Earlier today we, the eZ Components development team, put out our fourth major release. This new release comes with two new components ( Authentication and Workflow ) as well as more than 200 other updates .

The Authentication component allows you to authenticate against many different backends, such as database, LDAP, Open ID and TypeKey. The core of the new Workflow engine is a virtual machine that executes workflows represented through object graphs. These object graphs can be created programmatically through the software component's Workflow Definition API. Alternatively, a workflow definition can be loaded from an XML file. Object graph and XML file are two different representations of a workflow definition that uses the so-called backend language of the workflow engine's core.

In the past two years that we've been developing the eZ Components we've pioneered with a new development method - Test Driven Development - and implemented more than 25 components that can be used as generic building blocks in PHP applications. By providing extensive documentation and a cross-component consistent API the eZ Components can serve as a solid foundation for any PHP application out there, and will also form the base of eZ Publish 4.0.

One of the most interesting components are the Mail component that parses and constructs e-mail messages and supports many different RFCs . Describing all the different components that we've developed goes to far now, but have a look at the overview on our web site. Feel free to drop by in the eZ Components channel on IRC, or ask questions and/or provide feedback through our mailing lists .