Newsletter - 200904 - April 2009

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Last updated: Apr 28, 2009Version comment

Jasig Newsletter - April 2009

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1 Upcoming Events

1.1 Open Repositories 2009 - Atlanta, Georgia (May 18-21, 2009)
1.2 Portal 2009 - Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (June 2-5, 2009)
1.3 10th Sakai Conference - Cambridge, Massachusetts (July 8-10, 2009)

2 Jasig Project Updates

2.1 Central Authentication Service (CAS)
2.1.1 CAS 3.3.2 Server Release
2.2 uPortal
2.2.1 uPortal 3.1.1 Release
2.2.2 Registering Your uPortal Implementation

3 Jasig Incubator

3.1 Bedework Calendar

4 Around Jasig

4.1 Cernunnos 1.1.0 Released - Better Integration with Maven & Spring
4.2 Announcing CASShib 3.3.1a - Federation of applications using CAS
4.3 Fluid Infusion 1.0 Release

5 Tech Corner

5.1 Build, Install and Run uPortal 3.1.0

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1 Upcoming Events

1.1 Open Repositories 2009 - Atlanta, Georgia (May 18-21, 2009)

"The 4th annual international Open Repositories Conference will be held May 18th - 21st, 2009 at the Georgia Institute of Technology Hotel and Conference Center and Global Learning Conference Center at Technology Square in Atlanta, Georgia. The conference will be hosted by the Georgia Tech Library and Information Center."

Source: https://or09.library.gatech.edu/

1.2 Portal 2009 - Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (June 2-5, 2009)

"The featured keynote speaker at Portal2009 is Richard N. Katz, Vice President of EDUCAUSE, and author, co-author, or editor of dozens of books, monographs and articles on a variety of higher education, management, and technology topics. His book, Web Portals and Higher Education: Technologies to Make IT Personal, published in 2002 is still considered one of the definitive sources on portals in higher education. We expect portal 2009 to be the best conference to date, so get your presentation proposals in to share your portal stories with your colleagues from higher education institutions from around the globe.

The theme for the conference, portal2009: users uses usability, is meant to reflect the idea that portals have many definitions, and the different portals have different audiences (users), tools (uses) and interfaces (usability). The more everyone knows about the differences, the more people can continue to evolve their institution's portal into a more useful commodity."

Source: http://cnav.gettysburg.edu/portal/portal09/index.cfm

1.3 10th Sakai Conference - Cambridge, Massachusetts (July 8-10, 2009)

The 10th Sakai Conference will be taking place in beautiful Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sakai conferences are high-energy events that bring together users and developers of Sakai to talk about past successes and challenges and to peer into the future for the Sakai product and community. It's an essential event if you're using or considering using the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment.

Visit the conference website for information on conference registration, hotel reservations, and submitting proposals for the 10th Sakai Conference: https://educonference.com/sakai/boston/index.php

Main Conference Dates: Wednesday, July 8 - Friday, July 10
Pre-conference sessions: Tuesday, July 7

The conference hotel will be the Hyatt Cambridge. The room rate is $199/night and includes internet access. The cutoff date for this room rate will be June 5.

Michael Korcuska
Executive Director, Sakai Foundation

2 Jasig Project Updates

2.1 Central Authentication Service (CAS)

2.1.1 CAS 3.3.2 Server Release

We're pleased to announce that CAS Server 3.3.2 has been released. This release includes a number of bug fixes, enhancements, and new features:

  • Upgrade to Spring LDAP, which removes the need for the CAS AuthenticatedLdapContextSource
  • Fix for some tests that failed due to web page changes
  • CookieRetrievingCookieGenerator is now non-final
  • RESTful DELETE does logout callbacks
  • CAS ignores and logs failed logout callbacks
  • Bug fixes for the ThrottledSubmissionByIpAddressHandlerInterceptorAdapter
  • New Localization Support: Turkish
  • LDAP Support for SASL-Bind with DIGEST-MD5
  • /services/loggedOut no longer requires authentication
  • Alternative Constructor for MemcacheTicketRegistry

Thanks to Lasse Westh-Nielsen, Andrew Feller, Marvin Addison, James Champion, Mert Caliskan, Allan Saddi, and Michael Ströder for their bug reports and help in fixing and testing.

