Midgard Updates

Midgard 1.8.7 "Flying Pancake" released

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:36:35 +0000

Lodz, March 13th 2008 -- The Midgard Project has released stable, 1.8.7 release version of the Midgard Open Source Content Management System.

Midgard 1.8.7 "Flying Pancake" release includes major bugfixes and enchancements.

Read more about changes.

Midgard

Midgard provides unique technology so can be easily integrated with any kind of environment. From web applications ( Midgard CMS with its component framework - MidCOM ) to typical desktop ones ( Midgard Framework ). From personal blog to corporate portals and intranets.

Midgard is also language independent and due to its powerfull architecture is proved as stable, secure and flexible solution implemented in high range of environmental targets:

PHP, Python or Java applications
PHP extension
Python module
Apache module
GTK desktop applications
C++ applications.

Get started with Midgard 1.8 today

Midgard CMS provides a powerful toolkit for web publishing and building interactive web applications. The features include:

Comprehensive authoring tools
Website management
Multilingual support
User management and access control
Web development

Read more about features and learn how to create content.

Planned for next releases

First alpha release of 1.9 branch : 1Q2008
First Midgard2 alpha release : January / February 2008
Automated database MgdSchema management and table initialization
Deprecation of the classic functional Midgard API in favor of MgdSchema and Query Builder
Deprecation of repligard, apache1 and PHP4 support.
Integrated midgard-python and mono package
New, rewritten midgard-data package
PostgreSQL, SQLite and MS SQL support

Midgard resources

User and developers support:

Mailing list
Users' forum
Developers' forum
IRC: #midgard on irc.freenode.net

About Midgard

The Midgard Content Management Framework was initially released in May 1999, and has since gathered a sizable user and developer community. Midgard powers thousands of web sites ranging from simple organizational websites to major portals like maemo.org, New Zealand eGovernment site and Playbill.

Midgard is being developed by an international team of professionals. Midgard's development team includes new media designers, system integrators and content management consultants. Midgard development is being supported by several commercial and governmental entities including the European Union.

Piotr Pokora, Midgard release manager piotrek.pokora(at)gmail.com

Henri Bergius, Midgard spokesman henri.bergius(at)iki.fi

The Midgard Project http://www.midgard-project.org

Midgard 2.0alpha1 "Wet Dog"

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 11:34:14 +0000

Lodz, February 26th 2008 -- The Midgard Project has released first alpha, 2.0 release version of the Midgard Open Source Content Management System.

About this release

The first alpha of the Midgard 2.0 branch is targeted at web framework and desktop developers. This release does not consist of the CMS components, but instead targets at providing the development tools for building a modern web framework. Framework based not only on one tool, but which can connect multiple technologies and languages.

The version 3 of MidCOM web content management components for PHP5 are currently in the process of being ported to the Midgard 2.0 platform.

Midgard

Midgard is an object-oriented storage abstraction layer for interconnected web and desktop applications.

Midgard's philosophy includes building on top of a well-known and supported toolkit of Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP on the web end, and GNOME libraries like glib and libgda on the system end or SQLite and Python for personal use.

The Midgard platform enables developers to define a storage structure once and use it on both web and desktop applications, with the possibility of easy data replication between the two.

On top of the current stable Midgard 1.8 core, the PHP-based Midgard Component Framework (MidCOM) makes Midgard a capable content management system and web framework.

New Midgard architecture

Language independence

Midgard is also language independent and due to its powerful architecture has proven as stable, secure and flexible solution implemented in various environments:

PHP5 extension for object-oriented access to the storage system
Python module for object-oriented access to the storage system
Apache module for handling persistent connections and initialization of the platform
GTK desktop applications

Database independence

The Midgard 1.x was heavily coupled with the MySQL database. The new 2.0 architecture is instead built on top of libgda, the GNOME database abstraction layer. This enables Midgard to be used with various storage engines, including:

MySQL
Postgres
SQLite
Microsoft SQL Server
Oracle
DB2

Built-in replication and metadata

All Midgard objects are automatically equipped with a consistent set of metadata properties that can be used for access control and workflow.

