New kernel features

One of the main new kernel features is the new cluster file handler, which can be used with distributed filesystems such as NFS, RedHat GFS and more.
There is also improved LDAP support and full PHP 5.3 compatibility.

Extensions

The updated extensions eZ Online Editor 5.0.4, which is based on TinyMCE and eZ OpenOffice.org 2.4.0 are bundled in this eZ Publish 4.2 download.

This eZ Publish release also provides better integration between eZ Flow and the standard eZ Publish Administration Interface. The new release of eZ Flow 2.0 offers many pre-made blocks to simplify the editing of your front-end and other aggregating pages. These blocks include a Feeds block which allows you to show RSS feeds from an external source, a Google Map block to add locations and maps to your site and an Ajax based Online User block. Also a "related objects view" has been integrated in order for you to display at the bottom of any published content all recent content objects which relate to the content currently viewed. This allows you to maximise the user experience by guiding your visitor to and through your information.

Besides an updated version of eZ Website Interface (1.5.0) and eZ Flow (2.0), some other useful extensions can also be added. One of these extensions is eZ Website Toolbar (1.1.0), which contains the Website Toolbar separate from eZ Website Interface. This convenient extension enables editors to edit, move, delete, copy and add content whilst browsing the front-end of an eZ Publish website.

The eZ JS Core (1.0.0) extension provides a base library for client side Javascript and Ajax functions. It allows for easier client / server integrations and includes tools for on demand script / css loading and json / xml encoding content.

Implemented on top of eZ JS Core is the rating extension eZ Star Rating (1.0). Based on a contribution by Bruce Morrison, eZ Star Rating enables users to rate your eZ Publish content. By means of a dedicated datatype, users are can give a rating ranging from 1 to 5 stars. This extension contains images and CSS from Komodo.

Shown above is the view of eZ Star Rating after a user has rated, the view while he is hovering over the stars in order to rate and the detail of a view in the Administration Interface.

Using Google Maps on your site can be achieved with the eZ Google Maps Location (1.0) extension, contributed by Joe Kepley. Besides showing selected maps on your site, users can also quickly search for maps by specifying an address, a state, or any other location specific setting. This extension provides a Google Maps Location datatype which allows for storage of latitude and longitude values and uses Google Maps as an entry method.

Other available extensions related to eZ Publish 4.2 are eZ Find 2.1, eZ SI 1.2.0 and eZ Survey 2.1.

The eZ Find 2.1 extension uses search server Solr and has some great features which will enhance the search functionality of your eZ Publish installation. Besides providing relevant search results through tunable relevancy ranking, the new Elevate Component feature allows you to ensure that preferred content is returned first when searching specific keywords and thus letting you "sponsor" certain links. With the “More Like This” functionality your eZ Find backend can provide similar objects or pages relating to your search as shown below.

After preforming any search query your users can also drill down into the results because the initial search is returned in relevant categories. So when users start off with a vague idea of what they are looking for, they can limit the search results by selecting the right categories.These are only a few of the many great features in eZ Find 2.1. Overall, eZ Find 2.1 enables website visitors to quickly and easily locate information on eZ Publish sites, and if customized to do so, simultaneously search other sites as well.

For more information regarding eZ Find 2.1 visit http://ez.no/doc/extensions/ez_find/2_1

Creating and managing surveys is a straight forward task with the use of eZ Survey 2.1. Its purpose is to create and publish surveys in a similar way as you would publish articles, folders, images, etc... This extension comes with its own survey datatype. Amongst other things you can specify language, the length of time you would like your survey to be active for, if more than one answer is allowed and if users are able to edit the survey later. Furthermore you will be able to add specific eZ Survey attributes to customize your survey, so that users can for example give a score, add text or answer multiple choice questions. And once you have results you can export them as csv-files, statistics, etc... allowing easy maintenance of your surveys. On your website you can place surveys much like this:

Managing you surveys in your Administrator Interface might look like this:

Form more information regarding eZ Survey 2.1 visit http://ez.no/doc/extensions/ez_survey

Requirements

The minimum requirements for eZ Publish 4.2 are eZ Components 2009.1 (For more information check out http://ezcomponents.org/docs/install) and PHP version 5.2.x (with the exception of PHP 5.2.9) although PHP version 5.3 is also compatible. To further check for system requirements visit http://ez.no/ezpublish/requirements.

Changes and backwards compatibility

INI setting changes

image.ini[AnimatedGIF]DisallowedFilters[] defaults to emptyAllowedFilters[] defaults to geometry/*
This change is to ensure that animated GIFs can be resized using default settings.

Change of behaviour

• eZLDAPUser::loginUserldap.ini setting LDAPFollowReferrals is introduced and set to 0 by default as LDAP code did not work with most AD setups. LDAP_OPT_REFERRALS was earlier not set at all, thus enabled.User / ForgotpasswordLinks in the mail generated by the user/forgotpasswordmail.tpl template will no longer have the hostname pre-pended to them. This must be handled in the template. The change was done in order to be consistent with other emails sent by eZ Publish.

• The wildcard cache files (var/xxx/cache/wildcard/wildcard_<md5>_xxx.php) used to contain callback functions. They now contain PHP arrays like most other caches. Naming remains completely the same.
• API consolidation: all classes of eZURLWildcard now have a proper visibility. Lots of them have been made protected.
• Public methods: eZURLWildcard, definition, asArray, store, removeAll, removeByIDs, fetch, fetchBySourceURL, fetchList, fetchListCount, translate, expireCache, fetchCacheFile (callback for the cluster handler).
  Signatures for the public methods haven't changed.

• An HTTP 1.1 500 error will be thrown when a fatal error occurs.

• Administration interface pagelayout.tpl

  Included automatically left menu template for the default_navigation_part
  ez $part_name navigationpart => parts/$part_name/menu.tpl requires to
  have right template in place. This is required for module views which has
  default_navigation_part defined. Ref. to the enhancement request # 14654.

Removed features

The deprecated form module has been removed.

Renamed methodes

eZSoapRequest::namespace() -> eZSoapRequest::ns()

Renamed for php 5.3 support, see issue #13825

Changelogs and resolved Issues

• The full changelog since eZ Publish 4.1.0
• The incremental changelogs since eZ Publish 4.1.0

Download eZ Publish 4.2

Download eZ Publish 4.2 and its extensions here

For more information regarding upgrading to eZ Publish 4.2, check out the following link: http://ez.no/doc/ez_publish/upgrading/upgrading_to_4_2