django/docs/releases/1.0-beta.txt

===============================
Django 1.0 beta 1 release notes
===============================

Welcome to Django 1.0 beta 1!

This is the third in a series of preview/development releases leading
up to the eventual release of Django 1.0, currently scheduled to take
place in early September 2008. This releases is primarily targeted at
developers who are interested in testing the Django codebase and
helping to identify and resolve bugs prior to the final 1.0 release.

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

What's new in Django 1.0 beta 1
===============================

Django's development trunk has been the site of nearly constant activity over
the past year, with several major new features landing since the 0.96 release.
For features which were new as of Django 1.0 alpha 1, see :doc:`the 1.0 alpha 1
release notes </releases/1.0-alpha-1>`. For features which were new as of Django
1.0 alpha 2, see :doc:`the 1.0 alpha 2 release notes </releases/1.0-alpha-2>`.

This beta release does not contain any major new features, but does
include several smaller updates and improvements to Django:

Generic relations in forms and admin
    Classes are now included in ``django.contrib.contenttypes`` which
    can be used to support generic relations in both the admin
    interface and in end-user forms. See :ref:`the documentation for
    generic relations <generic-relations>` for details.

Improved flexibility in the admin
    Following up on the refactoring of Django's administrative
    interface (``django.contrib.admin``), introduced in Django 1.0
    alpha 1, two new hooks have been added to allow customized pre-
    and post-save handling of model instances in the admin. Full
    details are in :doc:`the admin documentation </ref/contrib/admin/index>`.

``INSERT``/``UPDATE`` distinction
    Although Django's default behavior of having a model's ``save()``
    method automatically determine whether to perform an ``INSERT`` or
    an ``UPDATE`` at the SQL level is suitable for the majority of
    cases, there are occasional situations where forcing one or the
    other is useful. As a result, models can now support an additional
    parameter to ``save()`` which can force a specific
    operation. Consult the database API documentation for details
    and important notes about appropriate use of this parameter.

Split ``CacheMiddleware``
   Django's ``CacheMiddleware`` has been split into three classes:
   ``CacheMiddleware`` itself still exists and retains all of its
   previous functionality, but it is now built from two separate
   middleware classes which handle the two parts of caching (inserting
   into and reading from the cache) separately, offering additional
   flexibility for situations where combining these functions into a
   single middleware posed problems. Full details, including updated
   notes on appropriate use, are in 
   :doc:`the caching documentation </topics/cache>`.

Removal of deprecated features
    A number of features and methods which had previously been marked
    as deprecated, and which were scheduled for removal prior to the
    1.0 release, are no longer present in Django. These include
    imports of the form library from ``django.newforms`` (now located
    simply at ``django.forms``), the ``form_for_model`` and
    ``form_for_instance`` helper functions (which have been replaced
    by ``ModelForm``) and a number of deprecated features which were
    replaced by the dispatcher, file-uploading and file-storage
    refactorings introduced in the Django 1.0 alpha releases. A full
    list of these and all other backwards-incompatible changes is
    available on `the Django wiki`_.

A number of other improvements and bugfixes have also been included:
some tricky cases involving case-sensitivity in differing MySQL
collations have been resolved, Windows packaging and installation has
been improved and the method by which Django generates unique session
identifiers has been made much more robust.

.. _the documentation for generic relations: ../contenttypes/#generic-relations
.. _the Django wiki: http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/BackwardsIncompatibleChanges#Removedseveralmoredeprecatedfeaturesfor1.0


The Django 1.0 roadmap
======================

One of the primary goals of this beta release is to focus attention on
the remaining features to be implemented for Django 1.0, and on the
bugs that need to be resolved before the final release. Following this
release, we'll be conducting a series of development sprints building
up to the release-candidate stage, followed soon after by Django
1.0. The timeline is projected to be:

* August 15, 2008: Sprint (based in Austin, Texas, USA, and online).

* August 17, 2008: Sprint (based in Tel Aviv, Israel, and online).

* **August 21, 2008: Django 1.0 release candidate 1.** At this point,
  all strings marked for translation within Django's codebase will be
  frozen, to provide contributors time to check and finalize all of
  Django's bundled translation files prior to the final 1.0 release.

* August 22, 2008: Sprint (based in Portland, Oregon, USA, and online).

* **August 26, 2008: Django 1.0 release candidate 2.**

* August 30, 2008: Sprint (based in London, England, UK, and online).

* **September 2, 2008: Django 1.0 final release.** The official Django
  1.0 release party will take place during the first-ever DjangoCon,
  to be held in Mountain View, California, USA, September 6-7.

Of course, like any estimated timeline, this is subject to change as
requirements dictate. The latest information will always be available
on the Django project wiki:

* http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/VersionOneRoadmap


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

In order to provide a high-quality 1.0 release, we need your
help. Although this beta release is, again, *not* intended for
production use, you can help the Django team by trying out the beta
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 1.0 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:

* :doc:`contributing to Django </internals/contributing/index>`

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