Add 1.1 alpha 1 release notes

.. _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.