Drupal 4.7.0 released

ProBlogger.net announced that Drupal 4.7.0 has been released.  I used the previous version on my business site and enjoyed working with it, for the most part.  There were somethings I didn’t enjoy as much and, quite frankly, I was a bit caught up on using MovableType for that site so I switched across quite quickly.  Here is a bit of info from the Drupal site:

Included in the Drupal 4.7.0 release are the following improvements:

Usability improvements

Updated Documentation for All Modules: All Drupal core modules have been updated to include the latest documentation created by the Drupal documentation team.

Auto-complete Fields(AJAX): Added support for auto-complete forms.

Reduced Clutter on Forms(JS): Added support for collapsible page sections within forms. This allows for more streamlined interfaces.

Easier to Upload Files(AJAX): File uploading is now even more of a breeze.

Easier to Install and Upgrade Modules: Instead of having to install and upgrade modules by hand you can now simply just copy the files to the modules directory and Drupal will automatically handle the rest.

Easier ‘Request New Password’ Process: Users now recieve one time use links in their email instead of a randomly generated password.

Better Organized Node & Comment Edit Forms:  Options are now collapsible which has greatly reduced clutter of forms when editing nodes.

Added Mass Comment Operations: it is now a snap to modify or delete many comments at once.

Easier to Make Menu Items: It is now very easy to add pages to the navigation menu right from the page edit form.

Better Settings Page Organization:Some settings pages  have been reorganized to make them easier to find and administer.

Friendlier Database Error Screens: Database connection errors are now more informative and easier to understand.

Redesigned & More Informative Update Script: The new update script is much easier to read and provides better instructions for updating Drupal.

New features added

Multiple Block Regions: Were you feeling constrained by only two choices for block placement?  You can now dynamically specify as many block placement locations as you want.

‘Offline for Maintenance’ Configuration: You can now easily configure your site to display a friendly notice to visitors when you have to take down your site for maintenance.

Free Tagging Support: Free tagging functionality is now built into the taxonomy system.

Site-Wide Contact Form: You can now easily enable a contact form page that will let you easily collect feedback from your site visitors.

Author Information Block: There is now a block you can enable that will display author information alongside posts.

Public/Private Profile Fields: You can now specify permissions for profiles on a per-field basis.

Block by IPs/Hostname: It is now possible to block users by their IP address or Hostnames. Good bye trolls!

Aggregator now Supports Atom: It is now finally possible to aggregate Atom formatted feeds like those created by Blogger.

Aggregator Generates RSS Feeds: It’s now easier than ever to use Drupal to power ‘Planet’ like sites.

RSS Feed Settings You can now configure how much content and how many items to publish in your RSS feed.

Better Search Index: The search module indexer is now smarter and more robust

Advanced Search Operators: You can now search by advanced search operators (e.g. phrase, node type, etc.)

Custom Search Results Ranking: The search module now lets you weight search results by keyword relevance, date of post, number of comments, and number of views.

Talk about a number of changes to quite an impressive content management system.  If I were going to run a site that needed the functionality of a full CMS, Drupal would be up there in my list of the top 3 or so.  It really is a powerful system and feature-packed.

Technorati Tags: problogger, drupal