[ic] Interchange 4.8 release now available

Jon Jensen interchange-users@interchange.redhat.com
Tue Aug 14 04:28:01 2001


We are proud to announce the public release of Interchange 4.8.
This is the best Interchange we have ever produced, and it has many,
many, improvements and fixes over 4.6 while maintaining a high degree
of compatibility.

Here are the highlights:

Server Core
-----------
* New pre-forked server mode uses Apache-style multiple server dispatch
  to dramatically increase performance (up to 7X!) on busy systems.
* New SOAP protocol support allows two-way communication with all sorts
  of other web "objects".

Foundation Catalog
------------------
* The new "Foundation" demo catalog simplifies many aspects of HTML for
  generating catalogs. Uses CSS to define colors, font styles, and other
  parameters. Includes components that drop in with the page editor to
  provide configurable feature additions on a page-by-page basis.

Database
--------
* Transactions now fully supported, including in order routes.
* Improved autonumbering support allows use of SQL database sequences or
  auto_increment fields, as well as built-in Interchange autonumbering.
* New attributes and logic allow failover to a second database server.

Orders/Payments
---------------
* Standard payment gateway support for 5 major payment gateways, with
  support for multiple instances of accounts, common parameters for easy
  gateway changes, and much more. Explicit [charge ...] tag can implement
  returns, voids, split payments, and other special handling.
* Encryption is much more automatically handled.
* Instituted VAT and extended taxing, including UI support.
* New tag [assign] can override subtotal, shipping, handling, and salestax.

Product Display
---------------
* Improved option handling. Any item can have multiple and infinitely
  varying options.
* [tree] tag allows you to build product display trees and display
  exploding lists.

Security
--------
* New [restrict] tag allows only certain tags to run within a region.
* Many password/user checking improvements, better logging.

Admin Interface
---------------
* Login screen adds choice of German, Danish, Dutch, or Swedish language.
* Added a "wizard" which allows step-by-step definition of many parts of
  a standard catalog, e.g. shipping, tax definition, and payment gateway.
* Improved page and template editors allow creation of templates
  and definition of new components with auto-generated component menus.

Packaging/Portability
---------------------
* RPM specfile reworked to build 3 RPMs: core and foundation skeleton
  (architecture-independent) and foundation live demo (i386).
* Debian packaging extensively reworked and improved.
* Runs on Windows if Cygwin toolset and Perl are installed.
* Runs on Mac OS X when Perl and requisite modules are installed.

There are many more changes and additions. See the WHATSNEW file for an
extensive account of changes.

You can download Interchange 4.8.1 here:

http://interchange.redhat.com/cgi-bin/ic/download.html

Thanks to the Interchange community for continual contributions in the
form of bug reports, patches, code contributions, and ideas. As always,
we look forward to feedback on the interchange-users list.

The Interchange Team