In addition, Midgard provides an API for serializing and unserializing stored objects in XML format that can be used for replicating data between different systems. The replication architecture can be used for staging/live web environments or mobile applications that synchronize between each other or a web back-end.

Planned for next Midgard 2 releases

New rewritten ACL integrated within core libraries
New advanced Midgard Style Engine
D-BUS signal support
MidCOM web toolkit ported to Midgard 2 platform
Support for Template Abstraction Language for MidCOM components
Mono/C# and Ruby language bindings
Easy Midgard CMS installer

Midgard resources

User and developers support:

Users' forum
Developers' forum
IRC: #midgard on irc.freenode.net

About Midgard

The Midgard Framework development started in 1997 and it was initially released as free software in May 1999. Midgard Project has since gathered an active user and developer community, powering thousands of web sites ranging from simple organizational intranets to large community portals.

Midgard is being developed by an international team of professionals. Midgard's development team includes new media designers, system integrators and content management consultants. Midgard development has been supported by several commercial and governmental entities including the European Union and the Swedish Internet Foundation.

Midgard is free software available under the GNU LGPL license.

Contacts

Piotr Pokora, Midgard release manager piotrek.pokora(at)gmail.com

Henri Bergius, Midgard spokesman henri.bergius(at)iki.fi

The Midgard Project http://www.midgard-project.org

MidCOM 2.8.0 released

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:02:58 +0000

Linköping, February 16th 2008 -- The Midgard Project has released version 2.8.0 of MidCOM - the Midgard Components Framework. MidCOM 2.8 provides PHP5 support and includes new features like content caching and replication.

MidCOM is the default Content Management interface in Midgard CMS, and provides developers a production-proven architecture for building new web applications. With the MidCOM framework PHP applications have powerful localization, configuration, style handling and data abstraction features.

Changes in MidCOM 2.8 series

This release brings performance and new features to the MidCOM framework:

Asgard administration interface
- New administrative interface for all content in Midgard database
- Centralized component configuration tools
- Trash browsing and undeletion support
- Automatic validation of edited PHP templates
- Full replacement for Aegir and SpiderAdmin
MidCOM replication system
- Support for server-to-server replication, archival and staging-live setups
- Nearly instant replication triggered via MidCOM DBA watchers
- HTTP, email and tarball transports
Content caching infrastructure
- Generated pages can be cached via SQLite, memcached or static file cache
- Intelligent, automatic cache invalidation
- Support for HTTP conditional GET
OpenID authentication
- Authentication and autoregistration via external OpenID identities
Tango icons and colors
- MidCOM now uses Tango icons and colors to provide a more graphical experience
New libraries available
- net.nemein.attention - APML handling and attention profiling library
- org.maemo.socialnews - Social news filtering and aggregation system
- org.openpsa.httplib - web querying and Microformat handling library
- org.routamc.statusmessage - Twitter and Jaiku microblogging and presence integration
- ...and many more. There are over 120 MidCOM components available in public

Requirements and installation

This release requires Midgard 1.8.6 or newer and PHP 5.0 or newer.

Database changes and package installations are automatically handled by Datagard.

Installation of MidCOM is outlined here:

http://www.midgard-project.org/documentation/installing-midcom-with-pear/

Upgrading

Upgrading from MidCOM 2.6 is outlined here:

http://www.midgard-project.org/documentation/upgrading_midcom_from_2-6_to_2-8/

Issue tracking

Please file your bug reports and enhancement requests in Midgard Trac:

http://trac.midgard-project.org/

More information

Tarjei Huse, maintainer
tarjei@nu.no

Henri Bergius, core developer
henri.bergius@iki.fi

Midgard-data 1.8.6.1 Hotfix package

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:10:12 +0000

1.8.6.1 hotfix, midgard-data package includes major bug fix which prevented Midgard database being correctly installed.

