1 Change Log for Dev-Editor
2 =========================
4 Version 3.x.x (200x-xx-xx):
5 ===========================
7 Removing multiple files:
8 ------------------------
9 In the directory listing, there are now checkboxes for selecting files and a
10 button for removing them.
12 Better distinction of objects in directory listing:
13 ---------------------------------------------------
14 For a better distinction of the objects in directory listing, every second
15 object has a grey background now.
17 Remote name for uploaded files:
18 -------------------------------
19 When uploading a file, you can now specify a name for the file on the server.
21 Prefilled form fields:
22 ----------------------
23 If you want to copy or rename/move a file or a directory or save a file using
24 a different name, the form field for the new filename is prefilled with the
25 old one. Additionally, the entered path is no more relative to the directory
30 When the new configuration option "hide_dot_files" is set to 1, every file or
31 directory beginning with a "." is not shown in the directory listing. But you
32 can still access the file / directory by typing its name into the "Go to
34 This option is also available in the user-dependent configuration.
38 In the header of each file, there is a now a copyright note and a reference to
41 Template class updated:
42 -----------------------
43 The template class was updated to version 2.0.
45 Version 3.0.1 (2005-11-10):
46 ===========================
48 Accessing files above the virtual root directory:
49 -------------------------------------------------
50 It was possible to access files and directories above the virtual root
51 directory beginning with the same string as the root directory.
53 If your root directory is "/var/www/user1" it was possible to access
54 "/var/www/user10", "/var/www/user11" and so on.
56 Version 3.0 (2005-10-18):
57 =========================
59 Editing function changed:
60 -------------------------
61 - The concept of locking the file for other users before editing it is not very
62 good, causes some problems and makes it difficult to add new features. So I
64 - When Dev-Editor shows the form for editing a file, it calculates the MD5
65 checksum and places it in the editing form. Before saving the file, the MD5
66 checksum is calculated again and compared to the submitted one. If the two
67 sums don't match, Dev-Editor does not save the file and shows the editing
69 - In the edit dialogue, there is also a new submit button allowing to continue
70 editing the file after saving it.
71 - Removed the possibility of encoding ISO-8859-1 HTML entities when saving a
72 file. I don't know if anybody used this function.
76 Dev-Editor is now able to copy a directory.
80 The administrator may now define a list of files the user is not allowed to
83 Individual configuration:
84 -------------------------
85 Now, Dev-Editor is able to switch some configuration values depending on the
86 current HTTP Auth user.
87 This is controlled by a separate configuration file containing sections like
88 Windows INI files (thus the configuration file parser is now able to parse
89 files containing sections in square brackets).
90 You may overwrite the following configuration values:
93 - forbidden (you may also clear the default "forbidden" list)
95 Configuration files renamed:
96 ----------------------------
97 The extension of the configuration files is "conf" now.
99 Names of error messages changed:
100 --------------------------------
101 I changed the names of some error messages:
102 binary -> binary_file
103 cmd_unknown -> command_unknown
104 dir_read_fail -> dir_read_failed
105 create_ar -> create_above_root
106 not_exist -> not_found
108 File names containing a "+" sign:
109 ---------------------------------
110 If a file name contained a "+" sign, Dev-Editor was sometimes not able to
111 access the file, because the "+" was interpreted as a space.
115 Before changing the permissions of a file, Dev-Editor now checks if the user
116 entered a valid octal number.
118 Encoding of HTML entities:
119 --------------------------
120 - All HTML in output is now properly encoded
121 - HTML::Entities is a little bit slow and does currently not support very much
122 encodings. Now, we just encode the HTML control characters (<, >, & and ").
123 This also means that Dev-Editor now does not require any CPAN module.
125 Template class updated:
126 -----------------------
127 The template class was updated to version 1.5.
131 - Don't show the "Copy" link if a file is not readable
132 - Added checkboxes in the "Copy" and "Rename" dialogues for immediately
133 overwriting an existing file
134 - Preserve the directory listing filter if the user changes the directory using
135 the input field at the bottom of the directory listing
137 New in version 2.3.2 (2005-04-23)
138 ---------------------------------
140 Copying a file out of a directory:
141 ----------------------------------
142 Fixed a really strange bug occuring only on Windows systems.
143 Dev-Editor was not able to copy (or move) a file out of a directory if the
144 path, the user entered in the corresponding dialogue, was beginning with "../".
