GroupServer 11.04 — Slushy Followed by a Pounding Headache

Authors:Michael JasonSmith; Richard Waid; Dan Randow
Contact:Michael JasonSmith <mpj17@onlinegroups.net>
Date:2011-04-29
Organization:GroupServer.org
Copyright:This document is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License by OnlineGroups.Net.

The Slushy release of GroupServer contains two main enhancements. You can get Slushy immediately. Work is now starting on GroupServer 11.05 — Eskimo Pie with Middle-Class Guilt.

Enhancements

The two main enhancements to GroupServer are

There are also some minor fixes.

Hide a Post

The most significant change to GroupServer is the introduction of an interface to allow posts to be hidden [1]. Both administrators and the author of the post can hide it. People trying to view the post, by itself or in a topic, will see the reason the post was hidden instead of the message. Anyone trying to view a file or image that was added as part of the post will see an error-page that states why the post was hidden.

Full Email Addresses

Prior to Slushy GroupServer would only accept the portion of an email address with an @ in it — such as support@onlinegroups.net. Now the Invite a New Member page can handle the full address. This address can include a name, such as "OnlineGroups.Net Support" <support@onlinegroups.net> [2]. Other pages will be converted to support full addresses over time.

Minor Fixes

Minor fixes in Slushy include

  • A fix to the Join and Leave Log so it now uses jQuery UI tabs [3],
  • A fix to the view link in the content editor so it works [4], and
  • Resolving an error with the Change Email Settings page that occurred when someone had no preferred email address set [5].

Get Slushy

To get Slushy go to the Downloads page for GroupServer and follow the GroupServer Installation documentation.

Those who already have a functioning installation can update an existing GroupServer system.

Update an Existing GroupServer System

To upgrade an existing GroupServer system to Slushy you must first update the database and then update the packages.

Update the Database

The hide a post update requires a change to the database tables that are uses to record information about topics and posts. It also requires the creation of a new table to record information about why posts have been hidden.

Too update the database carry out the following steps.

  1. Log into the PostgreSQL database used GroupServer by using the following command:

    $ psql -Upgsql_user pgsql_dbname
    

    Note that pgsql_user and pgsql_dbname are the database user and database name that was setup during installation. Both can be found in the instance.cfg file in the installation directory of GroupServer.

  2. Run the following SQL to update the post and topic tables:

    ALTER TABLE topic ADD COLUMN hidden TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE;
    ALTER TABLE post ADD COLUMN hidden TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE;
    
  3. Finally, create the hidden post table by running the following SQL commands:

    CREATE TABLE hidden_post (
      post_id       TEXT REFERENCES post ON UPDATE CASCADE,
      date_hidden   TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE NOT NULL,
      hiding_user   TEXT NOT NULL,
      reason        TEXT
    );
    CREATE UNIQUE INDEX hidden_post_pkey
      ON hidden_post
      USING BTREE(post_id, date_hidden);
    

Update the Packages

Carry out the following steps to update the package versions.

  1. Download the Pineapple Snow tar-ball from the GroupServer download page

  2. Uncompress the tar-ball.

  3. Copy the file groupserver-11.04/versions.cfg to your existing GroupServer installation.

  4. In your existing GroupServer installation run:

    $ ./bin/buildout -N
    
[1]The new Hide a Post interface closes Ticket 316 and many minor tickets that were related to hiding a post.
[2]Support a full email address closes Ticket 445.
[3]Switching the Join and Leave Log to use tabs from jQuery.UI closes Ticket 641.
[5]Fixing the coding error on with the Change Email Settings page closes Ticket 660