The Apache Cocoon Community is proud to announce the second release
  candidate of Cocoon 2.2.

  Apache Cocoon is a Spring-based framework (since version 2.2) built
  around the concepts of separation of concerns and component-based development.

  Cocoon implements these concepts around the notion of component pipelines,
  each component on the pipeline specializing on a particular operation.

  Cocoon 2.2 introduces blocks. A block is the unit of modularization
  in Cocoon (in comparison: Eclipse uses the term plugins, OSGi uses bundles).
  Everything that goes beyond what Cocoon provides in its core modules
  (Spring integration, sitemap and pipeline implementation) is provided as
  block (see below). Custom Cocoon applications are also developed as blocks.
  A block can provide the following features:

    * general servlet services (any servlet can be managed by the Cocoon
      servlet-service framework),
    * special services that provide pipelines as services,
    * component services (Spring beans, Avalon services/components),
    * a container for classes and resources.

  A block is packaged as a Java archive (jar) following certain conventions
  concerning the directory structure.

  Find information about the new features at
  http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/1420_1_1.html.

  For more information about Apache Cocoon 2.2, please go to
  http://cocoon.apache.org or follow our getting started guide at
  http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/1159_1_1.html.

  The release artifacts are available from the central Maven repository
  (http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/).


                                        - o -


  Additionally we also want to announce some more releases:

  SUBPROJECTS
  -----------

  * Cocoon Servlet-Service Framework 1.0.0-RC1
    The Servlet Service Famework makes it easy to use servlets as components
    which can communicate with each other. The current implementation is based
    on Spring 2.0. There are no dependencies on Cocoon core libraries at all.

    http://cocoon.apache.org/subprojects/servlet-service/1.0/

  * Cocoon Configuration 1.0.1
    The Cocoon Configuration subproject provides basic support for configuring
    web applications. Its current implementation, the Spring Configurator, is a
    useful component providing support in common configuration issues when using
    the Spring framework. There are no dependencies on Cocoon core libraries at
    all.

    http://cocoon.apache.org/subprojects/configuration/1.0/

  BLOCKS
  ------

  * Cocoon Ajax 1.0.0-RC1
    Partial page and form reloads

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/blocks/ajax/1.0/

  * Cocoon Apples 1.0.0-RC2
    Pure Java implementations of controller logic.

  * Cocoon Auth 1.0.0-RC2
    Authentication and authorization of pipelines and control-flow based
    Cocoon applications.

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/blocks/auth/1.0/

  * Cocoon Batik 1.0.0-RC2
    Create Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) using Cocoon pipelines.

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/blocks/batik/1.0/

  * Cocoon Captcha 1.0.0-RC2
    A reader to create CAPTCHAs

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/blocks/captcha/1.0/

  * Cocoon Database 1.0.0-RC2
    Direct usage of relational databases with sitemap components.

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/blocks/databases/1.0/

  * Cocoon Flowscript 1.0.0-RC2
    Flowscript is a continuation-based implementation of Cocoon control
    flow based on Rhino (Javascript/ECMAScript).

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/blocks/flowscript/1.0/

  * Cocoon FOP 1.0.0-RC2
    Use Apache FOP, an XSL-FO driven print formatter to render pages to
    PDF or Postscript.

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/blocks/fop/1.0/

  * Cocoon Forms 1.0.0-RC1
    Cocoon has an advanced forms framework. Together with Flow and JXTemplates,
    Cocoon Forms (or CForms) provides a solid basis for  building interactive
    web applications. Cocoon Forms handles complex use cases while still being
    simple enough to be used by non-Java-programmers who want to add forms to
    their site.

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/blocks/ajax/1.0/

  * Cocoon Hsqldb-Client 1.0.0-RC2
    JDBC access of a Hsql database

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/blocks/hsqldb-client/1.0/

  * Cocoon Hsqldb-Server 1.0.0-RC2
    Start a Hsql database server as part of your Cocoon application.

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/blocks/hsqldb-server/1.0/

  * Cocoon HTML 1.0.0-RC2
    Generators to deal with HTML.

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/blocks/html/1.0/

  * Cocoon Linkrewriter 1.0.0-RC2
    Transformers to rewrite all elements containing links.

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/blocks/linkrewriter/1.0/

  * Cocoon Mail 1.0.0-RC2
    Sitemap components to send emails.

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/blocks/mail/1.0/

  * Cocoon Template 1.0.0-RC2
    XML-based templating

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/blocks/template/1.0/

  TOOLS
  -----

  * Cocoon Maven plugin 1.0.0-M1
    The Cocoon Maven plugin contains several goals that make the life of
    software developers easier, e.g. support for running blocks as webapps or
    support for patching the web.xml at deployment time.

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/maven-plugins/maven-plugin/1.0/

  * Cocoon Block Archetype 1.0.0-RC2
    This archetype creates a Cocoon block that comes with some small samples.

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/maven-plugins/

  * Cocoon Plain-Block Archetype 1.0.0-RC2
    Use this archetype to create the simplest possible Cocoon block.

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/maven-plugins/

  * Cocoon Webapp Archetype 1.0.0-RC2
    Use this archetype to create a web application that is configured to host
    Cocoon blocks.

    http://cocoon.apache.org/2.2/maven-plugins/


The Apache Cocoon Project


--
Reinhard Pötz                            Managing Director, {Indoqa} GmbH
                          http://www.indoqa.com/en/people/reinhard.poetz/

Member of the Apache Software Foundation
Apache Cocoon Committer, PMC member, PMC Chair        [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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