Midgard

2009 was a pretty active year for the Midgard content repository project, and so it is good to take a look at some of the highlights: Midgard2 finally became a reality, bringing us a fully legacy-free modern Midgard implementation. There were two ... [More] releases: 9.03 Vinland and 9.09 Mjolnir. Midgard2 works just fine also in desktop applications and mobile devices like the Nokia N900 Ragnaroek, the long-term support version of Midgard1 kept chugging along with four new maintenance releases and total of 566 issues closed. Ragnaroek will be maintained until October 2013 The Midgard Project turned ten years old in May. A gala evening and party was held in Helsinki, Finland Midgard's content repository gained bindings to two new programming languages alongside existing PHP, C and Python: Objective-C in March and Vala in December Midgard was one of the CMSs admitted to the EU-funded Interactive Knowlegde project that aims to increase semantic capabilities in content management Qaiku, a conversational microblogging platform powered by Midgard MVC was launched in March We had two Midgard Gatherings: in March in Linköping, Sweden and in October in Helsinki, Finland Ragnaland became a way to bridge the gap between Midgard1 and Midgard2 by enabling running of MidCOM applications on top of Midgard MVC Midgard was presented in several conferences including Gran Canaria Desktop Summit, FrOSCon, OpenMind and FSCONS Founding meeting for an association to support the Midgard project was held in December. The association will provide membership to all active Midgard contributors, and an alumni membership for people who have been part of the project in the past Happy new year to everybody in the Midgard world! [Less]

Lodz, December 23rd 2009 -- The Midgard Project has released maintenance release of Midgard2 9.09 "Mjolnir" - second release of the new generation of the Midgard content repository. About 9.09 releases Midgard2 9.09 is targeted at web framework and ... [More] desktop application developers. It provides a comprehensive set of content repository APIs that can be used to build replicated information applications that share their information using a common storage layer and replication tools. In this release we provide Content Repository API bindings for the following programming languages: C, Python, PHP and Objective-C. D-Bus signals are used to inform different Midgard2 applications about things happening in the repository, enabling for example a PHP website and a Python background process to communicate with each other. Main changes from 9.09.0 release: New connection routines (#1475) New MidgardQueryBuilder signals (#1486, #1487) Configuration supports remote host's port (#1248) MgdSchema files compatibility fix (#1503) Storage related fixes (#1533, #1543) Fixed crashes when running Midgard with Apache (#1520) Fixed D-Bus path issue (#1552) New functionalities in 9.09 releases: Database views MgdSchema classes are extendable or might be duplicated New authentication system with stack support and multiple authentication methods per user Optional metadata for MgdSchema classes User defined, reflectable fields in MgdSchema Database transactions Main changes from Midgard 9.03.0: Removed sitegroups and multilang (#1340) New midgard_storage class for storage management (#1136) Fully functional D-Bus support (#986) Midgard2 Midgard2 is a content repository. It provides an object-oriented and replicated environment for building data-intensive applications. This provides several advantages Common rules for data access mean that multiple applications can work with same content without breaking consistency of the data Signals about changes let applications know when another application using the repository modifies something, enabling collaborative data management between apps Objects instead of SQL mean that developers can deal with data using APIs more compatible with the rest of their desktop programming environment, and without having to fear issues like SQL injection Data model is scriptable when you use a content repository, meaning that users can easily write Python or PHP scripts to perform batch operations on their data without having to learn your storage format Synchronization and sharing features can be implemented on the content repository level meaning that you gain these features without having to worry about them Midgard's philosophy includes building on top of a well-known and supported GNOME libraries like glib and libgda on the system end, and connecting with popular programming languages like PHP and Python. Data storage can utilize SQLite with desktop and mobile applications, or a database server like MySQL or Postgres for web application storage. The Midgard2 platform enables developers to define a storage structure once and use it on both web and desktop applications, with the possibility of easy data replication between the two. Read more about Midgard's content repository approach: * http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/why_you_should_use_a_content_repository_for_your_application/ * http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/midgard2_at_fscons-your_data-everywhere/ * http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/midgard_and_jcr-a_look_at_two_content_repositories/ * http://teroheikkinen.iki.fi/blog/midgard_workshop_at_fscons/ New Midgard architecture Language independence Midgard is also language independent and due to its powerful architecture has proven as stable, secure and flexible solution implemented in various environments: PHP5 extension for web application and CMS development Python module for desktop application and background process development Objective-C package for Mac OS X and GNUstep developers Database independence The Midgard 1.x was heavily coupled with the MySQL database. The new Midgard2 architecture is instead built on top of libgda, the GNOME database abstraction layer. This enables Midgard to be used with various storage engines, including: MySQL Postgres SQLite Microsoft SQL Server Oracle DB2 Built-in replication and metadata All Midgard objects are automatically equipped with a consistent set of metadata properties that can be used for access control and workflow. In addition, Midgard provides an API for serializing and unserializing stored objects in XML format that can be used for replicating data between different systems. The replication architecture can be used for staging/live web environments or mobile applications that synchronize between each other or a web back-end. Planned for next Midgard2 releases Midgard MVC, an elegant PHP MVC framework written for Midgard2 New installer for database and web server deployment Midgard2 Runtime for integrating Midgard web applications to the desktop Midgard resources Download page and changelog for latest release Bug reporting User and developers support: Users' forum Developers' forum IRC: #midgard on irc.freenode.net #midgard on Qaiku MidgardProject on Twitter About Midgard The Midgard Framework development started in 1997 and it was initially released as free software in May 1999. Midgard Project has since gathered an active user and developer community, powering thousands of web sites ranging from simple organizational intranets to large community portals. Midgard is being developed by an international team of professionals. Midgard's development team includes new media designers, system integrators and content management consultants. Midgard development has been supported by several commercial and governmental entities including the European Union and the Swedish Internet Foundation. Midgard2 is free software available under the GNU LGPL license. http://www.midgard2.org Contacts Piotr Pokora, Midgard release manager piotrek.pokora(at)gmail.com Henri Bergius, Midgard spokesman henri.bergius(at)iki.fi The Midgard Project http://www.midgard-project.org [Less]

