CWIS 3.9.0 Beta Released
Friday, May 20th, 2016 - 12:00am

CWIS beta version 3.9.0 has been released, and is now available for download.  This is a beta release, leading up to CWIS 4.0.

This version focuses on three main areas:
  1. Interface Refactoring – The standard page start and end in the default interface have been simplified, better documented, and heavily refactored to be more maintainable and much more easily customized.  All CSS in the default interface has also been replaced with SCSS (AKA Sass), which should be easier to maintain and customize as well.  (It’s preferable to customize your site via the NavEditor plugin and -Override.scss files if possible, before creating custom versions of the standard page start and end.)
  2. Multi-Schema Support – Search now works across all content types, including entries created and maintained by the Blog, Calendar Events, and Pages plugins, and the search interface has been refactored to be easier to maintain and customize.
  3. PHP 7 Compatibility – The latest major version of PHP introduced significant performance improvements and some new capabilities to the language, and in the process made a few changes that broke existing PHP code.  CWIS 3.9.0 includes revisions that should allow the software to run smoothly under both PHP 5.x and 7.x.
A few other improvements you’ll find in this release:
  • The Folders plugin now supports transferring folders between users.
  • MetricsReporter now tracks stats for the Blog plugin.
  • Metadata field group names can now be displayed (or not) on the full record page, via a system configuration option.
  • When a plugin is enabled, any plugins upon which it is dependent are now automatically enabled as well.
  • Search now supports prefix and suffix operators (^ and $) for text fields.
More information about additions and fixes can be found via the CWIS Revision History option on the Administration menu.  As a beta release, this version is not recommended for use on live production sites.  If you are going to run it on a production site (which, to be fair, we’ve been doing at Scout for months), please test and monitor your site carefully.
 
Moving toward 4.0, we’re very much looking toward the future.  Because of that, two additional notes:
  1. Some of the existing measures in CWIS to maintain compatibility with old user interfaces have been eliminated, and others have been moved to the BackwardCompatibility plugin.  We don’t anticipate these changes requiring much effort for interfaces based on CWIS 3.x, and interfaces based on CWIS 2.x should still be reasonably easily upgradable.  Custom interfaces based on CWIS 1.x will definitely require more effort.  In any event, if you need to make changes to your custom interface to get it to work with this release and run into difficulty, we’re happy to provide whatever assistance we can via the CWIS support forums.
  2. The minimum PHP version for CWIS is now 5.4, which came out in 2012.  If you’re running PHP 5.3 or earlier, this might be an excellent time to upgrade to 5.6 or even 7.0, as support (including security fixes) from the PHP team for PHP 5.5 is ending in July, and they are no longer supporting earlier versions at all.  On the plus side, one significant benefit to moving to PHP 5.4+ is that you can now count on short echo tags always being available (i.e. you’ll be able to use <?= $MyVar ?> instead of <?PHP print $MyVar; ?>).
As always, after installing the new version we ask that you use the Register with Scout feature on the Administration menu to let us know you're using the new version of the software.  It really helps us determine what kind of operating environments the software is running in, and where to go next with development.
 
We look forward to your feedback on this new version of CWIS.

 

CWIS 3.2.0 Released
Friday, June 12th, 2015 - 1:19pm

CWIS version 3.2.0 has been released, and is now available for download! 

 
As might be surmised from some of the entries on the list below, considerable time and effort was spent by the development team in recent months on performance and SEO (Search Engine Optimization – how your likely people are to find your site via search engines), resulting in very significant improvements in those areas.
 
This release also contains a lot of new functionality.  Some highlights:
  • New Batch Edit plugin, that allows you to make changes to collections of resources all at once.
  • New Mail It plugin, that allows users to send email to themselves or others with information about a resource.
  • New My Searches plugin, that displays a list of recent searches conducted by the user.
  • New PHPList plugin, which provides integration with the PHPList mailing list platform.
  • The Blog plugin now supports multiple blogs, and the old “Site News” functionality has been replaced with a blog.
  • The Folders plugin now allows users to add/remove resources to/from a folder interactively, without reloading the current page.
  • The Pages plugin now has support for WYSIWYG editing, uploading images and files, and inserting those images and files within a page.
  • Page caching is now supported for anonymous users, which can speed up page loading and greatly improve the user experience.
  • Automatic minimization of JavaScript files is now supported, to speed up page rendering and help with SEO.
  • Fingerprinting of static asset (image, CSS, and JavaScript) files is now supported, to improve site performance and help with SEO.
And there are more enhancements, performance tweaks, and of course bug fixes.  For a more complete list, please see the CWIS Revision History option, available off of the Administration menu.
 
CWIS 3.2.0 requires PHP 5.2.1 or newer and MySQL 5.0 or newer.  As always, after installing the new version we ask that you use the Register with Scout feature on the Administration menu to let us know you're using the new version of the software.  It really helps us determine what kind of operating environments the software is running in, and where to go next with development.
 
We look forward to your feedback on this new version of CWIS.

 

CWIS 3.1.1 Released
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014 - 11:46am

CWIS version 3.1.1 has been released, and is now available for download on the Scout site.

