5.3 Release Notes

Meet the future eZ Pl= atform

27th= May 2014

eZ Publish= Platform 5.3 offers large improv= ements of the future proof Symfony based "Platform stack", as well as a sta= ble foundation to upgrade legacy (4.x) to with it's 3+2 years LTS (Long term supported) release with much improved integratio= ns and documentation.
<= /span>

The main theme of 5.3 has b= een to complete the integration with the Symfony ecosystem, embracing stand= ard components making the transition from Symfony development to eZ develop= ment a lot easier, while also providing more features eZ developers have tr= aditionally been used to.

F= rom 5.3 on, while it is still possible to use the legacy stack and templati= ng system, we think using the "Platform stack" (previously referred as "N= ew/Symfony/6.x") and the S= ymfony framework is the main way to go. This will be the foundation for the= future eZ Platf= orm where it will operate without dependencies on the legacy stack.

Quick links

5.3 Features

5.3 introduces several new features which makes it easier to use, faster= to develop on and also continues to improve performance.

Doctrine DBAL = / DoctrineBundle use

eZ Publish 5.3 now uses Doctrine DBAL instead of Zeta Components Databas= e. This allows users to reuse database connection and settings with other p= ure Symfony2 bundles which uses Doctrine ORM (default choice in Symfony2 do= cumentation and code generators).

Documentation:
- Content Repos= itory configuration
- Upgrade documentation
Implementation details: Original JIRA issue, Doctri= neBundle integration pull-request, Legacy storage engine refactoring pull-request, = Legacy storage engine refactoring pull-request

User authentication using Symfony security component

New login / logout functionality that uses Symfony's authenticatio= n system. This enables any kind of login handler or SSO handler made for Sy= mfony to also work with eZ Publish 5., including handlers for LDAP.<= /p>

Documentation:
- Authentication with Symfony
- How to authenticate a user with multiple user providers
Implementation details: Original issue, Original pull request, Multiple = user providers issue, Multiple user pr= oviders pull request

Full Composer support
With 5.3 there is no longer two ways to deal with updates. Now it is onl= y composer updates also for eZ Publish related software.

Documentation: Using Composer, 5.3.1 Release Notes,&n= bsp;5.3.2 Release Notes

Legacy SSO support

Allows use of existing legacy SSO handlers with the new user login syste= m in 5.3 which is powered by Symfony.

Documentation: Authentication with Legacy SSO Handlers<= /a>

Implementation details: Original issue, Original pull request

Content Preview using "eZ Platform" stack

With 5.3 your content previewing needs, also from the current lega= cy based admin interface will run on the new "eZ Platform" stack, a= voiding that you need to also create all templates in legacy to be able to = preview correctly.

Implementation details: Original Issue<= /a>, Original pull request

Solr 4.x support= in eZ Find and API

Preview of Solr 4.x support in API and bundled Solr 4.7.0 support for ez= find allows for use of new functionality provided by Solr 4.x such as impro= ved performance for indexing and new options like soft commit to control th= is.

eZ Find:
- Documentation: What is new in eZ Find LS 5.3.0= ?
- Implementation details: Original pull = request
Technology preview of Solr search in API

Documentation: = Solr Search Engine Bundle introduced in 5.4.5-beta1

Ubuntu 14.04 support

As announced in a recent blog post=20 "5.3 to come with broader platform support and improved pe= rformance", we have added support for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, including full = support for MySQL 5.6, MariaDB 5.5, Nginx 1.4, Apache 2.4 and PHP 5.5

Documentation: Requirements 5= .3

Twig & Tpl Template debug = in Symfony Web debug Toolbar

Developer feature known from leg= acy which allows you to see which templates are used on a page, how many ti= mes and how much time they spend being executed.

Documentation: Templates informations in Web Debug Toolbar

Implementation details: Original issue, Original pull request

Admin Interf= ace: Comment moderation

Following the Comments integration added in 5.2 we have in this release exposed this also in backend as = a tab per content, allowing you to easily get access to Disqus moderation p= er content within backend of eZ Publish.

Documentation: Comments Tab

Language Switcher

The language switcher is built on the Symfony stack and is improved for = a simpler usage.

Documentation: Language Swit= cher
Implementation details: Original issue, Original pull request

Location Search API

Tree based "fetches" are now allowed b= e performed with the new Location Search API, allowing generat= ion of tree structures much more easily by returning the location instead o= f content, as done by existing Content Search API, and by applying any loca= tion filters on the specific location instead of any of the locati= ons of a Content object.

Documentation: Working with Locations
Implementation details: Original issue ,Original pull request

REST API v2 improvement= s

HTTP Cache aware, CORS support and support for OPTIONS method.

Documentation: REST API v2
Implementation details: Issue for HTTP Cache aware, <= a href=3D"https://jira.ez.no/browse/EZP-21118" class=3D"external-link" rel= =3D"nofollow">Issue for CORS support, Issue for REST OPTI= ONS, Pull request for HTTP Cache aware= , Pull request for CORS support, <= a href=3D"https://github.com/ezsystems/ezpublish-kernel/pull/653" class=3D"= external-link" rel=3D"nofollow">Pull request for OPTIONS

Search API support for MapLocation Criterion and SortClause

Search API is now able to search for content with geolocation making it = possible to do geolocation range searches and sorting by distance from a po= int; on Demo site this is shown using a restaurants-close-to-you page.

Documentation: 2. Br= owsing, finding, viewing#2.Browsing,finding,viewing-Search
Implementation details: Original issue, Original pull requ= est

Legacy extensions i= n bundles

With this new feature mixing legacy and "eZ Platform" needs has become a= whole lot easier. Easily said it allows you to place legacy extensions wit= hin a Bundle structure and eZ Publish 5.3+ will make sure it is injected in= to legacy kernel.

Example use case: CommentsBundle with a light admin tab in legacy allowi= ng you to moderate comments.

Documentation: Legacy code and features - Legacybundles<= /li>
Implementation details: Original issue, Original pull request

Legacy Website Toolbar
Not to be mixed with the Web Debug Toolbar provided by Symfony and exten= ded by eZ Publish, this feature is about allowing "ezwt" (Website Toolbar) = extension to also work in DemoBundle to provide the front-end editing funct= ionality that you know from 4.x.

Documentation: = Display the eZ Website Toolbar

Implementation details: Original JIRA Issue, Original pull request

Demo Site: Places

Taking advantage of the MapLocation feature a new feature is exposed in = the demo showing how to implement listing and map views of content using th= e maplocation field.

Documentation: The M= apLocation FieldType
Implementation details: Original issue, Original pull req= uest

Other Improvements

Lazy services (issue, pull request, symfony documentation)
Configurable IndexPage (issue, pull request, document= ation)
ez_is_field_empty, updated to support passing field = object as second parameter.

5.3 Contributors

For 5.3 we want to reach out a special thank you to those that have cont= ributed to this release, especially the brave few who have helped out on th= e "eZ Platform stack":

And our two students over this period which has helped on all aspects of= Platform stack:

In addition ezpublish-legacy is still receiving a lot of pull requests, = the also brave contributions to this part of the release can be found here.

5.3.0 Full Changelog

For the full 5.3 changelog please refer to the 5.3.0 Changelog dedicated page.

5.3 Known issues

The complete list of know issues is available in the 5.3 Known issues page.