A few days ago, the Agility CMS Team released an update that includes new features and bug fixes. This is the first update since the "big upgrade" threee months ago when Agility introduced a significant rebuild and redesign of its content management system's interface.

Among the bug fixes, probably the most annoying one to me was a bug hat prevented users from being able to delete a linked content item from within grid view. Previously, a user was required to click on the "Edit Content" button in order to remove an item. Before the fix, the work-around was sufficient but annoying due to the changes involved in the expected workflow. Overall though, as a user of the Agility CMS, I've been pretty impressed how much Agility got right in the redesign that the waiting time for the fix was acceptable to me.

Updates in the Agility CMS December 2015 release include:

As was mentioned earlier this week, today is the day Drupal 8 becomes official and is released for public consumption. The last time CMS Report was given the opportunity to talk about a major Drupal release was in January 2011 with the release of Drupal 7. If you thought the three year waiting period from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 was long, waiting nearly half a decade for Drupal 8 certainly feels like a lifetime in the world of content management. During this cycle of development, Drupal's own open source community has evolved and its developers have introduced hundreds of changes into the Drupal content management platform.

Since the release of Drupal 7, the Drupal community considered not only how they could influence the content management industry, but has also looked outward to consider how the best practices of developers, designers, and publishers could influence Drupal's own to build a better Drupal. Dries Buytaert, founder and project lead of Drupal, in a blog post remarked that "Drupal 8 has been a big transformation" for the open source community. 

The pace of change in the digital world has become dizzying. If we were to ignore these market forces, Drupal would be caught flat-footed and quickly become irrelevant.

I admit it. When looking at the calendar my eyes have been focused on November 19, 2015. This is the date that Drupal 8, under development since 2011, is expected to be released. But for Drupal 6 users, the beginning of Drupal 8 also marks the beginning of the end for Drupal 6 support. Announced on Drupal.org, Michael Hess writes that Drupal 6 will reach end-of-life on February 24 2016.

As announced in the Drupal 6 extended support policy, 3 months after Drupal 8 comes out, Drupal 6 will be end-of-life (EOL).

On February 24th 2016, Drupal 6 will reach end of life and no longer be supported.

What this means for you:

Three years ago, CMS Report made the jump from Drupal to the Agility CMS featuring its Magazine Publishing Suite. Since then, I've had the opportunity to see Agility's software evolve including improved delivery in the mobile space through responsive web design. While gradual improvements were made in the CMS, probably the biggest change for Agility Inc. was in late 2013 with the appointment of their new CEO, Jonathan Voigt. When Jon was appointed CEO he promised a refocused vision for Agility that would provide better products and improved services for Agility's paying customers. This autumn, Agility fulfills that promise as it rolls out a significant rebuild and redesign of the content management system's interface.

Agility has announced that they have started pushing out the new version of its popular web content management solution. Besides the interface improvements, the new version of Agility CMS also introduces a new Dashboard feature as well as significant improvements in software performance and task workflow.

"This a huge step forward for Agility CMS. The legacy content manager was built out 8 years ago, and it served us and our customers well. This new, upgraded version provides the same user-friendly experience – but it’s sleeker, faster and provides more value to all that login to the platform,” Jon Voigt, CEO of Agility CMS, said.

Over the weekend, the core developers for CMS Made Simple, an open source project, announced the release of CMSMS 2.0. While not a complete rewrite, CMSMS 2.0 is a significant re-factoring and renewal for the content management system. Many of the changes involved are focused on giving the web professional an easier and simpler editing experience within the CMS.

In the announcement, Robert Campbell further explains how CMSMS 2.0 came to a final release.

After a very, very long wait (around three years for this attempt alone) and a great deal of effort, we are overjoyed to announce the public release of CMSMS 2.0. The next generation in the evolution of making managing web content simple.

CMSMS 2.0 has been a long and tiring uphill war, with many large and small battles; some of which we won, and some of which we lost. Throughout our battles the Dev Team has always remembered our primary goal and tagline: "Power for the Professionals, Simplicity for the End Users." This means that the professionals have a standards-oriented, powerful engine to build websites and web based applications, and the system still remains simple and fast for the average non-technical user to be able to manage the content of his or her website.

The primary focus for the developers along with feature changes of CMSMS 2.0 include: