django/docs/releases/1.1-alpha-1.txt

.. _releases-1.1-alpha-1:

================================
Django 1.1 alpha 1 release notes
================================

February 23, 2009

Welcome to Django 1.1 alpha 1!

This is the first in a series of preview/development releases leading
up to the eventual release of Django 1.1, currently scheduled to take
place in April 2009. This release is primarily targeted at developers
who are interested in trying out new features and testing the Django
codebase to help identify and resolve bugs prior to the final 1.1
release.

As such, this release is *not* intended for production use, and any
such use is discouraged.


What's new in Django 1.1 alpha 1
================================

Two major enhancements have been added to Django's object-relational
mapper (ORM):

Aggregate support
    It's now possible to run various SQL aggregate queries from within
    Django's ORM, and to either return the results of an aggregate
    query directly or annotate the objects in a ``QuerySet`` with the
    results of an aggregate query. This is accomplished by the new
    ``QuerySet`` methods ``aggregate()`` and ``annotate()``, and is
    covered in detail in `the ORM aggregation documentation <topics-db-aggregation>`_.

Query expressions
    A new type of object -- ``django.db.models.F`` -- has been added.
    ``F`` instances refer to a particular field on a model (and can
    traverse relationships to refer to fields on related models as
    well). This allows a variety of query types to be formulated which
    were not previously possible; for full details, including
    examples, consult the `documentation for F expressions <query-expressions>`_.

Django's test suite and integrated `testing framework <topics-testing>`_
have also been improved, via the introduction of transaction-based
tests: when using ``django.test.TestCase``, your tests will now (when
supported by the underlying database) be run in a transaction which is
rolled back when finished, instead of by flushing and re-populating
the database. This results in an immense speedup for most types of
unit tests. See the documentation for :class:`~django.test.TestCase`
and :class:`~django.test.TransactionTestCase` for a full description,
and some important notes on database support.

Other new features and changes introduced since Django 1.0 include:

* The `CSRF protection middleware <ref-contrib-csrf>`_ has been split
  into two classes -- ``CsrfViewMiddleware`` checks incoming requests,
  and ``CsrfResponseMiddleware`` processes outgoing responses. The
  combined ``CsrfMiddleware`` class (which does both) remains for
  backwards-compatibility, but using the split classes is now
  recommended in order to allow fine-grained control of when and where
  the CSRF processing takes place.

* :func:`~django.core.urlresolvers.reverse` and code which uses it
  (e.g., the ``{% url %}`` template tag) now works with URLs in
  Django's administrative site, provided that the admin URLs are set
  up via ``include(admin.site.urls)`` (sending admin requests to the
  ``admin.site.root`` view still works, but URLs in the admin will not
  be "reversible" when configured this way).

* The ``include()`` function in Django URLConf modules can now accept
  sequences of URL patterns (generated by ``patterns()``) in addition
  to module names.

* Instances of Django forms (see `the forms overview <topics-forms-index>`_
  now have two additional methods, ``hidden_fields()`` and
  ``visible_fields()``, which return the list of hidden -- i.e.,
  ``<input type="hidden">`` -- and visible fields on the form,
  respectively.

* The ``redirect_to`` generic view (see
  `the generic views documentation <ref-generic-views>`_) now accepts
  an additional keyword argument ``permanent``. If ``permanent`` is
  ``True``, the view will emit an HTTP permanent redirect (status code
  301). If ``False``, the view will emit an HTTP temporary redirect
  (status code 302).

* A new database lookup type -- ``week_day`` -- has been added for
  ``DateField`` and ``DateTimeField``. This type of lookup accepts a
  number between 1 (Sunday) and 7 (Saturday), and returns objects
  where the field value matches that day of the week. See
  `the full list of lookup types <field-lookups>`_ for details.

* The ``{% for %}`` tag in Django's template language now accepts an
  optional ``{% empty %}`` clause, to be displayed when ``{% for %}``
  is asked to loop over an empty sequence. See
  `the list of built-in template tags <ref-templates-builtins>`_
   for examples of this.


The Django 1.1 roadmap
======================

Before Django 1.1 goes final, several other preview/development
releases will be made available. The current schedule consists of at
least the following:

* *March 20, 2009:* Django 1.1 beta 1, at which point Django 1.1 will
   be in "feature freeze": no new features will be implemented for 1.1
   past that point, and all new feature work will be deferred to
   Django 1.2.

* *April 2, 2009:* Django 1.1 release candidate. At this point all
   strings marked for translation must freeze to allow translations to
   be submitted in advance of the final release.

* *April 13, 2009:* Django 1.1 is released.

If necessary, additional alpha, beta or release candidate packages
will be issued prior to the final 1.1 release.


What you can do to help
=======================

In order to provide a high-quality 1.1 release, we need your
help. Although this alpha release is, again, *not* intended for
production use, you can help the Django team by trying out the alpha
codebase in a safe test environment and reporting any bugs or issues
you encounter. The Django ticket tracker is the central place to
search for open issues:

    http://code.djangoproject.com/timeline

Please open new tickets if no existing ticket corresponds to a problem
you're running into.

Additionally, discussion of Django development, including progress
toward the 1.1 release, takes place daily on the django-developers
mailing list:

    http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers

...and in the ``#django-dev`` IRC channel on ``irc.freenode.net``. If
you're interested in helping out with Django's development, feel free
to join the discussions there.

Django's online documentation also includes pointers on how to
contribute to Django:

    :ref:`contributing to Django <internals-contributing>`

Contributions on any level -- developing code, writing
documentation or simply triaging tickets and helping to test proposed
bugfixes -- are always welcome and appreciated.

Development sprints for Django 1.1 will also be taking place at PyCon
US 2009, on the dedicated sprint days (March 30 through April 2), and
anyone who wants to help out is welcome to join in, either in person
at PyCon or virtually in the IRC channel or on the mailing list.