IP.Board 4.0 ACP is very nice.

[AtariAge]

I setup a demo account last night for the first time to play with the IP.Board 4.0 Admin Control Panel.  My initial impressions are that it's much cleaner and easier to navigate than before.  Certainly there are fewer options, but I haven't gone through to take the time to figure out what's been removed, or changed.  I did see several new options I like, though, and it looks to have great potential.  I know I have been critical of IP.Board (including in the recent past), but I'm hopeful with this rewrite we'll see some great things down the road. 

I also love the ability to enable and position blocks from the live forum index.  Very cool.

I have not yet tried updating the skin, but the Designers' Mode looks like it will make that easier.  Presumably I would need to do this on my own server, since I cannot edit the files in the demo installation.  I look forward to seeing how easy it will be to redo the custom skin.

I can't upgrade my forum from 3.4.x to 4.0 until some improvements / features are restored.  In particular, the search system and performance are two of the big ones (and, the top two on the Feature Plan page).  Really, I'll probably wait until most of those items are done and 4.x has had time to mature, but there are many features I'd really like to have Right Now.  However, even if I wanted to, I have to do work on other areas of my site so I can upgrade PHP to the minimum required, which I'm working on now as I have time. 

I'm also curious how the changes affect hooks (plugins?) and applications.  I've done various modifications to IP.Board in the past, and have several that are still live on my current forum.  Actual code modifications that couldn't be done as hooks, at least when I initially wrote them.  Anything I do to 4.x will be done properly so I can share them with the community.  And of course, that will make upgrading easier, which is a huge pain in the neck right now (even between minor point releases).

Anyways, kudos to Invision for taking the bold step to rewrite IP.Board from the ground up.  

 ..Al

PS: My users and I would love you guys if you'd rewrite the Blogs module!!