Get package now.

Midgard 1.8.6 "The First" released

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:27:52 +0000

Lodz, January 23rd 2008 -- The Midgard Project has released stable, 1.8.6 release version of the Midgard Open Source Content Management System.

Midgard 1.8.6 "The First" release includes major bugfixes and enchancements.

Read more about changes.

Midgard

Midgard is also language independent and due to its powerfull architecture is proved as stable, secure and flexible solution implemented in high range of environmental targets:

PHP, Python or Java applications
PHP extension
Python module
Apache module
GTK desktop applications
C++ applications.

Get started with Midgard 1.8 today

Midgard CMS provides a powerful toolkit for web publishing and building interactive web applications. The features include:

Comprehensive authoring tools
Website management
Multilingual support
User management and access control
Web development

Read more about features and learn how to create content.

Planned for next releases

First alpha release of 1.9 branch : 1Q2008
First Midgard2 alpha release : January / February 2008
Automated database MgdSchema management and table initialization
Deprecation of the classic functional Midgard API in favor of MgdSchema and Query Builder
Deprecation of repligard, apache1 and PHP4 support.
Integrated midgard-python and mono package
New, rewritten midgard-data package
PostgreSQL, SQLite and MS SQL support

Midgard resources

User and developers support:

Mailing list
- Users' forum
- Developers' forum
IRC: #midgard on irc.freenode.net

About Midgard

Piotr Pokora, Midgard release manager piotrek.pokora(at)gmail.com

Henri Bergius, Midgard spokesman henri.bergius(at)iki.fi

The Midgard Project http://www.midgard-project.org

Midgard 1.8.5 "Refix" released!

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:57:13 +0000

Lodz, December 12th 2007 -- The Midgard Project has released stable, 1.8.5
release version of the Midgard Open Source Content Management System.

Midgard 1.8.5 "Refix" release includes minor bugfixes and enchancements.

Read more about changes.

Midgard is a capable open source content management system for running
mid-to-high-end websites. In addition to the built-in content management
features, Midgard also provides a highly object-oriented component architecture
for building interactive web applications that integrate seamlessly with the
website.

Midgard provides unique technology so can be easily integrated with any kind of
environment. From web applications ( Midgard CMS with its component framework -
MidCOM ) to typical desktop ones ( Midgard Framework ). From personal blog to
corporate portals and intranets.

Midgard is also language independent and due to its powerfull architecture is
proved as stable, secure and flexible solution implemented in high range of
environmental targets:

PHP, Python or Java applications
PHP extension
Python module
Apache module
GTK desktop applications
C++ applications.

Midgard resources

Download page and changelog for latest release
Documentation
Bugs reporting

Midgard is going PHP5-only

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 08:05:50 +0000

The next planned release cycle of Midgard CMS, version 1.9 will drop support for version 4 of the PHP programming language. The reasons for this are that PHP5 provides better performance and that PHP4 has received an end of life status.

More information from a blog post by Henri Bergius:

This makes us free to focus on the PHP version (and other dependencies) that work best with our framework. Midgard core developer Piotras has estimated that some Midgard functionalities like Query Builder will be substantially faster on PHP5.

An important point also is that the PHP part of Midgard is MidCOM, a quite large object-oriented component framework. While MidCOM has been possible to develop on PHP4, new OOP features in PHP5 will make the code much easier to develop and understand.

Midgard 1.8.4 "kaft" released

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 11:52:03 +0000

Lodz, July 19th 2007 -- The Midgard Project has released stable, 1.8.4 release version of the Midgard Open Source Content Management System.

Midgard 1.8.4 release includes major bugfixes

Read more about changes.

Midgard

Midgard is also language independent and due to its powerfull architecture is proved as stable, secure and flexible solution implemented in high range of environmental targets:

PHP or Java applications
PHP extension
Apache module
GTK desktop applications
C++ applications.