This is primarily a bug fix release, addressing issues that have been discovered and resolved since 3.1.0, but it does introduce experimental support for SASS (SCSS), which can make CSS for custom interfaces much easier to write and maintain. For more specific information about what 3.1.1 includes, please see the CWIS Revision History option, available off of the Administration menu. CWIS 3.1.1 requires PHP 5.2.1 or newer and MySQL 5.0 or newer. 
CWIS 3.1.0 Released
Monday, September 8th, 2014 - 12:06pm
CWIS version 3.1.0 has been released, and is now available for download!
 
This release contains a lot of new functionality.  Some highlights:
  • The Metrics Reporter plugin now offers interactive tables and charts of collected metrics data (see attached images), and metrics data collection and reporting has been extended to cover the Blog and Calendar Events plugins.
  • The permission system has been significantly revamped and expanded, to simplify permission configuration and support more complex workflows, and now separates out per-schema and per-field permissions.
  • RSS feed support has been removed from the core software and replaced by the new RSS Export plugin, which supports creating RSS feeds on a wide variety of pages, using items from any schema type (resources, events, blog posts, etc).
  • Resource metadata export has been removed from the core software and replaced by the new Resource Exporter plugin, which allows you to select which fields should be included in the export and export only metadata for resources contained in a specified folder.  (Also added:  the option to export resource metadata in XML.)
  • The most frequently used terms are now displayed at the top of the search results when adding/editing Tree and Controlled Name field values.
  • The Cancore, Dublin Core, NSDL, and USGS vocabularies included with the software have all been updated to the latest revisions.
  • Effectiveness of the BotDetector plugin has improved significantly, and it now includes support for Project Honeypot’s http:BL service to enhance detection and gather more accurate usage metrics.
  • The number of resources that can be placed in a single folder has increased significantly, and the interface now paginates when there are a large number of resources in a folder.
And there are more enhancements, tweaks, and of course bug fixes.  For a more complete list, please see the CWIS Revision History option, available off of the Administration menu.
 
CWIS 3.1.0 requires PHP 5.2.1 or newer and MySQL 5.0 or newer.  As always, after installing the new version we ask that you use the Register with Scout feature on the Administration menu to let us know you're using the new version of the software.  It really helps us determine what kind of operating environments the software is running in, and where to go next with development.
 
We look forward to your feedback on this new version of CWIS.

 

CWIS 3.0.2 Released
Thursday, May 1st, 2014 - 1:53pm

CWIS version 3.0.2 has been released, and is now available for download. This is a bug fix release, resolving a number of minor and a few more significant bugs.

This is a bug fix release, resolving a number of minor and a few more significant bugs.  A list of some of the more notable fixes can be found in the changelog for the release, available via the /Administration/ menu. (Our thanks to those of you who have reported and helped us track down some of these bugs!) CWIS 3.0.2 requires PHP 5.2.1 or newer and MySQL 5.0 or newer. Sites running CWIS 1.4.0 or SPT 1.4.0 or later can upgrade directly to 3.0.2. 

CWIS 3.0.1 Released
Wednesday, March 5th, 2014 - 3:32pm
CWIS version 3.0.1 has been released, and is now available for download on the Scout site.
 
This is a bug fix and optimization release, resolving a number of minor and a few more significant bugs in 3.0.0, and introducing some significant performance optimizations on the back end.  CWIS 3.0.1 requires PHP 5.2.1 or newer and MySQL 5.0 or newer.  Sites running CWIS 1.4.0 or SPT 1.4.0 or later can upgrade directly to 3.0.1.  Sites running versions prior to 1.4.0 (and there are still a few) will first need to upgrade to 1.4.0 and then to 3.0.1.
CWIS 3.0.0 Released
Friday, December 6th, 2013 - 10:33am
Internet Scout is pleased to announce the release of CWIS version 3.0.0. The new version is now available for download on the Scout site.
 
As might be expected from the version number, this is a major release of the software, and one we've been working toward for the past two years.  There were two areas of focus for 3.0:  1) refactoring, upgrading, and expanding the underlying infrastructure to reflect the current state-of-the-art in web software and support the new capabilities we plan to implement in CWIS going forward, and  2) adding new functionality and features that have been requested and/or are now expected as part of a state-of-the-art web-based software platform.  While we haven't achieved everything on our wish list for 3.0.0, we do believe the release delivers significant new functionality and will provide both a very adaptable development platform for custom CWIS-based sites, and a very solid launching pad for new technology in CWIS 4.x and beyond.
 
A few of the highlights:
  • new faceted searching
  • support for custom user information fields
  • support for multiple uploads to Image fields
  • new conditional privilege system for metadata schemas and fields
  • internal support for multiple metadata schemas
  • incremental keyword search (disabled by default)
  • completely revamped user help
  • CleanURLs plugin (provides SEO-friendly clean URLs for resource browsing and full record pages)
  • CalendarEvents plugin (provides configurable full-featured events calendar)
  • Blog plugin (provides blog support)
  • MobileUISwitcher plugin (provides the ability to automatically switch to a particular user interface if a mobile device is detected)
  • SocialMedia plugin added (provides social-media-friendly data in resource full record pages to make them more easily shareable via social media)
  • UserCreator plugin added (provides the ability to create new user accounts on the fly when editing resource records)
  • upgraded UrlChecker plugin able to check more URLs per day with less server impact
  • significantly expanded developer documentation
(Some features were previously available in the 2.9.0 alpha release.)
 
