Saturday 07 April 2012 by
We are currently working on what will finally become Textpattern 4.5. Here’s an overview of some notable changes and enhancements:
- Publish valid HTML5 documents by simply flipping a preference switch. Textile markup and Textpattern tags will render their output accordingly. XHTML will certainly stay an equally supported document type.
- A new default theme with modern HTML5 markup and responsive design by Phil Wareham. Besides showcasing modern front-end techniques the theme demonstrates a thoroughly annotated choice of basic usage patterns for Textpattern template tags.
- Textile 2.3 with HTML5 support and various other improvements.
- More AJAX goodness in the admin-side: Saving articles or section will work without page reloads, basically making them so snappy that some early testers even missed the split-second reload flash…
System requirements and compatibility
Textpattern 4.5 will require PHP 5.2 or better and will no longer run on servers with PHP 4.x. Plugins which introduce or amend functionalities on the admin-side may need a few changes in order to mould into the AJAX-driven parts of the user interface.
Try for yourself!
Fetch the current development version and set up a test site – but keep in mind that this is still work in progress and may contain bugs or even break so don’t use it on productions sites.
If you happen to stumble over a bug or want to suggest an enhancement please file an issue. We are grateful for any feedback.
I’m also hard at work on an admin-side theme to be available at Textpattern v4.5 launch. You can check out a (work-in-progress) mockup here or test drive it by downloading here (click one of the download buttons). Please note it’s only about 60% finished at the moment – but useable.
You’ll need the current development version of Textpattern too as mentioned in the blog post.
07 Apr 12
Phil Wareham
I guess, Txp 4.5 stays MySQL-centric, so no PostgreSQL?
And that may change with Txp 5?
07 Apr 12
Thomas Hühn
One thing that I would appreciate when Txp 4.5 is released is a How-To guide for replacing my current theme (front end) with the shiny new theme (I’d like to start from new again). Obviously, I can replace/delete old forms/pages but if there are any other steps I need to take, would be v useful. You may be intending to do this anyway, since Txp 4.5 is quite a big redevelopment by the look of it, but just thought I’d mention this. Thanks!
07 Apr 12
Clive Walker
Thomas, Textpattern 4.5 will solely use MySQL.
07 Apr 12
Robert Wetzlmayr
I’m sorry to be so direct, but has the new Textpattern a dedicated text field for writing Meta tag Description, as 100% of all the CMS since 2000 had? Thanks.
07 Apr 12
Marco
Marco, the new Textpattern has indeed a dedicated text field for meta descriptions, and this field has been there at least since Textpattern 1.0 RC4.
I must admit it’s a bit hidden, though.
You can unlock this hidden feature by navigating to the “Preferences” tab. Under the “Advanced preferences” heading you will find a input labelled “Custom field 1 name”. Type “Description” in the adjacent input, and you’re done.
07 Apr 12
Robert Wetzlmayr
Great to hear about more AJAX goodness. Does it still fall back to a non-AJAX path if JS in not available? I know an extremely uncommon situation these days, but one that I still encounter with some of the devices I use.
07 Apr 12
Morgan Aldridge
Great work guys! Sounds like nice new features.
07 Apr 12
Mats
Great stuff. And always nice to get an update like this on the blog (rather than just lurking on the commit log.)
I’m especially pleased with the moves towards HTML5.
Aspects of the Ajaxy back-end are just wonderful (changing section attributes will no longer feel like a game of whack-a-mole!). I do worry about some of the plugins playing along (hak_tinymce?), but seems like a worthy problem to confront.
Phil—really nice work on the layouts. I think this has the potential to be big convincer for potential new users.
07 Apr 12
Jason Das
Morgan, a fallback for ajaxly challenged devices is included.
08 Apr 12
Robert Wetzlmayr
Thanks for the update, Robert!
Phil’s front-end & admin themes look great!
I recently discovered Textpattern and am excited by the planned features!
08 Apr 12
Winstontaneous
Applause + Bravo + Thank you folks !
08 Apr 12
Guillaume Stricher
Great news!
08 Apr 12
Guy Verville
That’s really good news. Again.
@Robert :-)
08 Apr 12
Philipp Schilling
@Phil: The new responsive admin screen looks nice. Just wanted to suggest that the primary options (currently on the right) would work better on the left and secondary on the right. When I am using the admin screen on a mobile device, I would rather see Status, Sort & Display, and Timestamp at the top, rather than Advanced Options and Meta.
09 Apr 12
Colin Scroggins
@Colin Scroggins
I agree, but unfortunately due to the table-based layout used currently in Textpattern’s admin side that cannot be done via CSS alone.
However, future versions of Textpattern will move to a more modern layout structure for the admin area so that would be possible – and in fact some work in that direction has already been done – just won’t be part of v4.5 though.
09 Apr 12
Phil Wareham
When are you planning to release the final 4.5 version?
17 Apr 12
Patrick
Will the plugins work with 4.5 or has there been significant changes that might cause problems? I’m especially worried about tru_tags which hasn’t been updated in ages but which still works at least with 4.4.1.
23 Apr 12
Petri
Petri,
tru_tags will (like the vast majority of the other plugins) continue to work with Textpattern 4.5. There are of course a few changes under the hood which will require updates for a few plugins.
One of the most noteworthy change concerning plugin authors is the addition of two new methods for hooking plugins into the admin panels. Plugin authors will thus be able to take advantage of Textpattern’s new AJAX capabilities.
24 Apr 12
Robert Wetzlmayr