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Django 1.0 beta 2 release notes

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Welcome to Django 1.0 beta 2!

This is the fourth 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 2

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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>`. For features which were new as of Django 1.0

beta 1, see :doc:`the 1.0 beta 1 release notes </releases/1.0-beta>`.

This beta release includes two major features:

Refactored ``django.contrib.comments``

    As part of a Google Summer of Code project, Thejaswi Puthraya

    carried out a major rewrite and refactoring of Django's bundled

    comment system, greatly increasing its flexibility and

    customizability. :doc:`Full documentation

    </ref/contrib/comments/index>` is available, as well as :doc:`an

    upgrade guide </ref/contrib/comments/upgrade>` if you were using

    the previous incarnation of the comments application..

Refactored documentation

    Django's bundled and online documentation has also been

    significantly refactored; the new documentation system uses

    `Sphinx`_ to build the docs and handle such niceties as topical

    indexes, reference documentation and cross-references within the

    docs. You can check out the new documentation `online`_ or, if you

    have Sphinx installed, build the HTML yourself from the

    documentation files bundled with Django.

.. _Sphinx: http://sphinx.pocoo.org/

.. _online: http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/

Along with these new features, the Django team has also been hard at

work polishing Django's codebase for the final 1.0 release; this beta

release contains a large number of smaller improvements and bugfixes

from the ongoing push to 1.0.

Also, as part of its ongoing deprecation process, Django's old

form-handling system has been removed; this means ``django.oldforms``

no longer exists, and its various API hooks (such as automatic

manipulators) are no longer present in Django. This system has been

completely replaced by :doc:`the new form-handling system

</topics/forms/index>` in ``django.forms``.

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. As of this

beta release, Django is in its final "feature freeze" for 1.0; feature

requests will be deferred to later releases, and the development

effort will be focused solely on bug-fixing and stability. Django is

also now in a "string freeze"; translatable strings (labels, error

messages, etc.) in Django's codebase will not be changed prior to the

release, in order to allow our translators to produce the final 1.0

version of Django's translation files.

Following this release, we'll be conducting a final development sprint

on August 30, 2008, based in London and coordinated online; the goal

of this sprint will be to squash as many bugs as possible in

anticipation of the final 1.0 release, which is currently targeted for

**September 2, 2008**. 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.

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>`

Contributions on any level -- developing code, writing

documentation or simply triaging tickets and helping to test proposed

bugfixes -- are always welcome and appreciated.