Get started with Midgard 1.8 today

Midgard CMS provides a powerful toolkit for web publishing and building interactive web applications. The features include:

Comprehensive authoring tools
Website management
Multilingual support
User management and access control
Web development

Read more about features and learn how to create content.

Planned for next releases

First alpha release of 2.0 branch : Q4/2007
Automated database MgdSchema management and table initialization
Deprecation of the classic functional Midgard API in favor of MgdSchema and Query Builder
Deprecation of repligard, apache1 and PHP4 support.
Integrated midgard-java and mono package

Midgard resources

User and developers support:

Mailing list
- Users' forum
- Developers' forum
IRC: #midgard on irc.freenode.net

About Midgard

The Midgard Content Management Framework was initially released in May 1999, and has since gathered a sizable user and developer community. Midgard powers thousands of web sites ranging from simple organizational websites to major portals like New Zealand eGovernment site, Playbill or Maemo project.

Piotr Pokora, Midgard release manager piotrek.pokora(at)gmail.com

Henri Bergius, Midgard spokesman henri.bergius(at)iki.fi

The Midgard Project http://www.midgard-project.org

Midgard analyzed at Ohloh

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 05:46:16 +0000

Ohloh is a service that analyses code and contributions in various free software projects. Their analysis of Midgard is quite good:

Mostly written in PHP: (because MidCOM is majority of Midgard code)
Mature, well-established codebase: The first lines of source code were added to Midgard in 1999. This is a relatively long time for an open source project to stay active, and can be a very good sign.
Well-commented source code: Across all PHP projects on Ohloh, 10% of all source code lines are comments. For Midgard, this figure is 13%.
Codebase: 493,720 LOC
Estimated effort: 130 Person Years

Ohloh also offers a feature called "stacks" where users using a particular piece of software can say so and receive combined reports of the whole free software stack they're using. All Midgard users, please sign in and add Midgard to your stack!.

Note: Because of the repository rearrangements in Midgard currently Ohloh is not downloading the latest commits. This will hopefully change soon.

New project infrastructure for Midgard

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 11:58:22 +0000

Midgard Project's infrastructure was largely updated in the developer meeting held last weekend in Otaniemi, Finland.

Bug tracking and SVN browsing are now handled on trac.midgard-project.org
Version control is consolidated to svn.midgard-project.org
- MidCOM SVN is already moved
- Midgard CVS is currently frozen and will be moved tonight
Mailing lists are now managed in lists.midgard-project.org

Both Trac and SVN use regular Midgard Project accounts for authentication.

Mailing lists have been integrated with Midgard discussion forums so that messages sent via either will appear on both.

Enjoy!

Midgard 1.8.3 "Eight" released

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:18:34 +0000

Lodz, April 25th 2007 -- The Midgard Project has released stable, 1.8.3 release version of the Midgard Open Source Content Management System.

Midgard 1.8.3 release includes major bugfixes and replication framework enchancements.

Read more about changes.

Midgard

Midgard is also language independent and due to its powerfull architecture is proved as stable, secure and flexible solution implemented in high range of environmental targets:

PHP or Java applications
PHP extension
Apache module
GTK desktop applications
C++ applications.

Get started with Midgard 1.8 today

Midgard CMS provides a powerful toolkit for web publishing and building interactive web applications. The features include:

Comprehensive authoring tools
Website management
Multilingual support
User management and access control
Web development

Read more about features and learn how to create content.

Planned for next releases

First alpha release of 1.9 branch : June 2007
Automated database MgdSchema management and table initialization
Deprecation of the classic functional Midgard API in favor of MgdSchema and Query Builder
Deprecation of repligard and apache1 support.
Integrated midgard-java package

Midgard resources

User and developers support:

Mailing list
- Users' forum
- Developers' forum
IRC: #midgard on irc.freenode.net

About Midgard

Piotr Pokora, Midgard release manager piotrek.pokora(at)gmail.com

Henri Bergius, Midgard spokesman henri.bergius(at)iki.fi

The Midgard Project http://www.midgard-project.org

MidCOM 2.8.0beta1 released

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:48:50 +0000

Oslo, April 25th 2007 -- The Midgard Project has released beta version 2.8.0beta1 of MidCOM - the Midgard Components Framework.

