Global Moxie

I’m pretty outrageously happy to share the first release candidate for Big Medium 2. While still a test version, this update represents the first feature-complete “I think it’s done” release.

The “Lost and Found” update adds site search to Big Medium, giving your visitors fast, accurate access to your site’s entire archive. There’s also a significant requirements change: Big Medium now requires Perl 5.6.1 or higher; if you’ve been running Big Medium on a server with Perl 5.6.0, you’ll need to upgrade in order to continue.

• Complete list of changes
• Download and installation info

Seek and ye shall find

Big Medium’s new built-in search engine uses some crafty algorithms to find what you’re looking for, fast. But let’s leave the math to the geeks (that would be me). All you need to worry about is dropping the new <%search%> widget into your page templates where you want the search form to appear.

Well, okay, there’s one other thing you need to worry about. Big Medium tunes its search index based on the language in which your site is published. Specifically, it uses the site’s language setting (in the “Document and Page Header” screen of the site’s HTML preferences) to determine this. If you’re upgrading from a previous version of the Big Medium 2 beta, check this setting to make sure that it is correct before you upgrade (English is the default language).

For more details about Big Medium’s search engine, check out the entry for <%search%> in the “Section Navigation, Search and Tags” section of Chapter 10, “Widgets,” in the freshly revised Big Medium 2 book.

Overdone overflow is over

Now that search is built-in, it’s also no longer necessary for large sites to build links to every... last... page.... Until now, Big Medium has always built as many pages of links as necessary to link to every page. For sites with thousands of pages, that’s meant hundreds of pages of “overflow” links -- pages that only the most neurotically dedicated visitor would ever be likely to browse. Alas, that was the best that Big Medium could do to surface the entire archive.

With today’s release, the entire archive is available via search, making this spate of overflow pages unnecessary. Big Medium now sets a default limit of five overflow pages per section. You can edit this setting in the “Links” preferences of the site’s HTML preferences. For large sites, this new setting should result in memory savings and a lighter server load, not to mention saved disk space.

Big Medium now requires Perl 5.6.1

Up until now, Big Medium 2 has worked with Perl 5.6.0, but I just couldn’t swing it anymore (Perl 5.6.0’s support for Unicode, the web’s international alphabet, is chockablock with bugs).

If your server software has been updated anytime in the past five years, you should be in good shape. However, if your server is still running a Perl version older than 5.6.1, you might gently suggest to your hosting company that they consider upgrading Perl to a more modern version.

Release the hounds!

Download the latest version of Big Medium here.

The download package includes complete installation instructions, including notes for upgrading from previous versions of the Big Medium 2 beta.

Shortcut instructions for upgrading from 2.0b50, b51 or b52 are provided below. (If you’re upgrading from a version prior to 2.0b50, please follow the full installation instructions in the download package; along the way, those instructions include special notes for upgrading.)

The Nitty Gritty

Here’s what’s new in this update:

New features

• Added site search. Use the <%search%> widget to display the search form on the site. The form controls may be styled via the style editor.

• Added “Limit Overflow Pages” preference to the “Links” screen of HTML preferences. This lets you choose how many pages of overflow links to build for each section that has more links than can fit on the main page. The default is five overflow pages.

• Added “Add byline line break” and “Add description line break” to let you specify adding extra line breaks to linsk if a byline or description are present.

• Images now appear in RSS feeds even when the full-text option is turned off. In that case, a single link image is displayed along with the description text, if the page has any link images (preference is given to the spotlight image).

Changes

• Perl 5.6.1 or later is now required to run Big Medium 2.

• Added more discipline to Big Medium’s Unicode handling, for improved support of international languages. This should address reported intermittent problems with non-Western characters and some symbols and punctuation on servers running Perl 5.6.1.

• Modest performance and memory savings for saving/retrieving data from disk.

• Rearranged order of the Layout control-panel menu.

• Updated the “Cup o’ Joe” design theme for prettier display of the search form.

• Added image styles to the default print template so that images align properly.

• Modest performance increase for copying unpublished content to other sites.

• Added a period to the default byline link text.

• Imported legacy sites now have their background image changed to a theme-friendly URL.

