As we are approaching the CB 1.2 RC release (codename [ELEFTHERIA]) for our supporters (track status here), the CB Team would like to officially outline some of the many new features that are currently in CB 1.2 and are being tested by our test team as we speak. This is by no means an exaustive list and is meant solely to inform and prepare our community regarding the really nice work that has been implemented. CB 1.2 RC will be released first to our documentation subscribers (click here to subscribe for 2008 now!) as a special thank you for their support and then later on to the community. This will happen as soon as it passes CB test team tests, hopefully within the next week.

 Here it goes (in no particular order):

• Native compatibility with Joomla 1.5.X (tested up to Joomla 1.5.3), Joomla 1.0.X (tested up to Joomla 1.0.15) and Mambo 4.5.0 - 4.6.4. This means that the single CB 1.2 package will be able to install and work on all three CMS code bases without the need for additional plugins (e.g., Joomla 1.5.X legacy plugin) or modifications. This is the reason the CB Team has given CB 1.2 the code name [ELEFTHERIA], which in Greek means freedom.
• Core fields (i.e., first name, middle name, last name, full name, username, avatar-thumbnail, password, parms) are now handled as CB managed fields. This has many nice implication like: allowing email address field to appear on profiles, username to appear on profile, avatar field to appear during registration process, etc.)
• All CB fields can now have default values.
• CB date field has now been enhanced to operate in date - age mode
• New CB password field type
• CB fields can now be marked as searchable (for user list searching)
• User lists can now be searchable by individual CB (searchable) fields (even core fields) - multi criteria searches permitted. Separate user lists URLs for searchable lists or non searchable lists (for future integration with CB subscription plugin system)
• Ajax based DNS and SMTP email address verification at registration and user editing of email address field (primary or extra).
• New lost password and lost username recovery functionality.
• Replacement tags now work everywhere, even in CB user list filtering. This has many cool implications like dynamic user lists. E.g., A user list that automatically adjusts its filter based on the value of CB fields completed by the viewer. One such example could be a user list of all members that live in the same country as I do.
• Field types can be extended or new field types can be created by CB plugin API. E.g., decimal field type can be easily created as a plugin.
• New but compatible profile HTML generator with full CSS styling markup.
• Optimized SQL and PHP (amount of SQL queries has been reduced by 30-60%).
• Core plugins have been updated to support fireboard (1.0.4 and 1.1), uddeIM (1.1) and Yanc (1.5 b3) integrations.

Also, the CB Team has been preparing its CB Team released plugins to be CB 1.2 compatible. This means that along with CB 1.2 (or shortly after), new CB 1.2 compatible releases of the following plugins will be published

• CB ProfileBook
• CB ProfileGallery
• CB Captcha for doc subscribers
• CB LastVisitors (Trails plugin)
• CB AutoWelcome
• CB Authorbot
• CB subscriptions plugin [commercial]

In addition documentation (free installation guide and detailed doc subscription guide) will be updated to support the above features.

The CB Team is very excited about these features and the new possibilities that are under the hood. We would like to thank you for your patience and understanding regarding the delayed testing experienced because of these many features.