Effective Jan 31, 2021 the ActiveState Platform changelog will be deprecated. You can view this content and more details about upcoming features at its new home on the Platform Roadmap page.
The State Tool now supports Perl as a language with CI/CD integrations to enable the setup of more secure, consistent, and up-to-date CI/CD pipelines. See the blog post for more information.
ActivePython 3.7.8 is now available as a featured project for Windows and Linux. You can install and work with ActivePython using the State Tool, the command line interface for the ActiveState Platform. For more information on ActivePython 3.7.8, see the project page.
Our Perl package catalog now includes almost 45,000 unique packages and versions from CPAN. This means that, in most cases, you now have access to all of the modules you need to build runtime environments for your projects.
The easiest way to get started is to create a new build using our updated “Setup a New Runtime” wizard. For more information, see Creating Custom Projects. You can also modify any of the runtime projects you’ve previously created.
The gradual rollout of our next-generation dependency solver SPOCk has begun, and will continue over the coming weeks. The Solver for Packages and Open source Conflicts (SPOCk) will automatically resolve most dependency conflicts for you. In cases where you need to intervene to choose the correct dependency, SPOCk’s warning and error messages will clearly identify the issue and simplify conflict resolution.
For much more detail on SPOCk, our approach, and managing dependencies, see our Dependency Resolution Optimization – ActiveState’s Approach blog post.
When you create or update a Perl custom runtime on the Platform, you now have the option to provide the package and version requirements for the project in cpanfile
or meta.json
file format. You can copy and paste the contents of an existing file, or type in your project’s requirements in the required format.
When a language runtime you have forked - created a copy of - is updated, you now have the option to update your forked language runtime to get the latest changes. When updates are available, a notification indicating that the fork is out of date is displayed on your project overview page.
If you choose to update your language runtime, a list of pending changes is displayed.
When you apply the update, the changes are applied to your project, and your project is rebuilt.
We’ve released a VS Code extension (plugin) that adds ActivePython as a supported Python installation that can be used by the VS Code editor and Microsoft’s Python extension. It provides an easy way to virtualize and manage Python runtime environments. Support for Perl language runtimes is coming soon.
The extension supports the following key features:
We’ve open sourced State Tool, the ActiveState Platform command line tool. Check out the public ActiveState/cli Github repository and consider forking the repo and submitting a pull request if you’d like to add an enhancement or fix a bug.
When your build fails, we now provide a mechanism to leverage the knowledge of the ActiveState Platform community to help you find a solution to get your build working.
Perl has a huge set of great testing tools that come with the base language. This runtime is designed to provide you with many of the best third party test tools, as well. View the Perl Testing Tools project and all of the other featured projects.
We’ve just added 5,000 of the most popular modules from CPAN to our Perl catalog on the ActiveState Platform. This means you now have 10x as many modules you work with to build runtime environments for your projects.
The easiest way to get started is to create a new build using our updated “Create Runtime” wizard, but you can also modify any of the runtimes you’ve previously created.
Note that if ActiveState created your runtime for you, we’re currently in the process of updating them for use with the new modules. If you experience any issues, please report them in the community forum or send an email to support@activestate.com.
You can now build custom runtime environments that contain Python 3.8.2 and just the packages/dependencies your project requires.
Based on the last official release of Python 3 from the Python Software Foundation, you can now rebuild your existing custom runtimes on Python 3.8.2, as well as create new ones.
ActivePython 3.6.6 has been updated to address two critical vulnerabilities found in Django v2.0.3.
For security reasons, whether or not you are actively using Django, we strongly recommend you update all deployments of ActivePython 3.6.6 with the latest version of ActivePython.
ActivePython 2.7.18, the final release of the Python 2 series, is now available as a featured project for Windows, Linux, and macOS. You can install and work with ActivePython 2.7 using the State Tool, the command line interface for the ActiveState Platform. For more information on ActivePython 2.7.18, see the project page and the documentation.
The State Tool CLI now supports macOS, to get the power of the Platform right in your terminal to build, manage and deploy your runtimes. To get started, install the State Tool and Python with these two commands:
sh <(curl -q https://platform.activestate.com/dl/cli/install.sh)
state activate ActiveState/ActivePython-3.6
macOS 10.15 Catalina users may receive a warning when you try to install the State Tool. To work around this, go to the System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General tab.
