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dotCMS 2.0 Raises the Bar in Java-based Web Content Management

mike-johnston Profile

dotCMS, an open source, Java-based web content management system, is pleased to announce the release of v2.0. This latest release continues dotCMS’s pursuit of providing one the most scalable, powerful and easy-to-use web content management platforms in the marketplace today. No spin or catchy titles, just good, meaningful tools and functionality for both commercial-grade and multi-tenant content driven web applications.

“dotCMS 2.0 is our response to the on-the-ground, real needs of both business users and developers,” announced Will Ezell, CTO of dotCMS. “We have exciting plans for the 2 series, which will continue to rapidly improve upon our already robust enterprise content platform”.

Features and Improvements for Business Users:

  • New Customizable/Extendable Workflow Engine
    The new workflow engine in dotCMS 2.0 allows the creation of multiple, multi-level workflow schemes for content and files. Workflow actions can trigger customizable sub-actions. For example, posting a value of a content field to a twitter account on publish -or- adding/removing a document/piece of content to a SOLR indexing server. Additionally, different content types can have completely different workflow schemes — all manageable through the easy to use dotCMS UI.
  • Files as Content
    Files and Document types can be created in the UI and administrators can be customize fields, properties and relationships on a per file type basis. The beauty of “Files as Content” is that these files are still URL addressable binary files with all the benefits of being content. This allows CDN friendly pathing to files and image manipulation with no query strings. Additionally, with HTML 5, we have greatly improved multi-file uploads.
  • Full-Text Document and Metadata Indexing
    In dotCMS 2.0, all metadata and content is extracted from documents and files. dotCMS makes this information searchable, including full-text indexing of all MSOffice documents. This allows for robust document management solutions to be created using the out of the box tools in dotCMS platform.
  • Content Editing UI improvements and Pessimistic Content Check-in / Checkout
    Workflows and content locking are integrated into an improved content editing UI. Now content can be truly locked for editing – only the editing user or CMS Administrators can release the lock.
  • Key/Value Field Type
    Allows a content type to have an unlimited number of values that can be determined when the content is being entered. For example, this becomes very useful for a specifications page for various electronic products in an ecommerce environment.

Features and Improvements for Developers and Administrators:

  • ElasticSearch for performance and horizontal scalability
    Hugely scalable content index that includes auto-replication and auto data-sharing. This infrastructure allows for content to be indexed once, available everywhere in clustered installations. ElasticSearch can also scale independently from your dotCMS installation based on an implementation’s needs. And to improve management of multiple environments, indices can be backed up using a restful interface and restored across instances/ environments.
  • Data Model/API Improvements
    dotCMS continues to improve under the covers as the data model enforces content rules and maintains data integrity without loss of flexibility.
  • OSGI Implemented (BETA)
    dotCMS 2.0 includes the start of a new architecture for extending and developing in dotCMS by providing an OSGI interface for the hot deployment of custom java functionality. Currently the OSGI package manager allows administrators to deploy Velocity Viewtools, and workflow Actionlets (Custom Workflow Actions) and other OSGI packages via OSGI, without needing a server restart.
  • Spring 3 MVC Support
    Spring MVC remains one of the most used Java web application frameworks and now, dotCMS 2.0 ships with a Spring 3 View and View Resolver. This allows that developers looking to implement controller logic in their CMS or content driven apps can use Spring MVC to implement their functionality in dotCMS
  • Logging Improvements
    Never to underestimate the importance of seemingly small improvements — the new Velocity Logging feature gives site developers a stack-trace that greatly speeds the debugging of hard to find velocity errors.

About dotCMS

dotCMS offers an enterprise-level, open source J2EE/Java web content management system — providing large organizations a rapid development platform for both commercial-grade and multi-tenant content driven web applications.