• Changed guid in RSS feeds to new format so that it does not resemble a URL (search engines were trying to index it).

• Added Cache-Control:no-cache http header to all control-panel pages for additional prevention of page caching.

Fixes

• Fixed bug that caused Internet Explorer 7 to refuse to open pages under certain vague and mysterious conditions that somehow involved Flash animations in the page.

• Fixed bug that prevented the link URL from being honored by the <%images%> widget (it always showed the enlarged image instead of taking you to the specified link).

• Fixed bug that prevented changes to the <%morelinks%> styles in the style editor.

• Fixed bug that could sometimes leave behind an orphaned section page after deleting that section from the site.

• Adjusted overflow page navigation to prevent overlap with surrounding elements in Internet Explorer.

• Fixed bug that could cause Flash and some other page elements from displaying on preview pages and in the style editor.

• Fixed bug that prevented the theme library from returning you to the same theme category after applying a new theme.

• Fixed bug that prevented custom styles created in the style editor from being saved when adding a new theme to the theme library.

• Fixed bug that could cause the site importer to resume its import at an incorrect stage if you restart an import several times on the same site.

• Fixed bug that caused site cloning to fail if the original site contained invalid preferences (for example, if a plugin with custom preference settings was installed and subsequently removed).

Upgrading from 2.0b50 or later?

This update’s changed files are scattered far and wide throughout the installation, so you may find it simplest simply to follow the full installation instructions in the download package (along the way, those instructions include special notes for upgrading).

However, if you’re determined to upload only the changed files, and if you’re upgrading from v2.0b50, b51 or b52, you can update to the new version by following the instructions below. (For earlier versions, follow the full installation instructions in the download package; along the way, those instructions include special notes for upgrading.)

To upgrade from v2.0b50, b51 or b52:

1. Confirm the language setting for your site(s)

Your site's language setting is in the "Documents and Page Header" screen of HTML preferences. The default is English. If your site is in a different language or if you have otherwise changed this setting, make sure that it is set to the correct language.

2. Set your FTP client to “plain text” or “ascii” mode.

3. Upload files to moxiebin directory:

Upload all moxiebin files except for the Modules and plugins directories. Be careful not to remove or replace bm-setup.pl.

4. Set permissions on moxiebin files.

This is for Unix servers only. (On Windows? Skip ahead to step 4.)

Set permissions on all files in the moxiebin directory, except for bm-setup.pl, to chmod 0755. Leave bm-setup.pl permissions as-is.

5. Upload to moxiebin/Modules directory:

• BigMed.pm
• BigMed (directory and all contents)
• CGI (directory and all contents)
• Lingua (directory and all contents)
• Log (directory and all contents)
• Text (directory and all contents)

6. Upload to moxiedata/templates/cp_templates directory:

• screen_editor_menu.tmpl
• screen_help_markdown.tmpl
• screen_libeditor_menu.tmpl
• screen_moderate_menu.tmpl
• shell_cp_bottom.tmpl
• wi_pagenav_menu.tmpl
• wi_themes_preview.tmpl

7. Upload to moxiedata/templates/site_templates directory:

• base.css
• HTML/_tool_print.txt
• HTML/wi_search_result.tmpl
• HTML/wi_search.tmpl
• JS (directory and all contents)
• RSS/wi_short_description.tmpl

8. Upload to moxiedata/support/assets:

• bm.js
• lightbox_sm.js

9. Upload to bmadmin/css directory:

• bigmedium_cp.css

10. Upload to bmadmin/js directory:

• bigmedium_cp.js
• bm-editor.js
• bm-theme.js

11. Upload to bmadmin/wysiwyg/editor/dialog directory:

• fck_paste.html

12. Change your FTP client to “automatic” or “binary” mode.

13. Upload to bmadmin/img directory:

• bmcp_default_theme.jpg
• favicon.ico

14. Upload to bmadmin/themes directory:

• _general (directory and all contents)

15. Run the updater

Browse to the bm-update.cgi file in your site’s moxiebin directory. For example:

http://www.example.com/cgi-bin/moxiebin/bm-update.cgi

This completes the update from 2.0b50 or later.

Tags: beta, bigmedium