Since DC-X 1.7.2.0 was missing one upgrade instruction, our partners can download the feature-equal DC-X 1.7.2.1 from our servers. Please let us now how it works for you!

Our partners can now download 1.6.3.0. Let us know how it works for you!

The official release should be ready next week. Today we updated our demo server from DC-X 1.5.16 to 1.6.1.0beta3. If you have a demo account, you’re welcome to take a look at the new version. Let us know how you like it!

A major feature is that search results are now displayed much faster than before – in Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari, that is. (DC-X fully supports Internet Explorer 7 and 8, but it’s the slowest browser by far, so don’t use it unless you must.)

The most development time has gone into moving the document edit form from the center of the screen (the place where search results are displayed) into the tabs on the right hand. Here’s a screenshot showing DC-X before the change; the edit form is in the middle:

DC-X after the change, with the edit form on the right side:

This has the advantage that you can still see the search results (and easily select another document, or multiple documents for editing). And the Keywords, Rights and Usage tabs each have their own edit form.

Here are just some highlights of the new version:

• Behind the scenes a new and highly flexible form engine was introduced, making it easier than ever to customize your DC-X forms.
• The advanced search handling was improved, especially locale independent dates are now processed properly.
• The overall usability of DC-X was improved through a series of refactorings and tweaks.
• In the administrative area a lot more options are available (e.g. Topic Maps, Translations)

Some highlights in the new version:

• Optimized query performance by shrinking the Solr index and not loading filters with each query. (Click on the filter panel to load filters.)
• After tagging a document, it should now appear immediately afterwards when clicking on the tab name in the left-hand navigation.
• New actions “Edit rights” and “Edit usages”.
• Actions not permitted for the selected documents are now disabled.
• The document view displayed on double click now shows image captions.
• Safari 5 has been added to the list of supported browsers.
• Lots of bug fixes and minor tweaks, as well as a lot of code cleanup behind the scenes and administration improvements.

If you need access to a working demo server tomorrow or during the weekend, please contact us.

This is because we’re currently quite busy working on customer projects, but it doesn’t mean that DC-X is not evolving any more! In fact, partners can now download DC-X 1.1.0RC12 (if you don’t know the URL, please contact us). There are minor but important fixes in lots of areas, including the installer, publication information, topic planning, RSS feed import and the list and gallery result views.

(And yes, the permanent “Release Candidate” status is a bit funny – DC-X is stable enough for a “real” release, but there are a few things missing from the administration UI that we’d like to implement for 1.1.0.)