The Zend Framework team is delighted to announce that the official release process for Zend Framework 1.5 has begun! Since the 1.5 is a substantial release, we’ve decided to kick things off with a preview release to put all the new functionality in the community’s hands as early as possible. This release will be followed by as many release candidates as are needed to meet the high quality standards of the ZF project. Features to be released in Zend Framework 1.5 include, but are not necessarily limited to:


* Zend_Auth_Adapter_Ldap
* Zend_Build/Zend_Console
* Zend_Controller additional action helpers, including ContextSwitch/AjaxContext, Json, and AutoComplete
* Zend_Form
* Zend_InfoCard
* Zend_Layout
* Zend_OpenId
* Zend_Search_Lucene improvements, including wildcard search, date range search, fuzzy search, and Lucene 2.1 index file format support
* Zend_View enhancements, including actions, partials, and placeholders
* Zend_Pdf UTF8 support
* New Zend_Service consumables (final list TBD)
* A whole lotta bug fixes and documentation improvements

For all the gory details, take a look at all the 1.5 issues in our issue tracker. The first two significant dates have already been set. The code freeze for the preview release is 1/22, while the targeted release date is 1/24. If everything goes well the first release candidate will follow in about 3 weeks. From that point on, release candidates will be produced as needed to reach the quality level necessary for a general availability (GA) release.

Please keep in mind that the preview release is fundamentally different from an initial release candidate. For example, there is no guarantee that the API’s will not change or that features will not be added or dropped before the first release candidate is cut. Generally speaking, the more feedback we get from the community for the preview release and the release candidates, the sooner we’ll reach the GA release.

I hope all of you are as excited about this as we are. Many thanks to everyone who has helped us get to this point- especially to all of you who have generously donated your time to contribute to Zend Framework. Let’s make this the best release yet!

And to continue the well known quote, ‘. . .That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ To very roughly paraphrase Shakespeare here: substance trumps the superficial.

So this is my roundabout way of announcing that we’ve decided to name the next release of Zend Framework ‘1.5′. First off, I don’t want people to get too hung up on the name. We were faced with the dilemma of having a release that included far too many essential changes to be deemed a regular minor release, while we wanted to reserve the major release revisions for larger breaks in backwards-compatibility. ‘1.5′ seemed to be a reasonable compromise. With major stories in command line tooling, forms, and authentication among other major improvements in PDF and Lucene search, the scope of 1.5 was significantly larger than what we hope our standard minor release would amount to considering that we would prefer to make new features available to all of our users as often as possible. Ultimately, we chose this version name because what is going in to the 1.5 release is substantial, and- if we can trust our good friend Shakespeare- this is much more important than whatever it happens to be called.

I hope you’re looking forward to Zend Framework 1.5 as much as I am!

You can file fav.or.it’s new RSS reader and blogging platform near the top of my xmas wishlist. Currently in private beta, we’ve gotten some very compelling glimpses of this very well designed and useful application already, and I for one can’t wait to get my hands on it.

‘Remind me: why do we need another feed reader again?’ you’re probably wondering right now. Well, this application seems squarely aimed at those of us to whom the blogosphere has largely been confined to a one-way medium for shear lack of time or knowledge. That is to say, while I might have the time to update my personal blog (and even occasionally this one) and read a select few blogs on a regular basis, I almost never find the time to dig up blog entries from the unfiltered blogosphere that might interest me- much less leave a comment if/when I do find one. This AJAX application solves both problems elegantly by providing a concept of ’slices’ which allow the user to hone in on entries that might interest them and an inline comment editor to leave your mark. Yes, all this can be done with a combination of Technorati and the blogging applications themselves, but fav.or.it makes it easy enough for the novice and time constrained to more actively participate in the wonderful world of blogs. You can even edit your own blog from their interface.

Now we see that they’ve added ‘mashup editor’ to the list of features. Well, I have to say that I found it compelling before I saw the mashup editor, and I hope this doesn’t delay general availability for the feed reader/comment editor.

By the way, I’ve been saving the best for last. It’s all written in Zend Framework!