146 Empty root directory causes incomplete HTML table:
147 --------------------------------------------------
148 Dev-Editor now does not create an incomplete HTML table if the root directory
149 is completely empty or no files are matching against the current wildcard.
151 move() instead of rename():
152 ---------------------------
153 Dev-Editor now uses the move() function from the File::Copy module to move or
154 rename files and directories. move() is more reliable than the rename()
157 No error message if reading of a directory failed:
158 --------------------------------------------------
159 If reading of a directory failed, no error message was shown. I thought this
162 Template class updated:
163 -----------------------
164 The template class was updated to version 1.4a.
166 New in version 2.3.1 (2005-02-19)
167 ---------------------------------
169 Handling of symbolic links changed:
170 -----------------------------------
171 For security reasons, I completely changed the handling of symbolic links:
172 Symbolic links are now treated as files, no matter where they point to. The
173 user is just allowed to see the path where the link points to, he is allowed to
174 delete the link, to rename it and to overwrite it by renaming an other file.
175 Nothing else is allowed.
176 Accessing a symbolic link pointing to a directory caused also a very strange
177 effect: It was possible to access this directory, but you could not access
179 I had to do it in this way because of the very stupid behaviour of abs_path()
180 from the Cwd module: This function is just able to detect the absolute path of
182 Hard links are not affected by this, because it is not possible to detect them
183 (at least I don't know how to detect them).
185 Root directory must not be a symbolic link:
186 -------------------------------------------
187 Now, the root directory must not be a symbolic link.
188 Sorry for this, I really would have liked to allow the root directory to be a
189 symbolic link, but if I would allow this, Dev-Editor would not be able to
190 create files in the root directory. I'm looking for an alternative...
192 Use Greenwich Mean Time:
193 ------------------------
194 You may now use Greenwich Mean Time (GMT/UTC) in dates instead of the local
196 I don't know if anyone needs this, but it could be useful.
198 Handle errors produced by File::UseList:
199 ----------------------------------------
200 - Check if unlocking of the list of files in use was successful
201 - Check if a file could be successfully added to the list of files in use
202 - Check if a file could be successfully removed from the list of files in use
204 Saving to non-existing files:
205 -----------------------------
206 The file saving process was aborted if the user wanted to write text data using
207 the edit function into a file that does not exists.
208 The reason was that Dev-Editor thought that this non-existing file was a binary
211 Template class updated:
212 -----------------------
213 The template class was updated to version 1.4.
214 This fixes the problem of the infinitive loops produced by incorrectly nested
219 - Files locked with the flock() function are now unlocked by the close()
220 function due to security reasons (see
221 http://forum.de.selfhtml.org/?t=101375&m=622582)
222 - Changed the names of two error messages:
225 - Fixed various small errors in some template files
226 - The regular expression used by file_name() and upper_path() to detect Windows
227 drive letters was not case-insensitive
229 New in version 2.3 (2005-01-08)
230 -------------------------------
232 Filter directory listing:
233 -------------------------
234 Dev-Editor is now able to filter the directory listing using DOS-style
236 I think that is a little bit incomplete, Dev-Editor should be able to
237 "remember" the filter wildcard during the actions.
238 The code for parsing DOS-style wildcards is from the File::DosGlob module by
243 Dev-Editor now uses flock().
244 flock() is called using a wrapper function which checks if it is really
247 check_path() broken on Windows:
248 -------------------------------
249 On Windows systems the check_path() routine was heavily broken (this routine
250 checks if someone tries to access a path above the virtual root directory). It
251 was possible to access files above the root directory by accessing a path with
252 "..." or "...." or something like that as the last path component. This bug was
253 caused by the rewrite of check_path() in Dev-Editor 2.2.
