All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

Bricolage 1.4.0 Escapes

chip on 2002-09-03T23:57:23

Theory writes "Bricolage 1.4.0 has finally escaped the shackles of its CVS repository! ... Bricolage is a full-featured, enterprise-class content management and publishing system. It offers a browser-based interface for ease-of use, a full-fledged templating system with complete programming language support for flexibility, and many other features (see below). It operates in an Apache/mod_perl environment, and uses the PostgreSQL RDBMS for its repository."

Make sure your children are safe, because Bricolage 1.4.0 has finally escaped the shackles of its CVS repository to wreak havoc across the landscape of competing enterprise CMSs!

Ahem. In other words, the Bricolage team would like to announce the release of Bricolage 1.4.0. This is the first new stable release of Bricolage since the release of version 1.2.3 in March, and the first major release since 1.2.0 in January.

Bricolage is a full-featured, enterprise-class content management and publishing system. It offers a browser-based interface for ease-of use, a full-fledged templating system with complete programming language support for flexibility, and many other features (see below). It operates in an Apache/mod_perl environment, and uses the PostgreSQL RDBMS for its repository.

For a complete list of the changes, see Bric::Changes. Learn more about Bricolage and download it from the Bricolage home page.

Here's a sampling of the major new features in version 1.4.0:

  • An integrated SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) server, which offers a convenient interface for importing and exporting content, as well as for mass-publishing content.
  • Simplified installation via an included Makefile and related scripts that check for dependencies, build the database, and install all the required libraries, components, and programs.
  • Content distribution via FTP and SFTP, in addition to the existing file system copy methods.
  • System-wide customization of the URIs the Bricolage builds for content.
  • Improved tracking of the publish status of content, easing the identification of what needs to be published and what doesn't.
  • Search result paging. A new system-wide preference allows those manager screens that display a lot of objects to paginate those results over a series of pages.
  • Improved performance of the keyword system, the category system, the group system, the publishing system, and caching.
  • A new interface for managing media types (a.k.a., MIME types) so that Bricolage can better identify the types of media files it manages.
  • Support for Apache-SSL in addition to the existing support for mod_ssl.
  • Simplified configuration system, with support for manual configuration where desired.
  • System cloning. Bricolage installations can now be cloned, complete with all data stored in the RDBMS, and converted into a distribution tarball. This simplifies the creation of packages for installing customized copies of Bricolage.
  • The ability to use Bricolage with or without SSL support on arbitrary ports.
  • Support for Mac OS X.
  • Over 90 bug fixes.

Enjoy!

--The Bricolage Team"

Interesting, but ...

Ovid on 2002-09-04T14:56:25

Bricolage looks very interesting. However, if I were to get my employer to even consider using someone else's content management system rather than forcing me to spin my wheels writing my own, Bricologe would never be considered because we use Template Toolkit. Are there plans to incorporate this at some point in the future? While I realize this would be a lot of work, I can see it also being considerably more attractive to many.

Re:Interesting, but ...

m2 on 2002-09-04T16:14:05

Have you looked at OpenInteract? SPOPS alone makes it worth the time, and it uses TT2. It's not a CMS though.

Re:Interesting, but ...

samtregar on 2002-09-04T16:45:19

Bricolage has an plug-in architecture for templating systems called "burners". There are burners written for HTML::Mason and HTML::Template. Adding a new burner is a simple matter of sub-classing Bric::Util::Burner and filling in a few methods. Check out the full details here.

-sam

Re:Interesting, but ...

ignatz on 2002-09-04T17:57:18

A very cool feature BTW.

Congrats to everyone on the release. I was really pleased to hear that Bricolage survived all the chaos.

Re:Interesting, but ...

ajtaylor on 2002-09-05T15:32:38

And I stole the "burner" idea for use here at work. We have some "legacy" code that uses TT, but the new standard is HTML::Template. I wanted an easy way to support both, and a burner is the perfect solution. Now I don't have to rewrite my old code, and my boss is happy about new code. And to top it off, it's much simpler to use ANY sort of template now. :-)

Re:Interesting, but ...

Theory on 2002-09-05T19:49:53

Hmmm...maybe you'd like to patch Bricolage to support TT? :-)

David

Re:Interesting, but ...

ajtaylor on 2002-09-06T17:13:21

I've thought about it when I first installed Bric for my personal pleasure, and with the link someone supplied it now seems like less of a herculean task. Is there a quick start guide or a demo setup so I can get an idea of actual use of the system? I admit I was put off by all the work & time I'd need to get a few templates, media, and elements setup just to play with it properly.

Now I just need to get my personal server up again, and Bricolage 1.4.0 installed, and finish unpacking from my move, and find time to spend with my wife... So many things to do, and so little time. :-(

Doesn't work on FreeBSD

bhann on 2002-09-05T17:58:34

Bricolage uses Text::Iconv for character set conversion and that does not work on FreeBSD.

I get this error: /usr/libexec/ld-elf.so.1: /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/i386-freebsd-thread-multi/auto/Text/Iconv/I conv.so: Undefined symbol "iconv_open"

I'd love to try it, maybe I can get a Redhat box up or something. Would it be possible to remove need for Text::Iconv in the future? Thanks.

Re:Doesn't work on FreeBSD

Theory on 2002-09-05T19:48:44

Did you read README.FreeBSD? You need to install libiconv and then edit Text::Iconv's Makefile.PL. All the details are here.



David

Re:Doesn't work on FreeBSD

bhann on 2002-09-05T21:38:40

Ah, I was still working on my installation of 1.2.3, which did not have a README.FreeBSD file.

Still having some problems so I'll try 1.4.0. Thanks for the heads up.

Brian