For more information see the State Tool page and the documentation.
If your organization belongs to the Enterprise Tier, and your licensing from ActiveState includes indemnification, you can now create custom indemnified projects on the ActiveState Platform. Previously, only Managed by ActiveState projects were indemnified. You can choose available indemnified packages when creating your project. All of the requested packages and dependencies packages included in the project must be indemnified for the project to be indemnified. If you want to include a package that’s not indemnified, contact support@activestate.com to request that it be added to the catalog.
March 2020
When you add packages to a Python project using the State Tool, you now have the option to specify the package requirements for the project in a requirements.txt
file using the new state import
command. For details, see the Command reference.
When you create or update a Python project on the platform, you now have the option to provide the package and version requirements for the project in requirements.txt
file format. You can copy and paste the contents of an existing requirements text file, or type in your project’s requirements.
When you create a new custom project, or update an existing one, you can now specify macOS as a platform to build your language runtime for. When your build completes, you can download your custom runtime as a standard package installer.
The State Tool is compatible with several popular continuous integration/continuous deployment tools to enable the setup of more secure, consistent, and up-to-date CI/CD pipelines.
The compatible CI/CD platforms are:
A maintenance release for Komodo 12 that resolves issues with State Tool integration identified in version 12.0, including a fix for login issues encountered due to State Tool failures. For the complete list of fixes, see Komodo 12 release notes.
The State Tool, the command line utility for the ActiveState Platform, includes a new package
command you can use to manage packages in your projects. You can view, add, remove, and change the packages included in your project, and update your project on the Platform.
For more information about the package
command, see the command reference
You can now choose from over 20,000 unique packages/versions to add to your custom Python 2 and Python 3 projects.
You now have selective control over the versions of dependencies that are included in your project. For example, if you include pandas in your project, numpy will be included as a dependency with a specific version. You can now independently change the version of numpy to use.
You can now optionally add commit messages to record your changes to a project with each commit.
Komodo 12, the new release of ActiveState’s Komodo IDE, includes the State Tool which enables seamless integration with the ActiveState Platform.
Key features:
For more detailed information on these new features, see the State Tool integration section in the Komodo 12 documentation.
You can now create and build custom runtimes for Tcl 8.6.9 for Linux and Windows.
Python version 2.7.17, the penultimate release of Python 2, is now available on the Platform for creating custom builds. A Featured Project (Community Edition) for Python 2.7.17 will be available soon.
When you add the Windows operating system to your build you have the option of selecting the 32-bit version for your operating system release. This is included for backwards compatibilty with older desktop computers and servers.
We’ve expanded our catalog of Python packages that you can use in your custom projects. The Platform currently supports over 3500 packages and we’re adding more each week.
You now have the option to use your GitHub credentials to create your ActiveState Platform account and authenticate with the Platform when you log in. When you authorize the ActiveState Platform to use your GitHub account for authentication, GitHub provides your email address, which ActiveState uses it to create your unique user account and link it with GitHub.
Signing up for GitHub authentication requires that your email address and username are unique on the Platform. If you previously signed up for the Platform with the email you have associated with your GitHub account, or your GitHub username is already in use on the Platform, you cannot successfuly set up GitHub authentication at this time.
You can search for users in the Members tab by entering a full or partial username or email address. This helps you avoid scrolling through a long list of users to find the user or users you are looking for.
The Project History now lists the packages, languages, and platforms that were added, updated, or removed in each commit allowing you to view the full history for the project’s last 10 commits.
You can now enter a partial name for a project in the new search text box to filter the projects listed in the projects tab. This allows you to quickly find the project you are interested in if you have a long list of projects.
You can now link directly to a specific platform on the Builds tab, which makes it easier to share builds with other users. For example, you can link directly to the Windows 10 build for a project. Previously you were only able to link to the default platform on Builds tab. To share a link to a particular platform, switch to the desired platform and copy the URL from your browser address bar.
You can now add or remove packages from ActivePerl 5.26 and 5.28, and ActivePython 3.6, on both Windows and Linux. This allows you to tailor our language distributions to your exact requirements. You can pick the packages and versions you need from our extensive catalog and create your own unique build.
