Download a comprehensive guide to the new features of 1.2 SP1.

One of the primary goals with our SP1 release was to dramatically improve the performance and stability of C1 CMS and also fill in the gaps in the system which were impeding developer efficiency. Of course "developer efficiency" is a never-ending endeavor, but developers should find 1.2 SP1 much nicer to develop on for a number of reasons which will be covered in more detail below.

End-user improvements

End-users are also getting a much faster system with a lot more stability and consistency. A new "SEO Assistant" can help editors identify places in content where important keywords should be stated and the global data types shown in the Content perspectives ‘Data’ folder is now based on an "opt in" model, where administrators choose chat types to show there. The types included are displayed much less ‘techie’ – now type titles are shown, rather that the types programmatic name.

Technical improvements

SQL Server 2008 support has been added and a lot of fixing has gone into the existing SQL Provider, making C1 CMS 1.2 SP1 fully functional on both SQL Server 2005 and 2008. The "create new CMS site" server tool include easy creation of sites based on SQL.

Developers will find that the system startup time has been dramatically improved along with the time it takes to execute actions like creating a new Data Type. Data Types now allow you to create optional data reference fields and define field default values.

A new widget will allow you to create "multi selection" UI - the selected keys are stored in a comma separated string and this widget can be of great use when setting up function parameters, like on XSLTs which should display X selected items. The widget can also be used for Data Type fields, storing all user selections as a comma separated string - it is still a long way from correct handling of many-to-many relations, but this could help solve a number of situations where data editors should select multiple items from a list.

Dynamic Data Types are now "stable" meaning that it is safe to write ASP.NET / C# code against the types. Code placed in the /App_Code folder is "pre-compiled" with any type changes users make through the UI, ensuring that a user can not edit a type and ‘break your code’ by deleting or renaming fields etc. Any potential compilation errors will be displayed to the user (.cs file path, line number, compile error title) and the breaking change is prevented.

ASP.NET developers can now use the ASP.NET Ajax features like the UpdatePanel control and embedding external components like http://www.yetanotherforum.net/ should feel much easier.

New plug-in possibilities

C# developers now have more ways to "plug into the system". These new features include:

• Plug-ins that are invoked as part of the CMS System boot up.
• Plug-ins that attach new commands to existing tree-elements (like pages, media etc.)
• Plug-ins that are called before pages or media is rendered and can redirect users or silence public caching.
• Plug-ins that can "intercept" data (and manipulate it) before it’s returned from the DataFacade to any caller.

These features were introduced with the purpose of letting external developers create functionality like content versioning and extranet functionality in a way that seamlessly integrate with the CMS Console. We expect to ship packages containing extranet and content versioning functionality within a few weeks.

A better developer experience

In addition to all the improvements created with developers in mind a great deal of effort have gone into fixing issues in the system and the SP1 release is by far our most stable and bug free release to date. These things put together should yield a much improved developer experience which we hope will also ultimately result in improved experiences for non-technical users and visitors on the website.

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 is now a requirement – the SP1 were not a requirement earlier.

Download a comprehensive guide to the new features of 1.2 SP1.

You can get a list of the major feature improvements here:
http://docs.composite.net/C1/VersionInfo/NewFeatures.aspx

You can get a list of the major bug fixes here:
http://docs.composite.net/C1/VersionInfo/ResolvedBugs.aspx