MidCOM is the default Content Management interface in Midgard CMS, and provides developers a production-proven architecture for building new web applications. With the MidCOM framework PHP applications have powerful localization, configuration, style handling and data abstraction features.

Changes in this release

The MidCOM 2.8 series add full multilingual content support for Midgard sites, implement several performance enhancements and feature a new replication system.

MidCOM core

Added support for multilingual content serving based on host lang property

Moved topic component, style and style_inherit from parameters to properties for much better performance. Requires Midgard 1.8.1 or newer

Switched metadata system to utilize midgard_metadata properties

Added new midcom_collector wrapper to the MidCOM DBA

Enabled running MidCOM with Midgard legacy API disabled (as implemented in Midgard 1.8.3)

Enabled caching of component manifests to a single file

Changed cron configuration so that different cron runs are called separately

New and updated components

midcom.helper.datamanager2 - Enabled metadata editing

org.openpsa.notifications - Generalized the notification framework

no.odindata.quickform2 - Email form system using datamanager2

midcom.helper.replicator - Replication and staging/live environment

net.nemein.reservations - New user interface, support for repeating reservations

net.nemein.rss - Added support for importing GeoRSS information and Microformatted tags

de.linkm.sitemap - Added Google Sitemaps format support

org.routamc.statusmessage - Status message viewer with Jaiku and Twitter integration

net.nemein.wiki - Support for namespaces and new formatters

Requirements and installation

This release requires Midgard 1.8.3 or newer and PHP 4.3 or newer. Using PHP 5.2 or newer is recommended with MidCOM. This is the last MidCOM generation supporting PHP 4.

The MidCOM update can be done using the PEAR tools. PEAR installation of MidCOM is outlined here:

http://www.midgard-project.org/documentation/installing-midcom-with-pear

Upgrading from MidCOM 2.6 series

Information on upgrading sites to MidCOM 2.8 series is available in:

http://www.midgard-project.org/documentation/upgrading_midcom_from_2-6_to_2-8

More information

Tarjei Huse, maintainer
tarjei@nu.no

Henri Bergius, core developer
henri.bergius@iki.fi

Midgard developer meeting in Finland, June 1st - 3rd 2007

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 08:29:29 +0000

The next Midgard developer meeting will be arranged in Helsinki, Finland on June 1st - 3rd 2007.

More information:

http://www.midgard-project.org/community/events/midgard_developer_meeting.html

midgard-core 1.8.2.2 hotfix package

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:13:13 +0000

Midgard-core 1.8.2.2 hotfix package includes major multilingual fix.

Get package.

All packages are built again with 1.8.2.2 version number , due to the fact all of them were lost during server migration.

It's enough to download and install only midgard-core package if you already have midgard 1.8.2 installed.

Welcome to the new server

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 14:53:59 +0000

Midgard Project has now a new community server.

Welcome to the new Midgard Project server! The server has been donated by Nemein and Ware.it, and is hosted at Anykey, Sweden.

midgard-php 1.8.2.1 hotfix package

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:42:27 +0000

midgard-php 1.8.2.1 package includes midgard_attachment fix.

Available at download page.

midgard-core 1.8.2.1 hotfix package

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 13:49:16 +0000

Midgard-core hotfix package ( 1.8.2.1 ) has been uploaded and it available on downloads page.

This package IS NOT included in AllInOne tarball. It contains fix in mgd_config_init function which authenticates Midgard person only when username and password are defined in unified configuration file.

This hotfix is adressed only for setups which update Midgard tempates via PEAR packages.

