[pmwiki-users] ZAPbeta 2007-03 complete!

[The Editor]

Announcing the release of a new version of ZAP that I think many will
find quite worth looking into. Though a long list--please take a
minute to look through the list of new features. Many are quite
powerful!  At the same time, the code is significantly shorter and
simpler. And creating custom ZAP extensions has never been easier!

I've also completely updated the ZAP website (www.zapsite.org), adding
many new tutorials, extensive explanations on every command in ZAP,
and a developers section clarifying the underlying functions used in
ZAP.  A good many little inconveniences have been fixed and it seems
to be working beautifully.  I'm calling it a beta version for a week
or two just in case there are some bugs that need to be fixed...

Feedback, suggestions, and questions welcome...

Cheers,
Dan

PS. Existing member accounts have not yet been imported--as I need to
write up a converter script. In the mean time, feel free to create a
new member account. To cut down on spam, you must register before
posting comments.


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ZAPbeta 2007-03

* Reorganized modules so all bonus markups are together, bonus
conditionals are together, and extensions are together.

* Reworked ZAPmail so email, emaillist, and emailnews are all in one
function--and thus each has full access to ZAP's mail templating, and
either scheduling or automatic sending.

* Passwords are now automatically encrypted by the register function,
and stored with Emails in a separate Login group (which should be read
protected). Other registration information is stored in group
Profiles. Unencrypted passwords, and passwords in ZAP's hidden format
(existing sites), will continue to work.

* New Site.ZAPConfig system which allows you to easily set default
values for default ZAP folders. Also, ZAPextension commands can be
easily limited to specific pages, groups, or group* patterns on this
page.

* Added several new command extensions, including ZAPphp (which can
securely execute a configurable array of php commands), ZAPmath (which
can evaluate basic arithmetic inputs), and ZAPgrade (a simple but
powerful quiz/course grade calculation function).

* Fixed the Upload function so it works as expected now. Very nice!

* A new system has been implemented for calling ZAP extensions making
it much easier to create ZAPX commands. It also plugs a security hole,
as ZAP no longer uses eval() to do this.

* Much work has been done under the hood to replace the highly
formatted ZAP data values with a much simple pattern replacement
system (cut out well over 100 lines!). This allows you to use ZAP to
replace any hidden text variable on any page, and makes the data
section of your pages much cleaner.

* Updatedata was removed, as savedata works now more intuitively, only
overwriting specified fields, and leaving all other data values
untouched. Erasedata was added to remove data fields where needed.

* Removed the destroy function, though delete continues to work as normal.

* Added new date and substring ZAP markups. The first returns proper
weekdays and months from numbers. The second is a very flexible way to
strip off prefixes, suffixes, or whatever from strings. Great for use
in Hg, or similar applications.

* Changed the format for if and validate so either can take a CSV list
of commands to execute when the condition passes, and another list of
commands to execute when the condition fails--all in one ZAP input
form. Much more intuitive syntax using ? and :

* Caching problem was solved so changed data values on pages are
automatically refreshed on save.

* Added a ZAPlink markup to create ZAP forms that submit when clicking
a link, and a ZAPsubmit markup which automatically submits a page as
soon as the page loads (neither uses javascript). These allow some
exciting possibilities for use of ZAP.

* Changed name parameter to key (more meaningful semantically) in the
ZAPform and ZAPlink markups.

* Numerous small fixes and improvements. Forms now not broken by
single/double quotes around the Form name (key). Upload can be entered
into the ZAPform markup as a single word. Page Shortcuts automatically
calls MakePageName to avoid invalid page names, etc.