255 "." or ".." as end of a path:
256 -----------------------------
257 If you enter a path with "." or ".." as the last path component, Dev-Editor
258 showed a really strange behaviour by allowing to enter a path like
259 "something/." or "something/..". This was also caused by the (poor) rewrite of
260 check_path(). The problem is fixed now.
262 Paths beginning with "/../" caused problems:
263 --------------------------------------------
264 When composing the temporary virtual path for a new file, don't call
265 clean_path(). It is unnecessary and it also caused a problem if this path would
266 begin with /../, because on UNIX systems, canonpath() removes /../ at the
267 beginning of a path. So if a user wanted to create the file /../file.ext (but
268 he wasn't allowed to), he created /file.ext.
270 Deny changing file properties in some cases:
271 --------------------------------------------
272 - Do not allow to change the properties of the root directory
273 - Do not allow to change the properties of a file in use
275 Deny overwriting files:
276 -----------------------
277 - While processing a file upload, check if the user wants to replace a
278 directory or overwrite a write-protected file
279 - If the user wants to copy or rename a file, check if he wants to overwrite a
281 - Do not allow to upload a file if a file with the same virtual name is
284 Validate file uploads:
285 ----------------------
286 Dev-Editor now tries to validate a file upload by checking the handle created
289 Improved configuration file parser:
290 -----------------------------------
291 - The parser now ignores lines like that:
293 Such lines could lead to properties with empty keys in the configuration
295 - Allow configuration options with empty values
296 - If a option is defined twice, the line number of the second one is shown in
301 - More encoding of HTML entities
302 - In directory listing, the "Edit" link of files in use were not greyed (very
304 - Show the name of the lock file in error messages even if it has not been
305 defined in the configuration file
307 Small internal changes:
308 -----------------------
309 - The file saving process is now completely centralized in File::Access
310 - When generating a redirection header, check if we really have to create a
312 - Fixed a bug occuring if the "curdir" CGI parameter had no trailing slash and
313 the "newfile" parameter had no leading slash
314 - Dev-Editor now takes more care of Windows drive letters
315 - Trying to increase speed of the script by surrounding static values by single
319 New in version 2.2a (2004-11-29)
320 --------------------------------
322 File uploads did not work:
323 --------------------------
324 Dev-Editor normally tests if it has enough permissions to upload a file to a
325 directory. But the condition was missing and so Dev-Editor always aborted file
326 uploads and didn't even display the dialogue.
328 New in version 2.2 (2004-11-27)
329 -------------------------------
331 `chgrp` system command and numerical group names:
332 -------------------------------------------------
333 When changing the group, Dev-Editor is now using the `chgrp` system command.
334 This allows to use numerical group names. Before, Dev-Editor handled numerical
337 Checking root directory:
338 ------------------------
339 Dev-Editor now checks if the root directory exists and if it may be accessed.
340 This fixed also bug where it was possible to access the physical root directory
341 if Dev-Editor could not enter the virtual root directory.
343 Checking directory permissions:
344 -------------------------------
345 Dev-Editor does some simple checks of directory permissions now:
346 - Inaccessible directories are greyed in directory listing. You cannot access
347 them, but the actions are not disabled, because they may work.
348 - Actions needing write access to a directory are aborted if Dev-Editor has no
351 Access a directory structure similar to the root directory:
352 -----------------------------------------------------------
353 The path the user wants to access must now BEGIN with the root directory. The
354 old check made it possible to access a directory structure outside the root
355 directory similar to the root directory.
357 Changing mode of a directory with mode 000:
358 -------------------------------------------
359 It was not possible to change the mode of a directory with mode 000.
361 Upload only to directories:
362 ---------------------------
363 Dev-Editor now checks if the user really uploads a file to a directory.
365 Improved About dialogue:
366 ------------------------
367 - Dev-Editor now only shows the main group ID of the process user.
368 - Dev-Editor also shows the current umask of the process.
369 - Special chars in most values are now encoded to entities.
