Sitellite Updates Galore!

February 12, 2007

It's been a busy past few months behind-the-scenes here at Simian, with lots of new software updates that are all being rolled out in one big batch today, including major upgrades to several add-ons and tons of new features to Sitellite itself.

Sitellite 4.2.12

This is the last major bug fix/feature update until Sitellite 5. After this, our focus for development will be on the larger new features slated for Sitellite 5, including updates to the Xed visual editor, new website analysis/SEO tools, a complete built-in e-commerce system, and lots more.

As for this release, the new features are smaller but there are tons of them. Here are the highlights:

IE7 is officially supported now
New measures to reduce spammer abuse of forms, including CAPTCHA, blacklists, and improved input filtering/validation
Optional auto-redirection to the Coral Content Distribution Network to prevent traffic surges which can lead to website slowdowns and even downtime when linked to from sites like Digg.com and Slashdot.org
Automatic image size constraints for images included in web pages and sidebars
Download stats of file downloads from Web Files
Image manager allows in-browser image touchups via snipshot.com integration
Sitellite's URLs can now have the "/index/" removed, so you now have 100% control over page URLs for increased SEO control
Visual notices in the Web View so editors can see draft/pending content at a glance
Cache auto-flushing keeps your website up-to-the-second accurate while still providing a big performance boost (enabled via Workflow Services)
Edit form tabs are now easily reusable for custom content types (with tutorial)
Embed Google Maps into any page with the Professional Edition box chooser
Create Google Site Maps automatically on a nightly basis for use with Google's Webmaster Tools
Many more fixes and usability improvements

Visit the Sitellite project page

SiteSupport 2.0

SiteSupport now boasts a completely rewritten customer and support staff interface, which is now much more intuitive for customers and for support staff.

Highlights include:

Password protected interface for customers and support staff
Multiple contacts possible for each customer
Each contact is kept in-the-loop about all support requests via automatic email carbon copying
Support requests are organized into conversations between customer and support staff, with previous requests archived for historical purposes
Support staff control over registered companies and their contacts
Support staff statistics including total requests, top customer, and average response time for this week, this month, and in total
Attach files to each message of a support conversation
Assign support requests to a particular staff member
Powerful request history searching for support staff
Secure RSS feeds for support requests
And much more

We're so happy with this new version of SiteSupport that we're rolling it out as we speak as Simian's official customer support system.

For more information about SiteSupport 2.0, visit http://www.simian.ca/

SiteBlog 2.0

SiteBlog is now a full-featured modern blogging engine, completely integrated within the Sitellite experience. SiteBlog's output was redesigned from scratch to be more intuitive but still completely controllable by standard CSS stylesheets. The SiteBlog editor interface is also drastically simplified and better integrated within both Sitellite's Web View and Control Panel.

New features also include:

CAPTCHA and Akismet support for eliminating blog comment spam
Improved comment management with blacklist support
Better integration with Sitellite Pro's box chooser for a true business-level blogging experience. Sitellite Pro users can visually customize their blog sidebars in minutes, with complete control
New Blogroll feature so you can be more involved with the blogging community
Automatic pinging of all the major blog directories via pingomatic.com

Visit the SiteBlog project page

SiteWiki 1.2

This may only be a point release for SiteWiki, but it's no small one. This update brings SiteWiki up to speed with some of the latest changes and advancements in recent Sitellite versions. We've also improved SiteWiki's access control, including the use of CAPTCHA to eliminate automated abuse.

The last new SiteWiki feature we've added is one we've wanted ourselves for some time. That is, the ability to upload related files to your wiki pages. This feature is only available for registered wiki contributors though, so it's secure and users are accountable for their files.

Visit the SiteWiki project page

New Tutorials

We've also prepared several new tutorials that correspond with new features of Sitellite in this release. These include:

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