CWIS 3.0.0 requires PHP 5.2.1 or newer and MySQL 5.0 or newer.  Sites running CWIS 1.4.0 or SPT 1.4.0 or later can upgrade directly to 3.0.0.  Sites running versions prior to 1.4.0 will first need to upgrade to 1.4.0 and then to 3.0.0.
 
As always, after installing the new version we ask that you use the Register with Scout feature on the Administration menu to let us know you're using the new version of the software.  It really helps us determine what kind of operating environments the software is running in, and where to go next with development.
 
We look forward to your feedback on this new version of CWIS.  Comments or questions can be posted in the 3.0.0 release thread on the forums.
 

 

CWIS 2.9.0 Released
Tuesday, October 1st, 2013 - 3:55pm

This is an alpha release, working toward CWIS 3.0.  Though we've been running it at Scout for a number of months, it is not recommended for use on a live production site.

 
A few of the highlights:
  • new conditional privilege system for metadata schemas and fields
  • internal support for multiple metadata schemas
  • incremental keyword search (disabled by default)
  • completely revamped user help
  • CleanURLs plugin (provides SEO-friendly clean URLs for resource browsing and full record pages)
  • CalendarEvents plugin (provides configurable full-featured events calendar)
  • Blog plugin (provides blog support)
  • MobileUISwitcher plugin (provides the ability to automatically switch to a particular user interface if a mobile device is detected)
  • SocialMedia plugin added (provides social-media-friendly data in resource full record pages to make them more easily shareable via social media)
  • UserCreator plugin added (provides the ability to create new user accounts on the fly when editing resource records)
  • significantly expanded developer documentation
CWIS 2.9.0 requires PHP 5.2 or newer and MySQL 5.0 or newer.  Sites running CWIS 1.4.0 or SPT 1.4.0 or later can upgrade directly to 2.9.0;  sites running versions prior to 1.4.0 will first need to upgrade to 1.4.0 and then to 2.9.0.
 
After installing the new version, we would ask that you use the Register with Scout feature on the Administration menu to let us know you're using the new version of software.  It really helps us determine what kind of operating environments the software is running in, and where next to go with development.
 
We look forward to your feedback on this new version of CWIS.  Comments or questions can be posted in the 2.9.0 release thread on the forums.

 

CWIS 2.4.1 Released
Thursday, June 13th, 2013 - 3:39pm

CWIS version 2.4.1 has been released, and is now available for download on the Scout site.

This is a bug fix release that addresses a number of issues. Though no significant new functionality has been added, all users are strongly encouraged to upgrade.

The following plugins have been updated as well:

  • AutoScreenshot
  • BrowserCapabilities
  • Captcha
  • Folders
  • GoogleMaps
  • Mailer
  • MetricsReporter
  • OAIPMHServer
  • OpenId
  • Pages
  • Tags
  • UrlChecker
  • phpBBSync
  • AccountPruner

Updated versions of these are included in the CWIS 2.4.1 release and are available for download on the individual plugin pages on the Scout site.

CWIS 2.4.1 requires PHP 5.0.5 or newer and MySQL 5.0 or newer. Sites running CWIS 1.4.0 or SPT 1.4.0 or later can upgrade directly to 2.4.1; sites running versions prior to 1.4.0 will first need to upgrade to 1.4.0 and then to 2.4.1.

After installing the new version, we would ask that you use the Register with Scout feature on the Administration menu to let us know you're using the new version of software. It really helps us determine what kind of operating environments the software is running in, and where next to go with development.

We look forward to your feedback on this new version of CWIS.  Comments or questions can be posted in the 2.4.1 release thread on the forums.

Best of the Scout Report 2012-2013
Tuesday, May 28th, 2013 - 2:07pm

The Internet Scout staff takes pride in providing links to some of the best online resources in our weekly Scout Report. Although all of the resources we cover are valuable, inevitably some stand out from the pack. In this year's 'Best of' issue, we share some of our favorite sites from the past academic year. The process of choosing which sites to include was not easy, as the interests of our staff vary as much as those of our readers. Whether it is the design of the site, the fascinating content, or its classroom usability, Scout staff all have different rationale for preferring one online resource over another. Nevertheless, we were able to produce a top ten list that we could all agree on.

We hope you enjoy this list, and take a few minutes to revisit some of our favorite sites from 2012–2013. As always, we look forward to providing new batches of fantastic resources throughout the upcoming year.

Please visit the Best of the Scout Report 2012-2013 here, and let us know what you think! We welcome feedback on this and all issues of the Scout Report at scout@scout.wisc.edu.

Pages