The State Tool now runs without any interactive prompts, enabling you to install and configure it in Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment workflows. For more information, see the State Tool documentation.
The form for creating new projects has been streamlined and simplified so you can quickly select the operating systems and language to include in your project, and choose if your project is public or private.
Private projects are only available for paid accounts.
If your build fails, you have a few options for moving forward:
The failed build page now provides more information and links for these options.
You no longer need to keep checking on the status of your build. We’ll let you know when it’s done. The Platform now notifies you by email when a build finishes indicating whether the build succeeded or failed. If the build succeeded, you can click on a link in the email to return to the project page to download your build.
A new release of the State Tool is available which includes a number of exciting new features for integrating the State Tool and Platform builds with your development environment.
The addition of constants and secrets allows you to manage configuration settings and other information for your project in the activestate.yaml
configuration file. Secrets provide a simple and secure way to store and optionally share sensitive information, such as API keys and passwords.
Learn more about Secrets in this blog post.
Scripts and events provide ways to run additional logic required to configure your development environment. For example, you could configure an event to start your database server each time you activate your project. Scripts are run manually; events run when you state activate
your project.
Builds that are Managed by ActiveState cannot be customized. They are maintained by ActiveState, and if you fork these projects you regularly get the updated packages and dependencies as they are available.
A preview release of the State Tool is now available on Windows and Linux. The State Tool is the command line tool for the ActiveState Platform. Create a custom build or fork an ActiveState build, and then use the State Tool to download it and activate your project in a virtual environment. For details on getting started, see the State Tool documentation.
New language added! You can now download ActiveTcl builds from the Featured Projects page.
Improved Build Status information: You can now monitor the progress of your build including the total elapsed time, the success or failure of individual packages included in your build, and how long each package took to build.
New top-level navigation menu for quickly accessing Your Dashboard, Featured Projects, and Dev Tools from anywhere in the Platform.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 support: The Platform now supports builds with the latest Glibc version supported on RHEL 7 (glibc 2.17) and the latest kernel. Glibc is the main C library used by the Linux operating system, and the 2.17 release includes enhancements an bug fixes summarized here.
New Featured Projects tab: Provides access to the latest ActivePython and ActivePerl managed projects – projects that are curated and maintained by ActiveState. Currently available for Linux, these projects are the latest evolution of ActiveState Community Edition language distributions. You can view these projects to see the packages they contain, or fork them to make them accessible in your personal projects, or the projects that belong to any of the organizations you belong to.
New Dev Tools tab: Access the latest edition of the Komodo IDE. For a limited time it’s available to all Platform users. You can also try out the preview release of the State Tool, which enables you to work with your Platform projects in an isolated virtual environment.
Your Dashboard tab: Provides quick access to your personal homepage on the Platform.
Delete projects: Added the ability to delete a project in the project Settings tab.
You can rename your projects in the project Settings tab.
You can create your own customized ActivePerl distributions on Linux.
For ActivePerl projects, you can search by either package name or module name. For example, you can search for mysql
and locate packages that include this search term in their name, or you can enter the DateTime::Format::MySQL
to locate the exact package you need based on the module name.
You’re sent directly to the Build tab your new project when you create a copy of a project, or a fork, from the ActiveState.com downloads page.
Installer files are clearly differentiated from other files you can download from the Project > Builds tab.
Fork Community Editions of ActivePython 3.6.6 and ActivePerl 5.26.3 directly from the activestate.com downloads page.
First release of the state
tool, a command line interface for interacting with the ActiveState Platform and setting up projects in a local virtual environment.
Copying, or forking, projects supported. For all projects, forking a project enables you to track updates to the project. For example, when ActiveState updates a managed project, such as ActivePerl-5.24, the changes including bug fixes and updated packages will be automatically available in your forked project. Currently, you can fork and modify two ActiveState Community Edition projects and add or remove packages, and then create your own custom distributions. This is a beta feature available now for ActivePython 3.6.6 and ActivePerl 5.26.3 on Linux.
All users are now able to create and build projects.
Recommended languages and platforms for creating builds are highlighted. Builds of projects created for Python 3.6.6 on Linux are the most likely to succeed.
Build catalog increased to over 400 Python packages.