Welcome to Midgard Weekly Summaries, the weekly newsletter of happenings in the Midgard Project. An association will be founded to support the Midgard project. Founding meeting will be at 3pm on Dec 19th in restaurant Angleterre in Helsinki, Finland ... [More] Midgard has an Activity Log that is compatible with the activitystrea.ms specification. The log is available in both MidCOM and Midgard2, and is already used in Asgard Midgard Vala bindings make it possible to use midgard2 with the Vala programming language. See example Midgard Brainstorming component has a new user interface that can be seen live on maemo.org Mjolnir nightly builds are now available in the OBS mjolnir-dev repository Development builds of midgard2-runtime are now available in the OBS unstable repository Midgard MVC autologin on Runtime is now possible, meaning that the Runtime user is also registered authenticated with Midgard Ragnaroek is now PHP 5.3 compatible. This support will come in next release About Midgard Midgard is a persistent storage framework built for the replicated world. It enables developers build applications that have their data in sync between the desktop, mobile devices and web services. It also allows for easy sharing of data between users. Midgard does this all by building on top of technologies like GLib, libgda and D-Bus. It provides developers with object-oriented programming interfaces for C, PHP and Python. Web service developers also benefit from MidCOM, a modern MVC framework for PHP development that utilizes all the advantages of the Midgard storage framework. MidCOM helps web production also by shipping a set of content management tools. About MWS Midgard Weekly Summaries is a newsletter for keeping up with the happenings in the Midgard community. Notices about new published summaries will be sent to the Midgard user mailing list, Qaiku #midgard channel, and are available via RSS. The new MWS editions are edited collaboratively to make the editing burden easier. To suggest stories here bookmark them with del.icio.us tag "midgardweeklysummary". [Less]

Welcome to Midgard Weekly Summaries, the weekly newsletter of happenings in the Midgard Project. This week's big news was new version of Qaiku, the Midgard-powered microblogging platform. Qaiku uses many Midgard MVC features, including geolocation. ... [More] Midgard2 for Maemo 5. Mjolnir and python-midgard2 are now available in the Extras Testing repository for Maemo 5. Nokia N900 owners will want to try them out and vote Mjolnir in MacPorts. Midgard2 9.09 is now available for Mac users via MacPorts Running MidCOM 8.09 on Midgard2 is now possible thanks to the new midgardmvc_helper_ragnaland component that bootstraps a Midgard1-like environment to run MidCOM MidCOM3 is now Midgard MVC to clear confusion with MidCOM from Midgard1. This includes class naming, with the core now being accessible through midgardmvc_core::get_instance() Midgard MVC configuration. The new configuration stack that enables injectors to modify configuration in run-time and provides a 25% performance boost MgdSchema types can now contain class-level documentation. This helps in making the MgdSchema types more accessible for application developers FirePHP logging in Ragnaroek MidCOM is now possible. This means you can get all debug information from the Midgard1 site straight into your Firebug About Midgard Midgard is a persistent storage framework built for the replicated world. It enables developers build applications that have their data in sync between the desktop, mobile devices and web services. It also allows for easy sharing of data between users. Midgard does this all by building on top of technologies like GLib, libgda and D-Bus. It provides developers with object-oriented programming interfaces for C, PHP and Python. Web service developers also benefit from MidCOM, a modern MVC framework for PHP development that utilizes all the advantages of the Midgard storage framework. MidCOM helps web production also by shipping a set of content management tools. About MWS Midgard Weekly Summaries is a newsletter for keeping up with the happenings in the Midgard community. Notices about new published summaries will be sent to the Midgard user mailing list, Qaiku #midgard channel, and are available via RSS. The new MWS editions are edited collaboratively to make the editing burden easier. To suggest stories here bookmark them with del.icio.us tag "midgardweeklysummary". [Less]