The release can be downloaded from the usual spot: http://www.ja-sig.org/downloads/cas/

2.2 uPortal

2.2.1 uPortal 3.1.1 Release

The first patch release of uPortal 3.1 is being prepared. This patch addresses a number of bugs that were uncovered in the recent release in the areas of importing and exporting, the DLM processing pipeline and the groups manager UI. The download and release notes will be available on the uPortal web site download page: http://www.jasig.org/uportal/download

2.2.2 Registering Your uPortal Implementation

For the first time, uPortal is including a registration portlet in the release. This portlet is part of the default layout for portal administrators and can be used to send information about your implementation to Jasig. This information will help Jasig estimate how many organizations are using uPortal and the different environments uPortal is deployed in. You can feel free to register your portal even if you are only in the development stage.

We also encourage you to create your own portal deployment page on our web site. Visit the deployments page at http://www.jasig.org/uportal/deployments, create an account, log in and click the "Add uPortal Deployment" link (visible after you have logged in). This is another great way to share information about your installation with the community.

3 Jasig Incubator

3.1 Bedework Calendar

We are very pleased to announce that Bedework, the open source, enterprise calendar system, has been accepted by the Jasig Incubator, which puts it on a path to become a fully sponsored Jasig project.

Many of you already know Bedework. Project staff have attended some of our events and have presented at our conferences and barCamps. A number of Jasig Institutional Members are currently users of Bedework. For those of you who are less familiar, the system is designed to conform to current calendaring standards. Built in Java, it is intended to meet the needs of higher education, though its capabilities appeal to a broader audience. Bedework has a centralized server architecture allowing immediate update of public and personal calendaring information. Priority is given to interoperability and open standards. In short, it is an excellent fit with typical Jasig architectures and skill sets.

Bedework has been primarily maintained by staff at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. We welcome Gary Schwartz, Bedework Lead, and his developmers at RPI, and we look forward to working with them. We hope others in the Jasig community will soon get to know Bedework--the product and the team. Those interested in following and discussing Bedework's progress through the Incubator are welcome to subscribe to the jasig-incubator list: http://www.jasig.org/mailing-lists/jasig. The full list of incubating projects may be found in Jasig's Issue Tracker: http://tinyurl.com/d98a8t

Gary Schwartz sent an email to Bedework users a few days ago, which follows. In it you will find a very brief history of the project and the rationale for Bedework's new affiliation with Jasig.

Jonathan Markow, Executive Director

4 Around Jasig

4.1 Cernunnos 1.1.0 Released - Better Integration with Maven & Spring

The Cernunnos Project Team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Cernunnos version 1.1.0. Cernunnos is an open source Java technology that helps Java professionals be more effective in their work. Cernunnos is available from GoogleCode at the following address: http://cernunnos.googlecode.com/.

Version 1.1.0 of Cernunnos provides many new features, bug fixes, and enhancements since the 1.0.0 release in September 2008. In total, 37 documented issues were resolved: 31 enhancements and 6 defects. Team members added 4 new components to Cernunnos, and 37 existing components received enhancements of one kind or another.

Highlights include:

  • New ResourceHelper API for enhanced, uniform resource resolution among components
  • New PojoTask for simpler Dependency Injection and better integration with Spring
  • New Maven archetype for creating a webapp project that uses Cernunnos
  • Support for automated definition of Servlets & Portlets
  • Support for running Cernunnos operations from the $
    Unknown macro: {CRN_HOME}
    /bin directory
  • Significant enhancements to exception feedback & troubleshooting
  • Significant enhancements to the manual, including more and better examples, coverage of previously undocumented components and features
  • Improvements to Maven build & dependency configuration

Andrew Wills, Unicon, Inc. http://cernunnos.googlecode.com/

4.2 Announcing CASShib 3.3.1a - Federation of applications using CAS

I am pleased to announce the first release of CASShib. This release is an extension to the CAS 3.3.1 server. CASShib enables the federation of applications using CAS.

The CASShib Project is located at http://code.google.com/p/casshib/. Downloads and documentation are available from this location. A Discussion Group is also located at http://groups.google.com/group/casshib.

