We've upgraded our blog to the new 1.4 version for the first round of testing. We will have a beta version available for download next week, until then enjoy the new version here and let us know what you think. We're very excited to hear your feedback and suggestions on this blog preview!
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, and Recent Visitors.
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, Facebook, Mixx, Reddit, and Stumbleupon. Please feel free to suggest any services that you would like to see included by default.
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. Please suggest any additional media tags that you would like to see included by default.
Akismet Integration
It's now possible to use Akismet to filter spam for both the comment and trackback system.
Feedburner Integration
Users can now override the default rss syndication and use FeedBurner.
Other Changes:
- 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