373 For a better usability in some browsers, I added <label> tags for the
374 checkboxes and radio buttons in file edit and file upload dialogue.
376 Directory links in error messages:
377 ----------------------------------
378 Some error messages generated by the main program now contain a link to the
381 Bugs in HTML generation:
382 ------------------------
383 - If Dev-Editor could not read a directory, it did neither display an error
384 message nor a directory link.
385 - Some error messages had problems with {DIR} variables. Thus the variable in
386 error.htm which will be replaced by a back link is now called "{BACK}".
387 - When viewing a file, Dev-Editor inserts the contents of the file into the
388 viewfile.htm template file AFTER parsing the "editable" {IF}-block, because
389 Dev-Editor showed a very ugly behaviour when viewing this template file.
393 I tried to clean the source code of Dev-Editor a little bit. Some parts of the
396 New in version 2.1a (2004-10-22)
397 --------------------------------
399 Changed file saving error handling:
400 -----------------------------------
401 Now we already unlock the file saving process, because if an error occurs
402 during this process, the file keeps locked.
403 This is not a perfect solution, there are still problems. I have to figure out
406 New in version 2.1 (2004-10-14)
407 -------------------------------
409 Overwrite files during file upload:
410 -----------------------------------
411 In file upload dialogue, there is a new checkbox which allows to overwrite
412 files during file upload if they already exist.
414 Improved file saving:
415 ---------------------
416 The process of file saving has been improved:
417 - Saving even works if the file has to be created first.
418 - Dev-Editor is now checking if the user wants to write text data into a binary
420 - If the user just entered spaces as filename (detection works for other
421 commands using the "newfile" CGI parameter too), we use the original
424 Don't copy a directory:
425 -----------------------
426 Dev-Editor now denies copying a directory.
428 Check before manually unlocking:
429 --------------------------------
430 Dev-Editor now checks if the file is really locked before displaying the
431 dialogue for manually unlocking a file. If it is not locked, Dev-Editor returns
432 to directory view. Dev-Editor also behaves in this way if it is trying to
435 Wrong error messages:
436 ---------------------
437 Something definitely went wrong when I remade the copy and the rename
438 functions: They printed a wrong error message if the destination already
439 existed and if it was a file.
441 New in version 2.0 (2004-08-10)
442 -------------------------------
446 Dev-Editor is now able to process HTTP file uploads. The files may be
447 transferred in ASCII or binary mode (similar to FTP).
449 Change mode and group:
450 ----------------------
451 Dev-Editor is now able to change the mode and the group of a file or a
454 HTTPS support and non-default ports:
455 ------------------------------------
456 Dev-Editor is now able to detect a HTTPS connection and if the web server
457 doesn't listen on the default ports (necessary for reloading Dev-Editor).
459 Do not allow removing or renaming the root directory:
460 -----------------------------------------------------
461 Dev-Editor now denies removing or renaming the root directory.
463 Renaming files outside the root directory:
464 ------------------------------------------
465 There was a bug which caused Dev-Editor not to rename files outside the root
466 directory if they already exist.
468 Improved file editing:
469 ----------------------
470 When the user wants to save an edited file using a different file name,
471 Dev-Editor now unlocks the original file and checks if a file with this
472 different name already exists and if it is locked.
474 Improved file creating:
475 -----------------------
476 The routine which creates empty files had a race condition which could set
477 files to 0 if they already exist.
479 Maximum size for files:
480 -----------------------
481 The administrator may now define a maximum size for files in the main
482 configuration file. If the user wants to view or edit a file larger than this
483 defined size, Dev-Editor denies file access (but the file can still be copied,
486 Form for creating new files or directories:
487 -------------------------------------------
488 In directory listing, when clicking on the buttons next to the fields for
489 creating new files and directories without entering a file or directory name,
490 the user got an error message which is a little bit strange.
491 Now, the user will see a form for creating new files or directories.
493 Newlines are converted while reading:
494 -------------------------------------
495 Whenever Dev-Editor now reads a file for output, it converts any line separator
496 to the system specific one.
