelog, listing all the changes since the
most recent minor release (1.4.3.1, 30th September).

Thank you to the amazing on-line community for their continued ideas,
suggestions and support in the development of this open source data
hub software.

David Read

v1.5 2011-11-07
===============
Major:
 * New visual theme (#1108)
    * Package & Resource edit overhaul (#1294/#1348/#1351/#1368/#1296)
    * JS and CSS reorganisation (#1282, #1349, #1380)
 * Apache Solr used for search in core instead of Postgres (#1275, #1361, #1365)
 * Authorization system now embedded in the logic layer (#1253)
 * Captcha added for user registration (#1307, #1431)
 * UI language translations refreshed (#1292, #1350, #1418)
 * Action API improved with docs now (#1315, #1302, #1371)

Minor:
 * Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) support (#1271)
 * Strings to translate into other languages tidied up (#1249)
 * Resource format autocomplete (#816)
 * Database disconnection gives better error message (#1290)
 * Log-in cookie is preserved between sessions (#78)
 * Extensions can access formalchemy forms (#1301)
 * 'Dataset' is the new name for 'Package' (#1293)
 * Resource standard fields added: type, format, size (#1324)
 * Listing users speeded up (#1268)
 * Basic data preview functionality moved to core from QA extension (#1357)
 * Admin Extension merged into core CKAN (#1264)
 * URLs in the Notes field are automatically linked (#1320)
 * Disallow OpenID for account creation (but can be linked to accounts) (#1386)
 * Tag name now validated for max length (#1418)

Bug fixes:
 * Purging of revisions didn't work (since 1.4.3) (#1258)
 * Search indexing wasn't working for SOLR (since 1.4.3) (#1256)
 * Configuration errors were being ignored (since always) (#1172)
 * Flash messages were temporarily held-back when using proxy cache
(since 1.3.2) (#1321)
 * On login, user told 'welcome back' even if he's just registered (#1194)
 * Various minor exceptions cropped up (mostly since 1.4.3) (#1334, #1346)
 * Extra field couldn't be set to original value when key deleted (#1356)
 * JSONP callback parameter didn't work for the Action API (since 1.4.3) (#1437)