Papillon v0.3 (Coenonympha Pamphilus)

This version is mainly a refactoring of the application. There were many dirty patches, they are now removed. It’s not perfect (the “vote” template really needs to be improved) but it is far better. I am also planning to integrate in this version many improvements that have been suggested.

In details, improvements for the different type of users are:

For developers

I have made a move from the VCS software Subversion to the decentralized VCS Git. I will not explain all the benefits because many sites detail why Git is better than X (it is always biased but in this site the gain in regards to Subversion is obvious).

Django South has been integrated to Papillon. Evolutions in the database model are now very simple. It is a new dependency but this software is now a classic, well packaged in most distributions.

Most of hard-coded links have been corrected. It is far cleaner and many problems are now avoided.

For administrators

Administrators also benefit from the integration of Django South. It results in less pain to move from one version to another.

There are fewer variables to set in the settings.py file. It is now easier to install. On the other side the migration to this version is a little bit harder.

The documentation is now really part of the project (integrated in the VCS). It is more simple to correct and improve. Therefore the documentation will probably be more up to date. It is now generated with Sphinx: it is prettier and (also) easier to update.

Next to mod_python, the documentation details the installation using mod_wsgi. It is now the recommended installation: it is lighter and faster.

More specifically for public instances

By setting publics instances I saw that spammers were loving poll’s comments. That’s why it is now possible to limit the number of comments by polls.

Also I saw in these instances that first pages polls, in addition to make life easier to spam robots, exposed polls that fall under the privacy. It annoys me because it can be done despite the user will (people can check the box “Make this poll public” without really understanding it). Even if these polls are exposed knowingly, I don’t want to support the lack of decency of some people on the web. So it is now simple to remove the ability to make polls public.

For the user

If the end-user indirectly benefits of the last improvements by having a more responsive Papillon, the only visible evolution for him is: the new theme.

In brief

The new version of Papillon is already installed on many locations. For instance here: papilio@Niadomo.

Public instances are now listed on the Papillon’s main page and on the development main site. Documentation is no longer in the Redmine website, there are now dedicated pages.

For those who want to take a look at the source code, git clone is enough:

git clone git://www.peacefrogs.net/git/papillon

A mailing-list for technical questions has been set. To subscribe to this mailing-list, it is here.