Tue Aug 14 04:36:00 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