Release notes for HttpClient 4.2-alpha1 release

git-svn-id: https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/httpcomponents/httpclient/trunk@1195163 13f79535-47bb-0310-9956-ffa450edef68

RELEASE_NOTES.txt

@@ -1,18 +1,93 @@
-Changes since 4.1.2
+Release 4.2 ALPHA1
+-------------------
 
-* [HTTPCLIENT-1131] HttpClient to authenticate preemptively using BASIC scheme if a userinfo 
+This is the first ALPHA release of HttpClient 4.2. The 4.2 branch enhances HttpClient in several
+key areas and includes several notable features and improvements:
+
+* New facade API for HttpClient based on the concept of a fluent interface. The fluent API exposes
+  only the most fundamental functions of HttpClient and is intended for relatively simple use cases
+  that do not require the full flexibility of HttpClient. However, the fluent API almost fully
+  relieves the users from having to deal with connection management and resource deallocation.
+
+* Redesigned and rewritten connection management code. As of release 4.2 HttpClient will be using
+  pooling connection manager per default.
+
+* Enhanced HTTP authentication API that enables HttpClient to handle more complex authentication
+  scenarios. HttpClient 4.2 is now capable of making use of multiple authentication challenges
+  and retry authentication with a fall-back scheme in case the primary one fails. This can be
+  important for compatibility with Microsoft products that are often configured to use
+  SPNEGO/Kerberos as the preferred authentication scheme.
+
+Please note that new features included in this release are still considered experimental and
+their API may change in the future ALPHA releases.
+
+Changelog
+-------------------
+
+* [HTTPCLIENT-1128] SystemDefaultHttpClient (HttpClient implementation initialized using system
+  properties).
+  Contributed by Oleg Kalnichevski <olegk at apache.org>
+
+* [HTTPCLIENT-1135] RandomAccessFile mode 'w' used by HttpClientCache is not valid.
+  Contributed by Oleg Kalnichevski <olegk at apache.org>
+
+* [HTTPCLIENT-1131] HttpClient to authenticate preemptively using BASIC scheme if a userinfo
   attribute is specified in the request URI.
   Contributed by Oleg Kalnichevski <olegk at apache.org>
 
+* [HTTPCLIENT-1134] make BasicResponseHandler consume response content in case of an unsuccessful
+  result (status code >= 300).
+  Contributed by Oleg Kalnichevski <olegk at apache.org>
+
+* [HTTPCLIENT-1132] ProxyClient implementation.
+  Contributed by Oleg Kalnichevski <olegk at apache.org>
+
+* [HTTPCLIENT-1127] fixed dead-lock between SingleClientConnManager and AbstractPooledConnAdapter.
+  Contributed by Oleg Kalnichevski <olegk at apache.org>
+
+* [HTTPCLIENT-1107] Auth framework redesign.
+  Contributed by Oleg Kalnichevski <olegk at apache.org>
+
 * [HTTPCLIENT-1116] ResponseCachingPolicy uses integers for sizes
   Contributed by Greg Bowyer <gbowyer at fastmail.co.uk >
 
-* [HTTPCLIENT-1123] Support for pluggable DNS resolvers.  
+* [HTTPCLIENT-1123] Support for pluggable DNS resolvers.
   Contributed by Alin Vasile <alinachegalati at yahoo dot com>
 
-* [HTTPCLIENT-1120] DefaultHttpRequestRetryHandler#retryRequest should not retry aborted requests
+* [HTTPCLIENT-1120] DefaultHttpRequestRetryHandler#retryRequest should not retry aborted requests.
   Contributed by Alin Vasile <alinachegalati at yahoo dot com>
 
+* Support for auth-int qop (quality of protection) option in Digest auth scheme.
+  Contributed by Oleg Kalnichevski <olegk at apache.org>
+
+* [HTTPCLIENT-1076] Fluent facade API (Google summer of code 2011 project).
+  Contributed by Xu Lilu <cookieme at gmail.com>
+
+* UriBuilder implementation.
+  Contributed by Xu Lilu <cookieme at gmail.com>
+
+* Redesign of connection management classes based on new pooling components from HttpCore.
+  Contributed by Oleg Kalnichevski <olegk at apache.org>
+
+* [HTTPCLIENT-1111] Added #prepareSocket method to SSLSocketFactory.
+  Contributed by Pasi Eronen <pe at iki.fi>
+
+* Added #reset() and #releaseConnection() methods to HttpRequestBase.
+  Contributed by Oleg Kalnichevski <olegk at apache.org>
+
+* [HTTPCLIENT-1105] AutoRetryHttpClient: built-in way to do auto-retry for certain status codes.
+  Contributed by Dan Checkoway <dcheckoway at gmail.com>
+
+* [HTTPCLIENT-1094] Digest auth scheme refactoring.
+  Contributed by Oleg Kalnichevski <olegk at apache.org>
+
+* Lax implementation of RedirectStrategy.
+  Contributed by Bartosz Firyn <songo.bercik at interia.pl>
+
+* [HTTPCLIENT-1044] HttpRequestRetryHandler implementation compliant with the definition of
+  idempotent methods given in the RFC 2616.
+  Contributed by Oleg Kalnichevski <olegk at apache.org>
+
 
 Release 4.1.2
 -------------------