498 Case-insensitive commands:
499 --------------------------
500 The commands are now case-insensitive, so the command "ShOw" is the same as
505 There is now a small "About" screen which shows some more or less useful
506 information about Dev-Editor and the system.
508 Improvements for user interface:
509 --------------------------------
510 Made a lot of improvements for the user interface:
511 - The directory listing is now built using tables.
512 - When editing a file and the user wants to save a file using a different file
513 name, the checkbox for saving the file using a different file name is
514 activated using JavaScript.
515 - In directory listing or when viewing a file, there is a new field for quickly
516 jumping to a file or to a directory.
517 - Separated "Work with directory" and "Work with file" into different options
518 in directory listing ("Copy", "Rename", "Delete", "Unlock"). The options also
519 have their own dialogues.
520 - In directory listing, there is a new link for viewing a file or a directory
522 - When viewing a file and if the file is editable, there is a new link to edit
524 - Files and directories in directory listing are now sorted case-insensitively.
528 The settings of Dev-Editor are now stored in extern configuration files: There
529 is one file for general settings, one for the error messages and one for the
530 paths to the template files.
534 The output of Dev-Editor is now controlled by template files. The source code
535 became much cleaner :-)
537 New in version 1.2 (2003-12-29)
538 -------------------------------
540 Removing directories:
541 ---------------------
542 Dev-Editor is now able to completely remove a directory.
544 "Work with directories":
545 ------------------------
546 In directory listing, next do a directory, there is a new link called "Work
547 with directory". When you select this link, you get a form to remove or
548 rename/move the directory.
549 Additionally, the link "Do other stuff" was renamed to "Work with file".
551 Overwriting existing files:
552 ---------------------------
553 If you want to copy a file, and the destination file already exists, you will
554 be asked to overwrite the file. If the destination points to a directory,
555 copying will be aborted completely.
556 If you want to rename a file or a directory, and the destination file already
557 exists, you will be asked to overwrite the file. If the destination points to a
558 directory, renaming will be aborted completely.
560 Confirmation for removing files:
561 --------------------------------
562 If you want to remove a file, a confirmation dialog will be displayed first.
566 It seems that some systems don't support the FILEHANDLE,MODE,FILENAME version
567 of open(). Now we don't use it any more.
569 Default permissions for mkdir():
570 --------------------------------
571 Set the permissions for mkdir() to 0777. I thought it is optional (as described
572 in "perlfunc"), but some systems need it.
574 New in version 1.1 (2003-11-15)
575 -------------------------------
577 Newlines are converted:
578 -----------------------
579 Any line seperator will now be converted to the system specific line seperator
580 if you save a text file.
582 File permissions are checked:
583 -----------------------------
584 Dev-Editor now runs some simple checks on the file permissions when it creates
585 a directory listing, tries to view or edit a file and when it copies a file.
587 Tool tips for file status:
588 --------------------------
589 In directory listing, when a file cannot be viewed or edited, a tool tip on the
590 "View" or "Edit" link will show the reason why it is so.
592 File permissions are saved:
593 ---------------------------
594 When the user saves a text file, the file permissions were destroyed. The
595 reason was that a temporary file was used, which was renamed to the originally
596 file. Now this is fixed, but if saving of the file now fails, the file could be
599 Links in error messages:
600 ------------------------
601 Some error messages now contain a link to go back to the directory containing
602 the file which caused the error.
606 There were a lot of typos in the output, the comments and the ReadMe file.
610 The dates of the last modification in the head comment of the files had the
611 wrong format. They had the format MM-DD-YYYY, but they should have YYYY-MM-DD.
612 Sorry, that was VERY embarassing...
614 New in version 1.0 (2003-10-08)
615 -------------------------------
617 First public release:
618 ---------------------
619 This is the first public release of Dev-Editor.
621 ------------------------------------------------
623 (C) 1999-2000 Roland Bluethgen, Frank Schoenmann
624 (C) 2003-2009 Patrick Canterino
626 E-Mail: patrick@patshaping.de
627 WWW: http://devedit.sourceforge.net/