Announcing Coppermine 1.5.3 Release Candidate

[phill104]

Introducing the Coppermine 1.5.3 Release Candidate

It is with great joy that we present Coppermine 1.5.3 [RC]. After over 2 years of work and thousands of lines of code we now have a superb and feature packed product. It has been a long and challenging journey but with the help of you, the community, and our team of dedicated supporters and developers we are almost there.

What does this mean and why a release candidate?

With so many changes the Coppermine team decided that going straight to a stable release might be a step too far. We want to have a wider user base to test both the code and usability. Along with that we would also like to have more language options available for the stable release. However, we do feel the code is now in a very stable and secure state. While we don't recommend you use it on a live site the good news is that we can now provide support to you all. In return we request that you help us to help you by providing all the information you can when requesting support.

How can I be part of the stable release?

Testing

The most important thing you can do is help us test the software. Download a copy of Coppermine 1.5.3 and install it somewhere to test it. Explore every facet of the software looking for anything that does not work as it should. If you find something that needs fixing then file a bug report but please review the documentation first.

Documentation

Almost as important as testing the software is to make sure people understand how to use it. While ease of usability has been high on the priority list it is always important to have good documentation. The new documentation for Coppermine 1.5.x has had a major overhaul and we feel is the best yet. Having said that there is always room for improvement. Over the years we often get people with little or no technical knowledge wanting to help and the docs are one area that everyone can be involved in. So have a read through and if you feel something is lacking or incorrect then tell us. Better still, work on that section and contribute it to the community. Only with your help can we continue to improve.

Translation

As previously mentioned we would like to see the stable release include support for as many different languages as possible. Again, the community has stepped up to the mark providing a number of language files but we would love to see many more. This not only goes for the language files but the docs too. If you are good at translation then the core language files can be done in just a couple of hours. The new docs are very extensive and do require a lot more work. Don't be put off by this. Instead just do as much as you can contributing your work to the community via the forum as you go. Hopefully others can then build on your work and we can advance towards our goals as a team.

There is a new translation guide that ships with cpg1.5.x that is mandatory to read for potential translators as well as the translation announcement thread "[Help wanted]: Translations for CPG1.5.x".

What's new in CPG 1.5.x

New core theme

Providing many years of faithful service the old classic theme was beginning to show its age so the Coppermine team decided to lay it to rest. After many hours of work we are proud to introduce the new Curve theme. One of the things that made the old classic theme so great was that it was easy to modify to your needs and the new Curve theme is no exception. With a stunning new look based on the theme of the same name from SMF along with a new CSS based drop down menu system you will find this the most usable yet.

Along with the classic theme a number of older themes have been removed from the core download but continue to be available separately. Full details can be found here along with other users contributed themes

All new upload interface

To improve the user experience it is now even easier than ever to upload images to Coppermine thanks to a new upload interface. Utilizing the excellent and popular open source tool, SWF Upload, no longer is the user limited to just uploading a few images at a time. With a great drag and drop interface and progress bar the process has been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

The only drawback is that the user requires flash and java-script to be enabled on his browser. For those very rare few that do not meet these minimum specs all is not lost as the single file upload interface remains.

Improved usability

By far the largest request from the community was to improve usability and thanks to the community we feel we have done just that. Below are a list of just a few things that are making CPG1.5 such a pleasure to use.

• Built in Captcha engine
• Built in Watermark engine
• New Upload Interface
• Improved Groups control
• Improved Category Management tool
• Drag and drop sorting of albums
• Improved Search engine
• New core 'Curve' theme
• Improved image tagging
• Enhanced plugin engine

The list goes on. Download and have a play, you will not be disappointed.

Better security

As every web administrator knows, we are always at risk of being hacked by those intent on destroying our work. Constant maintenance and regular updates are the key but the Coppermine team have gone one step further.

As well as good programming we have included Inspekt in every bit of code. Inspekt acts as a firewall between the user and your server increasing its fortification leaving the potential hacker no choice but to look elsewhere.

Download
https://sourceforge.net/projects/coppermine/files/Coppermine/1.5.3 (rc)/cpg1.5.3_release-candidate.zip/download

We are convinced that this is by far the best release of Coppermine yet. We await with baited breath your thoughts and contributions to further improve this wonderful project.


The Coppermine team

[François Keller]

French annoucement here 

[Nancy4]

Am I allowed to congratulate?! I should! I want to thank all the heroes who made this! 
its wonderful to see it is coming to RC stage, I have been playing with beta for a while and it was wow! the new changes are just amazing...it moved coppermine to new level of success and the top of all gallery solutions in my opnion...greeting for coppermine team, wish you always the best

[Timos-Welt]

Here's the german announcement. 

[Makc666]

And here is Russian announcement.
(Русский перевод новости!)

[Joachim Müller]

Locking *sigh*.