  • CASShib Shibbolizes the CAS server but allows application developers to use a CAS client rather than the Shibboleth Service Provider software to federate their application. This may be of benefit to those who are already using CAS or for those who seek an alternative approach to federating applications.
  • Besides federation CASShib also offers the opportunity to leverage the sophistication of Shibboleth attribute release policies for local CASified applications.

An overview of CASShib is available at http://code.google.com/p/casshib/wiki/CASShibExplained.

Status of the code:

CASShib can be considered experimental stage. I intend for this code to be deployed into production at UC Merced primarily as a way for local applications to consume attributes that are released from our Shibboleth Identity Provider. There are security considerations. Please consult this page for further explanation of these considerations: http://code.google.com/p/casshib/wiki/CASShibExplained#Service_registration_and_security

I especially welcome any comments regarding security aspects. Discussions on this can be started in the discussion group at http://groups.google.com/group/casshib.

Brian Koehmstedt, University of California (Merced)

4.3 Fluid Infusion 1.0 Release

The Fluid Project is very pleased to announce the release of Fluid Infusion 1.0!

This release introduces a new data binding framework, a stand-alone Progress component, three new Fluid Skinning System themes, and a number of UI Options improvements and refinements. Along with the usual bug fixes and improvements, we've improved the consistency of the code base by standardizing APIs, class names, and reorganizing the source code.

Please see What's New in This Release below for more details.

If you're upgrading from a previous version of Infusion you may want to refer to the following Upgrade guides: http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Upgrading+to+Infusion+1.0

Infusion 1.0 is available for download at: http://fluidproject.org/index.php/download-infusion

What's New in This Release?

  • New data binding framework: the ChangeApplier
  • Substantial UI Options improvements and refinements, including:
  • a better user interface: improved layout, easier to use, increased contrast
  • new features: table of contents, contrast and line spacing
  • configurable strategy for persisting user preferences, using cookies by default
  • stable API
  • 3 new Fluid Skinning System themes with graphics: Coal, Slate, and Inverted High Contrast
  • New preview component: Progress (previously part of the Uploader component)
  • Improved documentation
  • Better error handling for the Uploader
  • Up to date ARIA support for the Reorderer
  • Consistency across the board: standardized APIs, class names, and source code layout
  • Many bug fixes

See the complete list here: http://issues.fluidproject.org/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa?mode=hide&requestId=10191

What is Fluid Infusion?

Fluid Infusion is a JavaScript application framework for building rich, reusable, and accessible user interfaces on the Web. It includes all the tools you need for building complex interactions, including support for models and views, data binding, and unobtrusive markup rendering. Infusion also includes a growing collection of components that have been designed by a cross-disciplinary team and thoroughly tested for usability and accessibility. By incorporating the Infusion framework and components into your web application's user interface, you will make your application easier to use by more people. Easier to use means happier users.

Known Issues

An up-to-date listing of known issues with this release is available at: http://issues.fluidproject.org/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa?mode=hide&requestId=10189

Help us Build a Usable Web For Everyone

The Fluid Project is an open, collaborative community. Our goal is to improve the user experience of open source web applications, so if you are a designer or developer and want to help change the world, consider getting involved! Fluid Infusion includes not only full source code but also a design handbook that offers useful design, accessibility, and usability strategies and documentation, all backed by a growing community of interaction designers, user interface experts, and software developers contributing a wealth of expertise in usability and accessibility.

Many thanks to everyone in the community for their hard work and support for this release!

Eli Cochran
user interaction developer
ETS, UC Berkeley

5 Tech Corner

5.1 Build, Install and Run uPortal 3.1.0

Cris Holdorph (Unicon, Inc.) has written an informative article outlining "step-by-step setup instructions for a uPortal development environment for use in developing Portlets." The instructions are Windows centric, but Cris notes that the concepts would be equally applicable to other OS implementations as well.

The full article can be found on the Unicon web site at: http://www.unicon.net/node/1215

(Thanks for doing this, Cris!)

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Jasig Newsletter - April 2009

Archives available in the JASIG wiki at: http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/display/JSG/Newsletter

If your institution or company has items of interest to the Jasig membership, please submit them via email to newsletter at jasig dot org.

The next issue of the monthly Jasig Newsletter will be published on or about May 18th, 2009. Articles for that edition of the newsletter should be submitted no later than Friday, May 15th, 2009. Thanks!

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