Welcome to Midgard Weekly Summaries, the weekly newsletter of happenings in the Midgard Project. Lots of activity around the Mjolnir release this week. Midgard2 9.09 Mjolnir released. This release moves Midgard2 forward and provides a number of nice ... [More] new features for Midgard developers. Binaries are available on OBS. Content repositories compared. Midgard, JCR and CouchDB are compared in the What is a Content Repository post by Henri Bergius and Michael Marth. See also the discussion in Day's blog. Midgard2 installer work has been started by Alexey. This will form the basis for Midgard2's new deployment model. Firebug integration is now available in MidCOM3, allowing you to read log data and introspect requests straight from the browser Discussion on long-term changes to MgdSchema and QB APIs has been opened by Piotras About Midgard Midgard is a persistent storage framework built for the replicated world. It enables developers build applications that have their data in sync between the desktop, mobile devices and web services. It also allows for easy sharing of data between users. Midgard does this all by building on top of technologies like GLib, libgda and D-Bus. It provides developers with object-oriented programming interfaces for C, PHP and Python. Web service developers also benefit from MidCOM, a modern MVC framework for PHP development that utilizes all the advantages of the Midgard storage framework. MidCOM helps web production also by shipping a set of content management tools. About MWS Midgard Weekly Summaries is a newsletter for keeping up with the happenings in the Midgard community. Notices about new published summaries will be sent to the Midgard user mailing list, Qaiku #midgard channel, and are available via RSS. The new MWS editions are edited collaboratively to make the editing burden easier. To suggest stories here bookmark them with del.icio.us tag "midgardweeklysummary". [Less]

