Straker Interactive

Release Notes for ShadoCMS 7.7

The main drivers for ShadoCMS 7.7 are:
- Improvement of the Shado Central user interface
- Addition of commonly requested functionality
- Addition of new applications

User Interface Improvements
The user interface of Shado Central has undergone subtle, but important changes to improve the general look-and-feel of the site, these design changes have been made to increase ease of use and provide a look consistent with a lot of other Web 2.0 applications.
The user interface uses themes which are based on standard CSS styles used throughout Shado Central. Themes and usage of CSS means customizing the Shado Central interface is much easier than before.

Update to TinyMCE WYSIWYG Editor
ShadoCMS now ships with the new version of TinyMCE editor - Version 2.1.1. The new version of the editor has fixed a number of issues in the earlier version (2.0.1). A log of all the changes is available at the TinyMCE website.
The ShadoCMS-specific plugins, like FMS, styles and spell check, were all re-written for compatibility with the new version of the TinyMCE editor.

Configurable WorkFlow Email
A commonly requested feature in ShadoCMS, the ability to configure emails for a given site, has now been added.

Admin Toolbar Changes
Small but important changes have been made to the Admin Toolbar that appears at the bottom of a page when a user is logged into ShadoCMS. The toolbar now supports three modes when working with the front-end of the site:
- Edit mode: Same as the earlier "Edit" mode
- Published Site mode: Same as the current "Preview" mode
- Preview (unplished content) mode: Enables a user to view the site as it will look, but before the content is published, this mode removes the container controls and outlines.

New Container Control Styles
Container controls are now CSS driven and are consistent with the overall visual changes made to Shado Central.

Editor/Publisher Notes
An optional feature has been added to ShadoCMS that allows editors/publishers to add a note when committing a container. This functionality can be turned on/off for the whole site or specific sections, and for all users or specific user groups.

Content Freeze Tool
A new tool has been added for Site Tree which will enable admnistrators to apply a "content freeze" to a section (and its children), as long as the content freeze is applied to a section, editors/publishers cannot edit/commit containers on the front-end of the site.

Section Lockdown Tool
Administrators can now lockdown sections with a password that can be used by any user of the section to access all the children of that section (subsections and pages). The section lockdown tool does rely on the ShadoCMS user authorization system. Administrators can lockdown a section with a password, which can then be given to the users, who can use the password to access that given section.

SOF Classes -- Remote Persistance
ShadoCMS SOF framework now supports a powerful new feature - the ability to create a SOF class living in a remote database. SOF classes can now be mapped to a remote database table and are accessible through the IDE interface in Shado Central, the functionality opens up a large number of possibilities including the ability to create ZoomFlex applications for objects living in other databases.
This functionality is in advanced beta stage in this ShadoCMS version.

Lucene-based Search
ShadoCMS now ships with Apache Lucene 2.0 search engine. Lucene can now be used for indexing the contents of the Site Tree, File Management System and SOF classes. Indexing and searching with Lucene 2.0 search engine is very robust and fast. In addition, Lucene search is supported on Windows, Linux and Mac servers. Lucene also supports multi-language indexing and searching.

Multilanguage Improvements

The user interface for translating site tree objects from one language to another has been improved, this build of ShadoCMS also fixes a few issues with using the multilanguage functionality.

New Version of the Mass Mail Application
A new version of the Mass Mail application now ships with ShadoCMS, this version now supports the best-of-the-breed features for mailing applications. It is not compatible with the earlier versions of the Mass Mail application.

Translation Management System
A new application called the Translation Management System (TMS) has been added into ShadoCMS. The TMS is a comprehensive system that allows users of ShadoCMS to manage translation of the content of pages on a ShadoCMS site, the TMS can also integrate with third-party translation services, to whom content for translation can be sent, once the content is translated it can then be easily published on a ShadoCMS site.

Search Engine Optimization Application
The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) application helps in optimizing a ShadoCMS site so that it can rank higher on specified keyword searches on Google. The application provides an easy interface to specify important keywords for a site and shows how a site ranks on Google based on those keywords. The application also provides page-specific information about the keywords. Based on such information, the pages for a ShadoCMS can then be optimized to drive up the search engine rankings.

More detailed release notes can be found in the Straker Issue Tracking system.

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