MySource Matrix Developer

MySource Matrix Developer Newsletter Issue 11
Friday 18th February 2005

covers versions 3.2.2 stable, 3.4.0 RC1, 3.5.0 development

News

New Newsletter Section

I have added a short new upgrade section to this newsletter that will let everyone know what they need to do to upgrade their MySource Matrix systems each week. This should create a history of changes so monthly upgrade scripts can be compiled more easily.

New Attribute Type

Developers wishing to provide an interface for entering a time period now have the ability to use the new Duration attribute. The Duration attribute provides and interface where the user can enter a duration containing years, days, hours, minutes and seconds. The value is stored internally as a number of seconds.

New Features

Asset Map Re-development

Added to: 3.5.0 development

Many changes have been made to the asset map to improve usability for larger systems and to fix some of the bugs that existed. The main new features are multiple tree support, undockable views, multiple move/clone/link and a new explorer-like view called the Inspector.

Triggers

Added to: 3.5.0 development

A triggering system has been added to MySource Matrix to help users complete repetitive task and to enforce system wide business rules. For example, you can configure a trigger in the system so that when Image assets are created under your site, they are automatically resized to 3 size variations, and added to the Media Folder.

Once installed, make sure you enable triggers on the Details screen of the Trigger Manager if you want to use them.

Multiple Asset Listing Views

Added to: 3.5.0 development

Last week I reported that the Asset Listing would get multiple listing views to help with creating image galleries and other multi view listings. The plan was to allow the configuration of these different views in the one Asset Listing asset, but this was considered to be too complicated to configure and build. Instead, this functionality has been achieved through the use of additional Asset Listing keywords that can help the Asset Listing communicate with other Asset Listing assets.

The example used last week was that you could use multiple listing views to create an image gallery where you start by viewing 10 thumbnails per page, but clicking on a thumbnail switches to one large image per page with the clicked image selected. This can be achieved using the new keywords by creating 2 Asset Listings and configuring 1 to display 10 thumbnails per page, and the other to disaplay one large image per page. You can then use the new keywords to produce a URL in the 10 per page Asset Listing that will pass enough data to the 1 per page Asset Listing to create the correct view. Your type format bodycopy could contain the following code to produce this (the assetid of the 1 per page listing is 234):

<a href="http://delta.squiz.net/matrix/developer/tools/snoopy/quick-start?root=&result_page=" target="_blank"></a>

Asset Status Report

Added to: 3.5.0 development

A new report has been added to MySource Matrix that allows you to list assets who's status has not changed for a defined period of time. For example, you could create a report to list the assets who have been Live for over 1 month without being reviewed. You could also create a report to list the assets that have been in workflow for over 1 week (ie. they have been pending approval for over 1 week). The report asset expands in the asset map to allow you to quickly access the assets contained within the report.

Increased Report Asset Functionality

Added to: 3.5.0 development

All report assets in the system now have the ability to show a list of assets under them in the asset map, like the Search Folder does. The existing report assets have been changed to use this new functionality to make reporting easier. The broken links report now expands to list the assets contained within the report under it. The missing metadata report also expands to show those assets that have incomplete metadata.

Due to changes in the XML report format, you will need to regenerate all your reports.

Planned Development

Batching Trigger Actions

To be added to : 3.5.0 development
Estimated start date: 21st Feb 2005
Estimated end date : 25th Feb 2005

Following on from the new triggering system, a feature will be developed to allow you to execute trigger actions on a large number of assets. Essentially, you ask the triggering system to pretend that a trigger has been fired so that all assets that would normally be modified have the trigger actions applied to them.

You may wish to use this if you have a trigger that creates 3 size variations for every image uploaded to the system, but you now want to apply another size variation to images. Instead of manually creating the size variation for each image asset, you would modify the trigger and then batch process it. The trigger will then add the size variation to each image for you, as if the image had just been created.

Domain Crossing Sessions

To be added to : 3.5.0 development
Estimated start date: already in development
Estimated end date : 23rd Feb 2005

Group Ip Restrictions

To be added to : 3.5.0 development
Estimated start date: 21st Feb 2005
Estimated end date : 25th Feb 2005

Upgrading

3.5.0 Development

Run step_02.php: yes
Run step_03.php: yes

Additional queries: ALTER TABLE sq_ast ADD COLUMN status_changed timestamp; ALTER TABLE sq_ast ADD COLUMN status_changed_userid VARCHAR(255); ALTER TABLE sq_rb_ast ADD COLUMN status_changed timestamp; ALTER TABLE sq_rb_ast ADD COLUMN status_changed_userid VARCHAR(255);

Additional comments: Run "php scripts/upgrade_design_lookup.php ." You will need to regenerate all Broken Links and Missing Metadata report assets

New Bugs Added To Bug Tracker

Notes:

Bug #465 (Future Pub Product date=0) was submitted by Future_Publishing but was a feature request for a Future Publishing asset and should not be added to the bug tracker. Can all bugs and feature requests for Future Publishing please be reported privately.

Bug #468 (Form file upload doesn't work) was submitted by Avi, but was found to not be a bug. The create location for the file upload questions had not been set. However, some additional checks were added to the form question for better error reporting.

Bug #473 (Changing a content_type's properties should auto-submit the form) was submitted by Tom, but will not be fixed. This functionality was changed during the MySource Classic development because users complained that they had to commit too many times to perform content editing actions. For this reason, the control row of the cell turns blue to indicate that you have unsaved changes. You can change many content area properties at once and then commit.

New Feature Requests Added To Bug Tracker

Bugs Fixed In The Bug Tracker

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