[Web-SIG] ANN: Pylons 0.9.4 Released

[Ben Bangert]

It's with great pleasure that I announce the release of Pylons 0.9.4.  
This release has quite a few bug fixes and enhancements, the most  
since the 0.9 milestone. It's also likely one of the last big updates  
before a 1.0 release candidate (there will be some small changes in  
0.9.5 and possibly a 0.9.6).

First, the most important changes for those upgrading from an  
existing Pylons application:

* WARNING: Removed the lang_extract and lang_compile commands. They used
   pygettext.py and its associated msgfmt.py, which lacked the  
ability to
   extract ngettext style function calls and had issues with unicode  
strings.
   The new I18NToolBox project aims to provide this functionality  
(and more)
   via the gettext command line utilities. http://i18ntoolbox.ufsoft.org
* WARNING: Myghty's allow_globals config var has changed, causing the
   following when running pre-compiled templates:
       Error(TypeError): do_run_component() takes exactly 13 non-keyword
       arguments (5 given)
   Delete the compiled Myghty templates directory (specified by  
cache_dir or
   myghty_data_dir in the config file) to resolve the error.
* WARNING: The localization function '_' now uses ugettext (returns  
unicode
   strings) instead of gettext. To preserve the old behavior, append the
   following line to your project's lib.base and lib.helpers imports:
   from pylons.helpers import gettext as _
* WARNING: Removed 0.8.x legacy code and backwards compatibility  
functions.

Please note that since some i18n functions have moved, your  
helpers.py will need to be updated to import _, and ungettext from  
pylons.i18n.

Also:

- The XMLRPC Controller got a significant update so that it now  
provides the full range of XML-RPC Introspection facilities for your  
service methods.
- SQLAlchemy convenience functions have been added to pylons.database  
for use with the SessionContext plugin, and to create and retain SA  
engines.
- Paste dependency was updated to 1.1.1, Routes to 1.6.1 (important  
update for map.resource functionality)
- Pylons special objects (g, c, h, request, session) now available in  
interactive debugger without _attach_globals.
- Controller actions can now be generators
- Pylons base WSGI app uses wsgi.org routing_args spec for easier  
swapping of URL resolvers.

== Install ==

Please see http://pylonshq.com/docs/0.9.4/install for installation  
details.

== Full Changelog ==

0.9.4 (Dec. 29th, 2006)
* WARNING: Removed the lang_extract and lang_compile commands. They used
   pygettext.py and its associated msgfmt.py, which lacked the  
ability to
   extract ngettext style function calls and had issues with unicode  
strings.
   The new I18NToolBox project aims to provide this functionality  
(and more)
   via the gettext command line utilities. http://i18ntoolbox.ufsoft.org
* All Pylons special objects are now available within paster shell  
(not just
   h and g).
* WARNING: Myghty's allow_globals config var has changed, causing the
   following when running pre-compiled templates:
       Error(TypeError): do_run_component() takes exactly 13 non-keyword
       arguments (5 given)
   Delete the compiled Myghty templates directory (specified by  
cache_dir or
   myghty_data_dir in the config file) to resolve the error.
* Changed i18n functions in templates to use proxy objects so that using
   set_lang in a template works right. Fixes #153.
* Now allowing any template plugin to overwrite global PYLONS_VARS  
(such as c,
   g), not just pylonsmyghty.
* Adding SQLAlchemy support to the database.py file. Saves the  
session engine
   to g to maintain it during the apps lifetime. Uses SessionContext  
plugin for
   management of the current session.
* Updated config object so that init_app can take an optional  
template engine
   argument to declare the default template engine.
* Updated Myghty plugin to use extra_vars_func when passed in.
* Fixed Buffet to use extra_vars_func properly.
* Fixed the validate decorator when there are validation errors and
   variable_decode=True: now passing the original params to  
htmlfill.render
   instead of the varable_decode'd version. Patch by FlimFlamMan.
* Added ungettext function for use with pluralized i18n, and the N_  
function
   (gettext_noop) to mark global strings for translation. Added  
ungettext, N_
   and translator objects to be globals for templates. Refs #126.
* WARNING: The localization function '_' now uses ugettext (returns  
unicode
   strings) instead of gettext. To preserve the old behavior, append the
   following line to your project's lib.base and lib.helpers imports:
   from pylons.helpers import gettext as _
* Pylons special objects are now available within the interactive  
debugger
   (deprecating _attach_locals).
* Added setup-app run before unit tests run so that webapp has proper  
setup
   tasks handled. Fixes #113.
* Added paste.deploy.CONFIG setup to middleware.py, websetup.py and  
testing
   files in the Pylons project templates. Closes #112.
* Added security policy doc to index for use as Pylons security policy.
   Closes #91.
* Improved the repr() of the c context object to show attributes.
* Set environ['paste.testing_variables'] whenever that key is  
available, not
   just in testing mode.
* Added capability to have an action be a generator function.
* Added introspection capability to XMLRPCController and signature  
checking.
* Updated Controller to use additional arg lookup scheme so that the  
source of
   the function args for _inspect_call can be easily overridden.
* Updated RPCController, renamed to XMLRPCController.  
XMLRPCController now
   functions properly and will automatically return proper xmlrpc  
responses.
* Added test configuration ini file to default template. Closes #114.
* Fixed problem with pylons.database.PackageHub.__get__ raising errors
   other than AttributeError when the database isn't configured.  Added
   new UnconfiguredConnectionError exception, instead of just KeyError
   or TypeError (depending on what part of the configuration failed).
* Fixed default g init, since bare object has no init method.  
Reported by Ian
   Bicking.
* Fixed issue with SQLObject method override having wrong name.  
Reported by
   climbus with patch. Fixes #133.
* Moved log function to pylons.helpers and translation functions to
   pylons.i18n. using pylons.util purely for Pylons internal util  
functions.
* WARNING: Removed 0.8.x legacy code and backwards compatibility  
functions.
* PylonsApp now has option to not use Routes middleware, default  
resolving
   uses new wsgi.org routing_args spec.
* Refactored routes dispatching to use new Routes middleware.
* Fixed paster shell command to properly acquire mapper object without
   relying on the template being configured in a specific manner.
* Added keyword argument pool_connection to
   pylons.database.PackageHub; if set to false then SQLObject  
connections
   won't use pooled database connections (a new connection will be
   opened for each request).

Many thanks to Phil Jenvey, Ian Bicking, James Gardner, and all the  
other active members of the Pylons community!

Cheers,
Ben