MiniVend 3.12 very close to release (finally)

[mikeh@minivend.com]

******    message to minivend-users from mikeh@minivend.com     ******

Dear All,

I have finally done what I think are the final changes to MiniVend
3.12. The minivend-3.12beta13 that is up can be considered to be a
pre-release.

If you reported a bug that had a version number attached to the report
then I have probably fixed it.

If you made a nebulous report, perhaps even one with a "diff", but
didn't include the exact version information, then it may not have
gotten in. (There were several of these, and I am afraid I just don't
have time to conduct an elucidating Q&A. I fixed a couple but was unable
to determine applicability of a few.)

Things which have been added since the intial beta announcement:

    * CookieLogin directive allows you to set a cookie with the
      username and password of a user for auto-login.

    * [set-cookie name value expire] and [read-cookie name] tags added.

    * Added a feature I have been thinking about for a long time -- 
      form-linked page refs. If you want to order an item with configurable
      size/color by a link, you can now do:

        [page form="
                mv_order_item=99-102
                mv_order_size=L
                mv_order_quantity=1
                mv_separate_items=1
                mv_todo=refresh"] Order t-shirt in Large size </A>

      It was so simple to add I don't know why I didn't before now.

      You must have TolerateGet set (which is now the default) and
      all normal MiniVend form caveats apply -- you must have an action,
      you must supply a page if you don't want to go to the default,
      etc.

      You can theoretically submit any form with this; it is best
      if none of the included values have newlines. You can also
      use it for submitting foreign forms if you like; it will
      not touch the href if it begins with http:, ftp:, or the
      like.

      The [area ...] tag works the same way, though the deprecated
      [pagetarget ....] and [areatarget ...] were left out.

    * Added support for file upload/download. A demonstration is
      included in the simple demo.

    * Totally removed support for the old Msql.pm module. If you
      still use this, use an older version or update to DBI.

    * You can set an UPPERCASE parameter in the Database directive:

        Database   products   UPPERCASE  1

      You want to apply this to SQL only.

      This allows lowercase field references in [item-field column]
      and [item-data table column] (and sql- and loop- too). This
      should make it easier to get things working with Oracle
      and other DBs which won't return a lowercase field name for
      fetchrow_hashref. Note that this is not used in [item-param
      field] where you should know what the name is.

    * There is an [if-param name] and [if-sql-param name] tag
      ala [if-field ...] and [if-data ...].

    * Added a [value-extended ...] tag which allows access to 
      the array values of a form variable.

    * Added a Storable interface selectable at software
      configuration time. If Storable is installed, and the
      file _db_storable is present in the MiniVend software root,
      (or the environment variable MINIVEND_STORABLE_DB is true)
      then Storable will be used not only for sessions but for
      all GDBM and DB_File storage. THIS BREAKS EXISTING CATALOGS.
      If you want to use Storable only for sessions, just set
      the environment variable $ENV{MINIVEND_STORABLE} to 1 as usual.
      You can also create a _session_storable file in the MiniVend root.

    * Verified the DBI interface to work with DBD::XBase (subject
      to the usual limitations like fieldname length), which
      allows XBASE/DBF files to be used directly.

    * Added a perhaps more convenient Locale language facility,
      which looks like:

        [LC] This is the default text
                [de_DE] Text for de_DE locale [/de_DE]
                [en_US] Text for en_US locale [/en_US]
                [fr_FR] Text for fr_FR locale [/fr_FR]
        [/LC]

-- 
Mike Heins                          http://www.minivend.com/  ___ 
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It's a little-known fact            Oxford, OH  45056         | || |_) |
that the Y1K problem caused         <mikeh@minivend.com>     |___|  _ <
the Dark Ages. -- unknown           513.523.7621 FAX 7501        |_| \_\
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