[mapserver-users] MapServer 6.0.0-beta2 release

[Daniel Morissette]

Thanks to the hard work from everyone during the Montreal Code Sprint 
this week (http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Montreal_Code_Sprint_2011), the 
MapServer Team is pleased to announce the release of MapServer 
6.0.0-beta2. This is the latest beta on our way to a final 6.0 release, 
and includes a large number of fixes made during the Montreal Code Sprint.

The 6.0 release introduces important changes in key components of the 
MapServer core (rendering, query and expressions), and for this reason 
we count on you, MapServer power users, to help test the release in your 
respective environments and provide feedback (through the users list or 
Trac tickets).

This is the second of four planned beta releases and if all goes well a 
final release should occur around the end of April. The full release 
plan which also includes the list of new features and changes in this 
release is available at:
   http://mapserver.org/trunk/development/release/release-plan-6.0.html

The list of fixes since beta1 is attached at the end of this message. 
For a complete list see the HISTORY.TXT file at:

 
http://trac.osgeo.org/mapserver/browser/tags/rel-6-0-0-beta2/mapserver/HISTORY.TXT

We have started working on a 5.6 -> 6.0 migration guide. This document 
contains important notes on backwards incompatibilities or other changes 
required when upgrading to 6.0. It is not complete yet but we strongly 
recommend that you review the latest version online at:

     http://mapserver.org/trunk/MIGRATION_GUIDE.html

The source for this release can be downloaded at:

     http://mapserver.org/download.html
or
     http://download.osgeo.org/mapserver/mapserver-6.0.0-beta2.tar.gz

The binary distributions listed in the download page should be updated
with binaries for the new beta release in the next day or so.

Once again we need your help to ensure a high quality product, so please 
help out by testing your applications with this new code base.

Thanks! - The MapServer Team


Version 6.0.0-beta2 (2011-03-18)
--------------------------------

- correct scaling of symbol GAP and PATTERN (#3752)

- remove references to SWF/MING

- CGI runtime substitution requires a validation pattern (was optional
   before) (#3522)

- add a default png8 outputformat that uses AGG/PNG with quantization

- change MS_INIT_COLOR to take alpha as a parameter

- stop using style->opacity in rendering code, use alpha from colorObjs.

- Fixed big Oracle memory leak when rendering in KML (#3719)

- avoid linking in postgres dependencies unnecessarily (#3708)

- don't initialize outputformats until they are selected

- use "seamless" creation of tiles for polygon fills with vector symbols

- Ability to escape single/double quotes inside a string (#3706)

- Globally replace msCaseFindSubstring with strcasestr (#3255)

- support GROUP layers in shp2img (#3746)

- Honour MAXSIZE for WCS 2.0 responses (#3204).

- fallback to ows_title for WCS ows:Title of CoverageDescription (#3528)

- Added msIO_stripStdoutBufferContentHeaders() to strip off all
   Content-* headers from a buffer (#3673, #3665).

- Added raster classification support for STYLE level OPACITY.

- Allow attribute references, that is [itemname], within a TEXT string 
(#3736)

- Fixed segmentation fault when parsing invalid extent arguments in
   shp2img (#3734)

- Make "openlayers mode" work even without OWS support (#3732)

- Add a static table to define the axis order for soem epsg codes (#3582)

- Add possibility to use KML_NAME_ITEM (#3728)

- Fixed mapfile parsing error when a label angle referenced an attribute
   (e.g. ANGLE [angle]) #3727

- Removed executable flag on some source files (#3726)

- Fixed SQL Spatial to be able to use UniqueIdentifier field as unique
   key (#3722)

- Fix PHP Windows build (#3714)

- Fixed --with-opengl build issue: Look for OpenGL libs under /usr/lib64 as
   well (#3724)