Here comes CiviCRM 3.3 alpha

Published
2010-10-19 04:51
Written by

It's 3.3.alpha1 time! After a couple months of work, it's finally time to push out all those new cool features out! Before jumping directly on downloads (yeah, we know you can't wait!), we strongly recommend going through 3.3 highlights post, where you will find out what's new and hot in this release.

If you want to experience 3.3.alpha1, it is now available for download. You can also try it out on our sandbox site. Please remember this is an ALPHA release and it should NOT be used on production sites.

 

Step up and help out!

CiviCRM 3.3alpha1 release is a great occasion to get involved in CiviCRM community. There are many ways you can help make this release better and bug free.
  • Log in to the CiviCRM 3.3 public sandbox and try out your favourite features. If you find a problem, please report it on the appropriate forum board. Remember that sandbox data is periodically reset.
  • Download the tarball and upgrade a copy of your site to 3.3 - let us know if you encounter any problems. This is an especially valuable contribution since we need to have the upgrade process tested on different sets of data. After you've done this, play around with your favourite features, with your local data. Problems appearing? Use the CiviCRM 3.3 release testing board on the forums to discuss problems and find answers!
  • If you're a developer and have PHP skills, we strongly encourage you to develop and attach a code patch AND a unit test along with any bug you report through our issue tracker. Ping us on IRC if you need help figuring out how to do this.

 

What's new?

Quick list of most prominent new features and improvements in this realease:

  • First version of new CiviCampaign component, it includes initial support for Canvassing, Surveys and Petitions.
  • Advanced search extended to show objects other than contacts (and object related actions) - including activities, contributions, etc.
  • Serious dedupe performance improvements.
  • First take on extension mechanism for CiviCRM, allowing creation and distribution of plugins (payment processors, custom search, custom report templates for now).
  • New case and grant reports.
  • Better "session" management support for CiviEvent.
  • First version of database logging, so you will be able to see who changed what and when.
  • Address sharing between households and individuals.
...and plenty more. Make sure you go through 3.3 highlights post to find out more about what's coming.

 

Existing issues

CiviCRM 3.3alpha1 is not bug free, it's just the first step on the way to the stable version. We know about some problems and are working hard to fix them before the next release (expect it around Wednesday next week). The list of currently open issues is available here. If you notice any new problems, please report them as mentioned above.

 

Downloads

You can download the release from SourceForge - select from the civicrm-latest section. The filenames include the 3.3alpha1 label, e.g. civicrm-3.3.alpha1-drupal.tar.gz. Make sure you're downloading correct version: for Drupal or Joomla.

 

New Installations

If you are installing CiviCRM 3.3alpha1 from scratch, please use the 3.0 versions of the automated installer instructions (the installation process has not changed):

 

Upgrading to 3.3.alpha1

The procedure for upgrading to 3.3.alpha1 is automated. You can upgrade directly from 2.2.x or later. Instructions:
  • Drupal
  • Joomla
  • We will continue to include automated upgrades for subsequent beta releases of 3.3 - so you should be able to upgrade your test site easily over the course of the release cycle.

     

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    Comments

    Is it too late to request D7 support for CiviCRM 3.3? Since Civi does not (yet) use drupal as a framework, there is only a small handfull of drupal hooks and APIs being used by Civi. Of those, most haven't even changed from D6 to D7 (hook_menu is the same, hook_user has changed, but not massively, what else is CiviCRM even using?)

    Drupal 7 beta is here, and CiviCRM is the only thing holding me back from upgrading.

     

    will be in the next release. We suspect it will follow pretty quickly. to a large extent it depends on how easy/hard it is to make things backward compatible between the 2 releases