[IPS Blog] Welcome to the new Blog!

[NewsBot]

We've just upgraded the IP.Blogs application we use on these forums to 2.1.0 beta 1. As you can see, it's a fairly substantial upgrade with many new features and improvements. This blog entry will run through the main ones:

Efficiency

I've added several more caching layers for commonly requested data from blogs and entries. This, along with significant SQL query work makes this version the most efficient yet. The improvements are obvious even here. Pages load much quicker with much fewer queries.

User Interface

http://www.mattmecham.com/skitch/Shades-133-20091119-150346.png

The user interface has had a complete facelift to bring it up to standard. The new look feels more 'bloggish' and enhances the experience. I've added drop down menus at the top so that you can quickly access common areas and start new entries where you have permission to. The post screen has been overhauled to add functionality. You should find the new version much easier to navigate and easier to use.

http://www.mattmecham.com/skitch/Shades-20091119-151834.png

Group Blogs

http://www.mattmecham.com/skitch/Shades-20091119-151338.png

This is a new feature that allows you, the admin, to set up a group-wide blog. This blog is a normal blog in every other way. For example, you could set up a blog for your staff and everyone in the staff group will instantly be able to start writing new blog entries and managing comments, etc.

Blog This!

http://www.mattmecham.com/skitch/Shades-20091119-150646.png

This is a brand new feature that adds a "Blog This" button to every post. This allows you to use post content in your blog entry. Furthermore, the relationship is remembered and all linked blog entries appear at the bottom of the topic when viewed.

http://www.mattmecham.com/skitch/Shades-20091119-150616.png

Pre entry Rating

You can now rate each blog entry rather than just the entire blog itself. The blog rating is still shown on the homepage as an aggregate of all rated entries.

http://www.mattmecham.com/skitch/Shades-20091119-150729.png

Report Item and Reputation

You can now report an entire blog entry, or just a single comment. You can now also give someone a reputation increase/decrease in comments.

http://www.mattmecham.com/skitch/Shades-20091119-150814.png

There are also countless other improvements and enhancements. Keep in mind that this is very much early beta software so expect bugs! Please report them in the tracker as usual.

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