Lodz, November 18th 2009 -- The Midgard Project has released stable release of Midgard2 9.09 "Mjolnir" - second release of the new generation of the Midgard content repository. About this release Midgard2 9.09 is targeted at web framework and ... [More] desktop application developers. It provides a comprehensive set of content repository APIs that can be used to build replicated information applications that share their information using a common storage layer and replication tools. In this release we provide Content Repository API bindings for the following programming languages: C, Python, PHP and Objective-C. D-Bus signals are used to inform different Midgard2 applications about things happening in the repository, enabling for example a PHP website and a Python background process to communicate with each other. New functionalities in this release: Database views MgdSchema classes are extendable or might be duplicated New authentication system with stack support and multiple authentication methods per user Optional metadata for MgdSchema classes User defined, reflectable fields in MgdSchema Database transactions Main changes from Midgard 9.03: Removed sitegroups and multilang (#1340) New midgard_storage class for storage management (#1136) Fully functional D-Bus support (#986) Midgard2 Midgard2 is a content repository. It provides an object-oriented and replicated environment for building data-intensive applications. This provides several advantages Common rules for data access mean that multiple applications can work with same content without breaking consistency of the data Signals about changes let applications know when another application using the repository modifies something, enabling collaborative data management between apps Objects instead of SQL mean that developers can deal with data using APIs more compatible with the rest of their desktop programming environment, and without having to fear issues like SQL injection Data model is scriptable when you use a content repository, meaning that users can easily write Python or PHP scripts to perform batch operations on their data without having to learn your storage format Synchronization and sharing features can be implemented on the content repository level meaning that you gain these features without having to worry about them Midgard's philosophy includes building on top of a well-known and supported GNOME libraries like glib and libgda on the system end, and connecting with popular programming languages like PHP and Python. Data storage can utilize SQLite with desktop and mobile applications, or a database server like MySQL or Postgres for web application storage. The Midgard2 platform enables developers to define a storage structure once and use it on both web and desktop applications, with the possibility of easy data replication between the two. Read more about Midgard's content repository approach: http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/why_you_should_use_a_content_repository_for_your_application/ http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/midgard2_at_fscons-your_data-everywhere/ http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/midgard_and_jcr-a_look_at_two_content_repositories/ http://teroheikkinen.iki.fi/blog/midgard_workshop_at_fscons/ New Midgard architecture Language independence Midgard is also language independent and due to its powerful architecture has proven as stable, secure and flexible solution implemented in various environments: PHP5 extension for web application and CMS development Python module for desktop application and background process development Objective-C package for Mac OS X and GNUstep developers Database independence The Midgard 1.x was heavily coupled with the MySQL database. The new Midgard2 architecture is instead built on top of libgda, the GNOME database abstraction layer. This enables Midgard to be used with various storage engines, including: MySQL Postgres SQLite Microsoft SQL Server Oracle DB2 Built-in replication and metadata All Midgard objects are automatically equipped with a consistent set of metadata properties that can be used for access control and workflow. In addition, Midgard provides an API for serializing and unserializing stored objects in XML format that can be used for replicating data between different systems. The replication architecture can be used for staging/live web environments or mobile applications that synchronize between each other or a web back-end. Planned for next Midgard2 releases Midgard MVC, an elegant PHP MVC framework written for Midgard2 New installer for database and web server deployment Midgard2 Runtime for integrating Midgard web applications to the desktop Midgard resources Download page and changelog for latest release Bug reporting User and developers support: Users' forum Developers' forum IRC: #midgard on irc.freenode.net #midgard on Qaiku MidgardProject on Twitter About Midgard The Midgard Framework development started in 1997 and it was initially released as free software in May 1999. Midgard Project has since gathered an active user and developer community, powering thousands of web sites ranging from simple organizational intranets to large community portals. Midgard is being developed by an international team of professionals. Midgard's development team includes new media designers, system integrators and content management consultants. Midgard development has been supported by several commercial and governmental entities including the European Union and the Swedish Internet Foundation. Midgard2 is free software available under the GNU LGPL license. http://www.midgard2.org Contacts Piotr Pokora, Midgard release manager piotrek.pokora(at)gmail.com Henri Bergius, Midgard spokesman henri.bergius(at)iki.fi The Midgard Project http://www.midgard-project.org [Less]

Welcome to Midgard Weekly Summaries, the weekly newsletter of happenings in the Midgard Project. This MWS covers the last two weeks as Henri has been busy conferencing. Midgard 8.09.6.1 hotfix is now available. This fixes the segfault happening in ... [More] end of PHP command-line scripts Midgard2 Runtime is now working on Linux with MidCOM3 on Midgard 9.09. A screenshot is available Midgard OBS nightly builds are now using the OBS REST API Qaiku benchmarked on Mjolnir. Same PHP MidCOM3 code runs 20-60% faster on Mjolnir than Ragnaroek New Midgard authentication API in Mjolnir is now being used by MidCOM3. This allows multiple authentication methods and access levels for same user, simplifying implementations like OpenID and OAuth $_MIDCOM and $_MIDGARD PHP superglobals are now available only if enabled via the midgard.superglobals_compat ini setting Object properties in Mjolnir are now returned in same order as defined in MgdSchema. This makes generating documentation and forms by reflection easier Mjolnir is nearing release. Most of blockers are now done, and the stable should be out soon Ragnaroek net.nemein.registrations can now send email to event attendees TinyMCE has been upgraded to version 3.2.7 in Ragnaroek. This will come in 8.09.7 About Midgard Midgard is a persistent storage framework built for the replicated world. It enables developers build applications that have their data in sync between the desktop, mobile devices and web services. It also allows for easy sharing of data between users. Midgard does this all by building on top of technologies like GLib, libgda and D-Bus. It provides developers with object-oriented programming interfaces for C, PHP and Python. Web service developers also benefit from MidCOM, a modern MVC framework for PHP development that utilizes all the advantages of the Midgard storage framework. MidCOM helps web production also by shipping a set of content management tools. About MWS Midgard Weekly Summaries is a newsletter for keeping up with the happenings in the Midgard community. Notices about new published summaries will be sent to the Midgard user mailing list, Qaiku #midgard channel, and are available via RSS. The new MWS editions are edited collaboratively to make the editing burden easier. To suggest stories here bookmark them with del.icio.us tag "midgardweeklysummary". [Less]

