[IPS News] IP.Blog 1.4.0 Beta 3 Released

[NewsBot]

IP.Blog 1.4.0 Beta 3

We are excited to announce that the public beta of IP.Blog 1.4.0 has been released and is available to all IP.Blog customers.

This is the first public beta release (earlier betas were released internally) so please take a moment and read this entire announcement before downloading.

• As this is a BETA release there will be bugs and issues with the software. Please report any issues using our bug tracker. Before reporting please first quickly check to see if anyone has already reported your issue.
  
• Technical support is not available for public betas.
  
• Do not use this software on a public install. Wait for the final series for your public IP.Blog installation.
  
• If you wish to test the upgrade please do so on a copy of your database. Do not perform an upgrade on your live data. We will not be able to assist you if the upgrade fails.
  
• You will be able to upgrade from IP.Blog 1.4.0 Beta 3 to 1.4.0 final when it is available.
  
• In general, only download and participate in the beta test if you are comfortable doing so.
  

New Features and Changes since IP.Blog 1.3

New Default Style

IP.Blog has been overhauled with a fresh new style, one which feels more like a traditional blog. Additionally, it has been designed with themes (see below) in mind, so there is plenty of room for theme authors to experiment in their designs.

Themes and Custom Headers

You can now install 'theme packs' and allow your users to choose which of these themes will be applied to their blog. Using themes you can completely change the look and layout of an individual blog (to see a demonstration of a theme in use, check out Rikki's blog). Users are also able to create their own unique theme, these user themes must be approved by an adminstrator before they are publically viewable by other users. The new custom header system allows you to create multiple header images for users to choose from.

Content Block Plugin System

It's now much easier to create your own content blocks, using a new plugin system. It's now possible to define settings for a plugin that apply to individual blogs, this means that you can integrate with 3rd party widgets that require a unique username for each blog. We've also included new content blocks in this release: Twitter, MyBlogLog, Google Reader, Friends Blogs, Recent Visitors, Digg, and Last.FM.

Social Bookmarks

A new bookmark manager allows you to define bookmark services for your blog system. These services will allow blog entries to be easily submitted to the bookmark services that you setup. There are several preconfigured services: Del.icio.us, Digg, Google, Facebook, Mixx, Reddit, and Stumbleupon.

Media Integration

The new tag allows you to automatically convert various media types into a more useable format. FOr example, [ blogmedia ]http://www.test.com/somemp3.mp3[/ blogmedia] would be converted into a mp3 player for the specified file. You can define any media type you like in the Media Tag manager, by default we include: Flickr Image Set, GameTrailers, Google Video, MP3 Player, MySpace Video, Veoh, and YouTube.

Other Changes:

• Feedburner Integration
  
• Akisment Integration
  
• Edit Entry Date
  
• Display article count for categories
  
• Blog Offline Mode
  
• Entry author replies in comments are now highlighted
  
• Admins can select a 'Featured Entry' to be displayed on the blog listing
  

Download

Existing IP.Blog customers can login to the client area to download.

If you would like to see the changes and new features, without installing the beta, you can view them on our IP.Blog installation.

Thank you for being a part of the beta process, we hope you enjoy this new version!

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