Cascade Server 6.8
Release Summary
Overview
Cascade Server version 6.8 introduces some powerful new features to aid users in creating, editing and publishing content faster and more effectively. Integrated web analytics will help them understand how the content performs after it's live. Improvements like the Context Menu and improvements to the structured data forms allow users to move more quickly through the interface and update their content with ease. Below is a summary of the major features and improvements.
Google Analytics Connector
The Google Analytics Connector is a new Connector in 6.8. It pulls Google Analytics data into Cascade to provide Site analytics and in-context analytics for publishable Files, Pages, and Folders.
Parallel Publishing
A major enhancement in 6.8 is Parallel Publishing. Previous versions of Cascade Server had a single publish queue across the entire system allowing only one active job at a time. As of 6.8, each Site now has it's own publish queue, and can publish up to two Assets at a time.
Native Image Editing Tool
Cascade Server 6.8 introduces a built-in, inline image editing tool. This image editor allows users to modify images when creating or editing them without the use of any client-side plugins or applets. The tool supports the following operations: Resize (optionally maintaining the aspect ratio), Rotate, Flip (horizontal/vertical), Crop, Undo, and Redo.
The tool is enabled for the following file extensions by default:
- .jpg
- .jpeg
- .png
- .bmp
- .gif*
Rendering Metrics
Ever wonder why some Pages take a long time to render? With Rendering Metrics, you can easily identify what Blocks and Formats are causing a page to take a long time to load. When viewing a Page in Cascade, a new "Metrics" button is available that when clicked will display a menu containing all regions for the current Page and rendering times for each.
Context Menu
A new context menu has been added that appears when hovering over asset links in Cascade. The functionality provided by this menu is akin to functionality provided by the Cascade Server Extension for Firefox. Users are presented with links to specific asset tabs for faster navigation.
Media Plugin for Embedding Videos in the WYSIWYG
A new tool has been added to the WYSIWYG which allows users to embed videos into Page/Block content more seamlessly.
Content Type's Page Configuration to Destination mappings
With the increase of mobile devices able to browse the internet, it has become imperative for Sites to be published in a mobile format. To aid in this process, it is now possible to specify which Destination(s) a particular page configuration should be published to. These Destination mappings are specified per Content Type which allows flexibility when determining which content should go where.
Scheduled Publishing Improvements
The scheduled publishing interface for Sites, Destinations, Targets, and Publish Sets has been re-vamped to provide more intuitive scheduled publishing options. These assets can now be scheduled to publish daily, on particular days of the week, or every X number of hours. More advanced users can also provide their own Cron expression to schedule publish jobs in a more granular fashion.
HTML5 Template Support
Limited HTML5 Template support is now available. Users now have the ability to create Templates using the HTML5 doctype, "<!DOCTYPE html>". Note that Cascade only supports the XML variant of HTML5 at this time.
User Experience Enhancements
Help text icons in Data DefinitionsStructured data fields with help text will be displayed with a '?' icon which users can mouse over to view the help text associated with the field.
Collapsible Data Definition groups on Pages/BlocksGroup nodes inside Data Definition Pages and Blocks can now be collapsed by clicking on the group heading. Each group can also be configured to show as collapsed by default in the Data Definition itself.
AJAX reload in Data Definitions when using +/- and reordering fieldsAdding/removing structured data fields that are configured as mulitple="true" is now performed via AJAX. This improves the speed of editing Data Definition Pages and Blocks.
Web Services
We've improved the way assets are edited in Web Services to help simplify developers' web services scripts. As usual, any new asset types are also able to be manipulated via Web Services.
Read more about the changes in the web services changelog.
Upgrade Guide
Please follow every available release Upgrade Guide for every version you skipped during the upgrade.
Supported Upgrade Paths
- You can upgrade to 6.8 directly from Cascade 5.5 and later. If you are running a version before Cascade 5.5, please upgrade to 5.5, and then to 6.8.
- DO NOT attempt to upgrade a database that was upgraded to a 6.8 Beta release. Only upgrade databases running production stable versions of Cascade.
Support for Oracle 11g and discontinued support for Oracle 9i
Cascade 6.8 introduces support for Oracle 11g. You can either upgrade your database to 11g before or after upgrading to Cascade 6.8. However, remember that all versions prior to 6.8 will not start against an Oracle 11g database.
Also as of Cascade 6.8, Oracle 9i is no longer supported. Because Cascade 6.8 will not run against an Oracle 9i database, you'll need to upgrade the database prior to upgrading Cascade.
The following message will appear in the log if you attempt to run Cascade against Oracle 9i:
Unsupported major version of Oracle: 9
Discontinued support for MySQL 4.1
As of Cascade 6.8, MySQL 4.1 is no longer supported. The software will not start and the log file will contain the following message:
Unsupported version of MySQL major: 4, minor: 1
Discontinued support for SQL Server 2000
As of Cascade 6.8, SQL Server 2000 is no longer supported. The software will not start and the log file will contain the following message:
Unsupported major version of SQLServer: 8