Kentico CMS 4.0 Release Candidate Now Available for Download

We have just finished the feature-complete Release Candidate of Kentico CMS 4.0. This release contains all features and now we only need to thoroughly test it before we release the final version.

Unlike the beta, the Release Candidate can be used to start your web site development. The Release Candidate is documented, fully supported and we will provide an upgrade procedure soon after the final version is released.

Please note: if  you need support for the Release Candidate, please be sure to inform our support that you're using version 4.0 RC.

Still, since the Release Candidate is not fully tested, you may experience some minor issues and it's not recommended to use it for public-facing web sites. Due to the limited time, we will not create any hotfixes for the Release Candidate version - all defects will be fixed in the final release.

Download Kentico CMS 4.0 Release Candidate here!

We plan to release the final version on January 30, 2009. All users who have a valid subscription on the release date will receive a free upgrade. Please note that we will distribute full license keys, new serial numbers and source code only after the 4.0 final release.

Also, if you plan to purchase Kentico CMS 4.0, it's a good time to do that now since there will be a price increase after the final 4.0 release - please read more here.

Again, we are very sorry for the big delay, but I believe the waiting was worth that.

Below, you can find an overview of improvements in Kentico CMS 4.0:

• New module: Categories enable additional categorization/taxonomy of documents.
• New module: Tagging enables tagging any documents (not only blog posts) with tags and displays a tag cloud.
• New module: Alternative forms enables creating multiple versions of editing form in BizForms, document types and custom tables; it also allows you to define custom forms, such as user registration form.
• New module: Custom tables enables creating custom tables in case you need to store some data or web content outside of the CMS content repository – it’s useful if you need to work with large number of records in a single table.
• New module: Banned IPs allows administrators to disable access from chosen IP addresses.
• New module: Bad words allows administrators to forbid nasty words and replace them, report them or disable given user action, such as forum post or blog comment.
• New module: Avatar gallery allows administrators to create pre-defined avatars (user images) and let users choose their avatar or upload a new one.
• New module: Time zones allows you to display time and date calculated for the given web site or user – it’s useful for global communities so that users can see e.g. forum post time based on their time zone.
• New module: On-line users allows you to display users who are currently on-line and kick them if they do not follow the site rules.
• New module: Message boards allows you to create message boards and comments for documents; the module supports moderation, subscriptions, rating and other features.
• New module: Notifications enables subscribing to content changes and also provides a general notification framework that can be used not only for e-mail, but also for any custom notification gateway, such as instant messengers.
• New module: Friends allows site members to maintain relationships with other site members and share personal information with them.
• New module: Report abuse allows site visitors to report offending content, such as forum posts, blog comments and others.
• New module: Groups allows you to create social networking sites with user communities (groups), invite users to join the group and create group-specific content and applications, such as wiki-like pages, forums, message boards, media libraries and polls.
• New module: Media library enables easy management of media files, such as images, videos or music; the files can be accessed directly without any script and they are not stored in the database, so you can work also with large files.
• Reviewed module: Forums - many new features including: Quoting, Mark as answer, Attachments, BB-style editor, Customizable forum layouts, Locked forums/threads,Sticky threads, and many others.
• Reviewed module: URL rewriting and aliases - many new features including: support for unlimited URL Aliases for every document; tracking of marketing campaigns when some page is visited using some particular URL; custom extensions of pages and uploaded files; support for macros in URLs; you can now specify default alias path or URL redirection for every domain alias of the web site - it means you can display different home page to visitors based on the domain name they use to access the site.
• Reviewed module: Membership - improved member management; the user registration form can be easily customized with your own fields without programming; user registration may optionally require e-mail confirmation; administrator can optionally choose that all new user registrations must be approved first; you can now send mass e-mails to multiple users, roles or groups; improved user interface for management of large number of users with filtering and alphabetical sorter;support for mixed mode authentication; you can now use both Forms and Active Directory authentication together.
• Administration UI: Extended functionality of MyDesk -> My profile.
• Administration UI: Asynchronous document deletion and moving.
• Administration UI: New information splash screen on logon dialog.
• Administration UI: New version of the WYSIWYG editor.
• Administration UI: Extended functionality in the web part zone properties.
• Administration UI: Extended functionality of System tables.
• Administration UI: Overviews where the document type, page template, product and category are used.
• Blogs: Bulk Approve/Reject comments functionality in MyDesk and improved comments management in Tools.
• Blogs: Support for blog moderators.
• Blogs: Support for blog post subscriptions.
• Blogs: Added support for tagging, categories and content rating
• Blogs: On-site editing is now supported for site members without access to CMS Desk
• Blogs: You can now ping other blogs and get trackbacks to your posts
• Controls: New format of inline controls macro now supports named parameters.
• Controls: New controls - context menu, error messages, datasources, filter, BBEditor, ...
• Controls: Minor improvements in localization controls from ExtendedControls.
• ECommerce: New web parts - N newest products, product filter
• ECommerce: Multiple default tax classes for department.
• ECommerce: Document types can be configured as product types which have enhanced functionality.
• E-mail engine: Support for custom subject, plain text, from, Cc and Bcc e-mail addresses in e-mail templates.
• E-mail engine: Enables more robust sending of e-mails; all e-mails from the system are sent through the e-mail queue and if sending fails, they are kept in the queue and can be sent later; it also allows archiving sent e-mails so that you can easily find out if some e-mail was sent or not.
• Event log: The object changes can now be now logged.
• Event log: Easier browsing of events using Previous and Next buttons.
• General: New contexts for easier access to the data of current objects.
• General: Logon page now checks the CapsLock status.
• General: Minor improvements in file import module.
• General: All the obsolete methods from previous versions have been removed.
• General: Performance optimizations regarding memory consumption, amount of data selected from the database and ViewState.
• General: Google site map support.
• Import/Export: Minor improvements in import/export.
• Messaging: Minor improvements in messaging.
• Content: New image editor for the attachments.
• Content: Content rating support; allows site visitors to rate news, articles and any other content.
• Content: Image editor for the attachments; allows content editors to resize uploaded images, convert them to another format, trim to chosen size and convert to grayscale.
• Newsletters: Performance improvements for large number of subscribers.
• Newsletters: Customizable subject in (un)subscribe templates.
• Output filter: Minor improvements in output filtering.
• Portal engine: On-click AJAX configuration of the web parts; most web parts now support AJAX on one click; you only need to check the box Use update panel in the web part properties and the web part uses AJAX rather than classic postbacks.
• Reporting: Minor improvements in reporting.
• Security: New default (generic) roles.
• Security: Windows Live ID support.
• Settings: Improved management of settings.
• Staging: Minor improvements in staging.
• System: Administrators can now receive e-mail notification when some error is added to the event log.
• User contributions: Minor improvements in user contributions.
• Web analytics: Statistics from specific period of time can now be deleted.
• Web analytics: User registration statistics can now be logged.
• Web farms: Support for restarting of all the servers.
• Web parts: Improvement of many existing web parts.
• Web parts: News datasource and viewer webparts.