Contao news

Read the official Contao announcements.

Contao Manager 1.3.0 is available

by Andreas Schempp – Current issues

We are happy to announce the immediate availability of Contao Manager version 1.3.0. Some improvements might come handy for the scheduled Contao security update on September 24th 2020. As always, a list of completed issues is available on GitHub.

Easy setup of the web folder

One of the bigger hustles for newcomers to Contao is the correct setup of the web directory. Up until now, the Contao Manager displayed a rather cryptic error message about file conflicts if the current folder was not empty or incorrectly named.

This has been improved a lot. As of version 1.3, the following cases are now handled automatically:

  1. If the current folder is named web and its parent folder is empty, Contao can be installed as usual. This means no changes for anyone familiar with the existing setup.
  2. However, if the current folder is empty but not called web, a web folder can automatically be created and the Contao Manager will move itself into it.
  3. Lastly, if the current folder is not empty, the setup process will help creating a new directory for the Contao installation, including a web folder. It will move itself as well as the necessary configuration files (folder contao-manager which includes the access details).

In cases 2 and 3, the root directory needs to be reconfigured on the web server for the Contao Manager to work correctly.

Hosting configuration removed

Up until now, the Contao Manager used its internal list of hosting configurations to find and configure the available PHP binaries. With version 1.3, this setup becomes obsolete: we will simply search all known places for PHP binaries and configure each of them to what is needed – independent of the hosting provider.

Redesign of background tasks

The most important job of the Contao Manager is to run command line tasks to setup extensions or maintain the Contao installation. Each of these tasks consists of one or more operations, which are now visually distinguishable in the new interface. This will make it easier to spot issues in case something does not work as excepted.

To help users looking for support on the forum or our public Slack channel, there is a new option to copy the whole task protocol to the clipboard. Protocols are also archived in the contao-manager folder for futher reference. They are no longer lost after closing the task view.

Composer Resolver Cloud availability

Whenever (security) updates to Contao are published, our Resolver Cloud is hit hard by lot of update requests, which can result in longer waiting time. Yanick has already optimized the cloud to scale up additional workers on increased demand, but we cannot scale endlessly for monetary reasons.

Contao Manager 1.3 will now show the cloud status and estimated waiting time before a job is started. The estimated time is visible in the apply changes panel, on hover (or click on touch devices) a more detailed report about jobs and workers is available.

Extension funding

The funding of Open Source projects has been in the news for quite a while. Without monetary compensation, developing and maintaining popular extensions is not sustainable. Various different platforms have been created to help collecting the necessary funds.

Composer 1.10 introduced a standardized scheme to tell about funding options for packages. This information is now parsed and displayed in the Contao Manager and our public package list. Let us hope that extension users start funding the respective developers and give back their share to the Open Source community.

By the way: development and maintenance of Contao and the Contao Manager is partially funded by the Contao Association. Becoming a member or donating to the Contao Association means we can distribute necessary funds under democratic rules to the individual players.

Show all news

Comments

Add a comment

What is the sum of 8 and 7?