GroupServer 11.06 — Soft Serve from Mr Whippy

Authors:Michael JasonSmith; Richard Waid; Dan Randow
Contact:Michael JasonSmith <mpj17@onlinegroups.net>
Date:2011-07-04
Organization:GroupServer.org
Copyright:This document is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License by OnlineGroups.Net.

Introduction

The two main updates to GroupServer that are present in the Soft Serve release are an update to the code that determines if someone can post, and a rebuild of the site administration pages. In addition there are other minor fixes that have been made. You can get Soft Serve immediately. Work is now starting on GroupServer 11.07 — Frozen Yoghurt Accompanied by Carols.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Le Coyote and DJS for their very helpful suggestions, and testing early releases of Soft Serve.

Can Post

When someone posts to a group the system checks to see if the user has the correct permissions. The code that does this is known as the can post code. In Soft Serve this code has undergone two main changes.

  1. Email addresses can be blocked from posting [1]. This mechanism, known as blacklisting, extends the existing system that prevented addresses on the black-list from receiving posts. There is no user-interface for this system.
  2. The code has been moved to its own product [2].

Site Administration Pages

The site-administration pages did not work well. All the site administration pages have been updated [3]. In particular, the pages that allow an administrator to set the site timezone [4] and change the site name [5] have been fixed so they work correctly.

Minor Fixes

Minor fixes in Soft Serve include the following.

  • If a member with a single unverified address resets a password then that address will become verified [6].
  • The Reply-to address of an invitation is now set to the address of the administrator who issued the invitation [7].
  • Only posting members of an announcement group are shown a link to start a topic [8].
  • The name of the initial GroupServer instance and GroupServer site have been changed [9].
  • A coding error with the Members page has been fixed [10].

Get Soft Serve

To get Soft Serve 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 Soft Serve you must first update the packages and then update the ZMI.

Update the Packages

Carry out the following steps to update the package versions.

  1. Download the Soft Serve tar-ball from the GroupServer download page.

  2. Uncompress the tar-ball.

  3. Copy the file groupserver-11.06/versions.cfg to your existing GroupServer installation.

  4. Copy the file groupserver-11.06/buildout.cfg to your existing GroupServer installation.

  5. In your existing GroupServer installation run:

    $ ./bin/buildout
    

Update the ZMI

The update to the site administration pages requires an instance to be deleted from the Zope Management Interface (ZMI) before it will work. To delete the instance carry out to the following tasks.

  1. Start GroupServer:

    $ ./bin/instance fg
    
  2. View the ZMI. If you did not change the defaults the ZMI can be accessed from <http://localhost:8080/manage/>.

  3. Enter the user-name and password of the ZMI administrator.

  4. Visit the ZMI page for the Example Site. This should be under example, Content, example_site.

  5. Select the check-box next to admindivision (Administer Site).

  6. Click the Delete button. The adminidivision instance should be deleted.

After deleting the admindivision instance you should be able to view the new site administration pages. To view these pages you must view the homepage for your site and click on the link to administer the site.

Footnotes

[1]Adding the code for blocking a post closed Ticket 459. This enhancement mostly helps Support groups, which otherwise lack a way to prevent people from posting.
[2]There is a long-running project to move code from the large Products eggs to many more smaller gs eggs. The move of the Can Post code to gs.group.member.canpost from the old Products.GSGroupMember is part of this. Moving the code closes Ticket 423.
[3]Updating the site administration pages closes Ticket 620.
[4]Updating the site-timezone page closes Ticket 662.
[5]Updating the page that allows a site-name to be changed closes Ticket 607.
[6]Only the simple case of a single-address being verified is currently handled. Verifying an email address when the password is reset closes Ticket 480.
[7]Prior to Soft Serve, the Reply-to address was set to the email address of the site support. Setting the Reply-to to the address of the administrator that issued the invitation closes Ticket 681.
[8]In an announcement group there is a distinction between group members that post (posting members) and members that just view posts (normal members). Prior to Soft Serve all group members saw the link on the homepage to the Start a Topic page. A normal member would see an error if he or she followed that link. Just showing the link on the homepage to the posting members closes Ticket 530.
[9]Prior to Soft Serve the initial GroupServer instance, site and group had names that contained example. Now the instance is called groupserver, the initial site is called initial_site, and the initial group is called example_group. Renaming the instance and site Ticket 690.
[10]Fixing the coding error on the Members page closes Ticket 680.