A hotfix for midgard-core in stable LTS branch - Ragnaroek, has been released.It includes fix for random crash which used to happen at the end of HP script. Midgard download page: ... [More] http://www.midgard-project.org/midcom-serveattachmentguid-19a2c770ce0811dea4b9233b51a481a081a0/midgard-core-8.09.6.1.tar.gz OBS build system with binary packages: http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/midgardproject:/ragnaroek/     [Less]

Welcome to Midgard Weekly Summaries, the weekly newsletter of happenings in the Midgard Project. This issue comes a bit late as Bergie has been busy in The Open Web of Ede, the Netherlands. Midgard 9.09 nightly builds are now also available for ... [More] RPM-based distributions like Fedora, RHEL and OpenSUSE thanks to jval. It is now a good time to test them before Mjolnir goes stable! MidCOM3 is switching to Pake as the automation tool. Pake can be used for things like packaging, static file installation and scaffolding new components Midgard2 URL parsing will be moved to be completely handled in PHP code in MidCOM3. This will enable greater flexibility with host setup and better caching. There is an experimental Mjolnir dispatcher to use this Midgard 8.09.6.1 MidCOM hotfix was released, fixing issues like object labels in Asgard Trash and undeleting object attachments zend_mm_heap corruption in Mjolnir PHP extension has been fixed Midgard deletion vote on Wikipedia. A big discussion last week was the deletion vote on the Midgard page on Wikipedia. The vote result was to keep the page, with some suggestions to improve the article About Midgard Midgard is a persistent storage framework built for the replicated world. It enables developers build applications that have their data in sync between the desktop, mobile devices and web services. It also allows for easy sharing of data between users. Midgard does this all by building on top of technologies like GLib, libgda and D-Bus. It provides developers with object-oriented programming interfaces for C, PHP and Python. Web service developers also benefit from MidCOM, a modern MVC framework for PHP development that utilizes all the advantages of the Midgard storage framework. MidCOM helps web production also by shipping a set of content management tools. About MWS Midgard Weekly Summaries is a newsletter for keeping up with the happenings in the Midgard community. Notices about new published summaries will be sent to the Midgard user mailing list, Qaiku #midgard channel, and are available via RSS. The new MWS editions are edited collaboratively to make the editing burden easier. To suggest stories here bookmark them with del.icio.us tag "midgardweeklysummary". [Less]

Midgard Gathering fall 2009 special Welcome to Midgard Weekly Summaries, the weekly newsletter of happenings in the Midgard Project. This weekend has been busy with the Midgard Gathering for fall 2009 in Helsinki, Finland, and so there are many ... [More] things going on: Midgard 8.09.6 "AmsterGard", the latest iteration of the Ragnaroek LTS series was released. This includes  some 180 fixes and improvements, and is recommended to all Ragnaroek users In addition to all the Linux distributions catered by OBS, Midgard 8.09.6 is also available in MacPorts Alexey ran Midgard2 Mjolnir through the clang static analyzer to find lurking bugs before the release. See the report Midgard2 installation directories were changed to "midgard2" throughout the system Midgard photo galleries can now generate square thumbnails thanks to Solt Work on Midgard Runtime has been started by MDK. This new revision of what was formerly known as App Builder is using Qt and can be ported to both Linux and Mac. With the Midgard Runtime you can deploy any Midgard-based web application as a local desktop app Photos from the Midgard Gathering are already available on Flickr Midgard2-Python-Qt4 tutorial was held to Tero Heikkinen. The example app code is available on GitHub MidCOM3 switched to Pake from Phing that was formerly used for setup and scaffolding Midgard2 10.03 will be developed with codename "Ratatoskr", the messenger squirrel that scampers around the tree of life in Viking mythology. Ratatoskr is small and fast About Midgard Midgard is a persistent storage framework built for the replicated world. It enables developers build applications that have their data in sync between the desktop, mobile devices and web services. It also allows for easy sharing of data between users. Midgard does this all by building on top of technologies like GLib, libgda and D-Bus. It provides developers with object-oriented programming interfaces for C, PHP and Python. Web service developers also benefit from MidCOM, a modern MVC framework for PHP development that utilizes all the advantages of the Midgard storage framework. MidCOM helps web production also by shipping a set of content management tools. About MWS Midgard Weekly Summaries is a newsletter for keeping up with the happenings in the Midgard community. Notices about new published summaries will be sent to the Midgard user mailing list, Qaiku #midgard channel, and are available via RSS. The new MWS editions are edited collaboratively to make the editing burden easier. To suggest stories here bookmark them with del.icio.us tag "midgardweeklysummary". Permalink [Less]