DotNetNuke 5.6.0 Released

I am happy to announce the release of DotNetNuke 5.6.  In 5.6 we spent a lot of time enhancing existing features addressing bugs and including a few minor features.  One of the goals during 2011 will be to not only add great new features, but to also add some depth to existing features.  The 5.6.0 release is a good first step in that direction.  The DotNetNuke Community Edition 5.6 includes new features such as:

• Improved Search: 5.6.0 includes an enhanced indexing capability which allows the standard core search feature to index page names, tag attributes and other metadata for improved search results
• Performance Enhancements: Optimizations to the database architecture and handling of web analytics tracking codes which will result in faster performance for all Editions of the product
• Configuration Manager:  A new configuration manager provides DotNetNuke administrators with greater access and control over their website configuration files without requiring the user to have direct file access.

DotNetNuke Professional and Enterprise users also have some significant new enhancements as well including:

• Site Search: Exclusive to the Professional and Enterprise Editions, the new Site Search engine allows site users to quickly locate files and pages in the site. The search engine includes rich query syntax with support for Boolean searches, phrase searches, relevance searches, wild cards, fuzzy searches, and groupings. Based on Lucene, the system includes a true web spider that is capable of indexing any site, whether it is built on DotNetNuke or not.
• Enhanced Analytics Support: The DotNetNuke Professional and Enterprise Editions include Enhanced Analytics Support, which allows users to take full advantage of Google Analytics. The system has been upgraded to the latest integration best practices from Google and now enables tracking of sub-domains as a single entity as well as the use of up to five segmentation rules per page.
• Content Approval Workflow Enhancements: The Professional and Enterprise Editions now allow managers to configure approvals in a top-down hierarchy at the site, page, and module level. In addition, content locking improves efficiency and reduces the chance of workflow conflicts. Approvals ensure that users throughout the organization that are impacted by a content change can review updates before they are published. The business rules engine enables workflows with an unlimited number of states and reviewers.

In addition to these great features and enhancements we resolved many significant issues as noted below.

Major Highlights

• Added automatic portal alias creation for single portal installs
• Updated the file manager upload page to allow user to upload multiple files without returning to the file manager page.
• Fixed issue with Event Log Email Notifications.
• Fixed issue where Telerik HTML Editor was unable to upload files to secure or database folder.
• Fixed issue where registration page is not set correctly during an upgrade.
• Fixed issue where Sendmail stripped HTML and Links from emails.
• Fixed issue where Ribbon Bar CSS was included on the page even when Ribbon Bar was not visible.
• Fixed issue where "My Folder" was not available in the URL control and the Telerik HTML Editor
• Fixed issue where the language skinobject dropdown does not maintain state between postbacks
• Fixed issue where the UserProfile PhotoURL property not set properly
• Fixed issue where Data Caching code could result in race condition
• Fixed issue where a portalalias with a trailing "/" would cause a 404 error
• Fixed issue where reference copies of modules are not copied from the primary to secondary language pages.
• Fixed issue where a disabled language can result in orphaned pages which are not localized with Content Localization
• Fixed issue where content item wasn't being assigned to host tabs resulting in error when changing the host page title
• Fixed issue where localized grid header columns did not sort
• Fixed issue where the ribbonbar control panel was not properly moving pages when localization was enabled.

Security Fixes

• Exception details may leak if logging provider unavailable

Updated Extensions

The following extensions have been updated in the 5.6.0 packages.  Please see the specific project pages for notes on what bugs or enhancements were corrected with each release.

Modules

• Events Module 05.01.05
• Forums Module 05.00.00

You can find out more information about all of the issues fixed in this release on the changelog.

NOTE:  As with any release, we recommend you perform a complete file and database backup before performing any upgrade on a production website and that you first conduct a trial upgrade on a staging version of the site.  Following these guidelines will ensure that you are able to recover should any unforeseen problems arise during the upgrade process.