MidCOM 2.6.2 released

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 14:28:25 +0000

Espoo, February 2nd 2007 -- The Midgard Project has released version 2.6.2 of MidCOM - the Midgard Components Framework.

Changes in this release

This release is mostly a bugfix release that improves compatibility with the Midgard 1.8 series .

MidCOM core

Midgard 1.8 metadata datetimes are now exposed as timestamps on PHP level

metadata.published datetime is automatically set with Midgard 1.8 when creating new objects

Toolbar and login screen CSS are now improved for IE 7

ACL privilege editing has been fixed on Midgard 1.8

Components

Persons in contact lists can be arranged manually in net.nemein.personnel

Rearranging folders and articles in navigation no longer loses approval state

Components of existing folders can be changed in midcom.admin.folder

Broken feeds are now mostly ignored by the net.nemein.rss aggregator

Event registrations can be handled using a fallback schema if not specified otherwise in net.nemein.registrations

TinyMCE in midcom.helper.datamanager2 was upgraded to 2.0.9

Requirements and installation

This release requires Midgard 1.7.6 or newer and PHP 4.3 or newer.

The MidCOM update can be done using the PEAR tools. PEAR installation of MidCOM is outlined here:

http://www.midgard-project.org/documentation/installing-midcom-with-pear

Issue tracking

Please file your bug reports and enhancement requests in the Midgard Gforge issue tracker:

http://gforge.nehmer.net/tracker/?group_id=6

More information

Tarjei Huse, maintainer
tarjei@nu.no

Henri Bergius, core developer
henri.bergius@iki.fi

Midgard 1.8.2 "Hoitsu" released

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:55:12 +0000

Lodz, January 30th 2007 -- The Midgard Project has released stable, 1.8.2 release version of the Midgard Open Source Content Management System.

Midgard 1.8.2 release includes major bugfixes and replication framework enchancements:

Improved replication API
Major sitegroup and multilang fixes
Major stability fixes for PHP5 bindings

Read more about changes.

Midgard

Midgard is also language independent and due to its powerfull architecture is proved as stable, secure and flexible solution implemented in high range of environmental targets:

PHP or Java applications
PHP extension
Apache module
GTK desktop applications
C++ applications.

Get started with Midgard 1.8 today

Midgard CMS provides a powerful toolkit for web publishing and building interactive web applications. The features include:

Comprehensive authoring tools
Website management
Multilingual support
User management and access control
Web development

Read more about features and learn how to create content.

Planned for next releases

First alpha release of 1.9 branch : March 2007
Automated database MgdSchema management and table initialization
Deprecation of the classic functional Midgard API in favor of MgdSchema and Query Builder
Deprecation of repligard and apache1 support.
Integrated midgard-java package

Midgard resources

User and developers support:

Mailing list
- Users' forum
- Developers' forum
IRC: #midgard on irc.freenode.net

About Midgard

Piotr Pokora, Midgard release manager piotrek.pokora(at)gmail.com

Henri Bergius, Midgard spokesman henri.bergius(at)iki.fi

The Midgard Project http://www.midgard-project.org

Midgard in 2007: the year of the web developer

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 09:03:04 +0000

Henri Bergius has posted some Midgard plans for the year 2007 :

Software-wise, 2005 and 2006 have been good years for Midgard. MidCOM established itself as the default way of building things and became a lot faster and user-friendly. Developers got cool new tools like Query Builder, Collector and MgdSchema. We also integrated with external packages like Squid for content caching, Lucene for full-text search and Funambol for mobile device synchronization. Geographic awareness and Microformats integration also add interesting possibilities to the system.

However, community-wise I feel we also lost something. These new functionalities have mostly been gained at the expense of the installation becoming more difficult and the system harder to understand. And as the learning curve becomes steeper, new users and developers may pick some less powerful CMS instead of Midgard as their choice.

In 2007 I think we should focus on this problem: Making Midgard more accessible to the normal web developer.