After having done a lot of work the past few days, we are getting closer to releasing 1.2.b1. The most notable additions are:
- Support for accessing the backend with HTTPS (still needs some intensive testing)
- Single file exclusion filter
- Backing up without using AJAX
The codebase had the HTTP protocol hard-coded in the URL generation part, which made using the component impossible for people accessing their backend through HTTPS. It only got worse if you were actually enforcing the use of HTTPS with an appropriate .htaccess file. The fix I did was rather rudimentary: JoomlaPack chooses its protocol prefix based on whether the server has informed PHP that we were called through the SSL protocol. This feature still needs extensive testingto make sure there are no loopholes in the code and that it supports non-standard HTTPS ports (which means, anything but port 443).
As far as the single file exclusion is concerned, this was an asked for feature for quite a while. Many people want to exclude just that pesky unreadable file their host puts on the website's root. Or, maybe, those two big video files from the downloads directory. You get the picture... The interface is slightly weird, mainly because it just doesn't look like Joomla!. There are two panes, the left one displaying directories and the right one displaying files. You click on the directories to visit them, click on the files' checkboxes to toggle the exclusion status. Pretty easy, but I'd certainly prefer to code a proper tree view on the left side, a la Konqueror, or Windows Explorer :/
The "backup without AJAX" was a last minute addition, after some user had terrible problems with using AJAX during the backup, for no apparent reason. This can happen due to a million reasons, one of them being that the server is overpopulated. Instead of giving up and let frustration get the better of you, you can just switch to the brand new "JavaScript Redirects" backup mode. This is very simple, indeed. After each piece of work performed (a "step" in JoomlaPack jargon), a JavaScript redirect is issued to make the process proceed. It's not the same as the front end backup because it neither uses HTTP 301 headers, nor does it output a blank page during the backup. On the contrary, it outputs the familiar "backup status" messages, albeit in a funny looking way, yet.
All these exciting features were added in SVN 113, just a few minutes ago :)
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