IIS Aid

I mentioned in this article, the next version of AMS is on the way. I am now pleased to report that progress for AMS 2.4 has been going very well, and that I'm now almost certain that we are on track for a donator release at the end of this month, with a general release in early March.

Development is at such an advanced stage now that I am able to release a summary of what's new, and what's been fixed. There will be a complete list of all features, enhancements, and bugfixes when the module is released. Anyway, lets get on and see what the new version of AMS has in store:

Koivi Editor Intergration

Support for this popular WYSIWYG editor which supports all major browsers has now been included in AMS. Just install Koivi editor as per it's installation instructions, set Koivi editor as your default edior in your AMS preferences and you're away. You'll also notice that you are now able to select topic image, author avatar, or no image to accompany the article.

New & Greatly Improved Article Spotlight

The spotlight feature is the area of this new version of AMS that has had the most work done to it by far. AMS 2.4 sports a completely new spotlight block and a totally new spotlight adminstration area.

The new spotlight block in AMS features three selectable templates, and mini-stats of the total articles, article views and article comments.

The spotlight admin control panel is something totally new to AMS, and gives the user a massive amount of control and flexibilty of the AMS spotlight block. In the main spotlight admin area you are able to create as many spotlight blocks as you want, with the main spotlight block always having the lowest weight.

Within each block you can set the AMS to spotlight the most recent article, the most recent in a particular topic, a specific article, or just set it to be a custom block. The custom block allows you to enter any text, including HTML.

Other options in the spotlight block include specifying what image to use (custom, topic, user avatar or no image), and being able to set an auto or manual teaser text for the article.

Complete News Migration Script

AMS 2.4 will have a completed migration script for the News module 1.1 and 1.2.x that will allow you to import all articles, attachments and comments. This script will also allow you to upgrade from AMS 2.2 to AMS 2.4 by simply hitting the update button.

Completely New View By Topic View

The view by topic layout in the index view of AMS has also had a large amount of work done to it's visual presentation. Topics are now displayed with the topic name being the primary heading, and there is also a sub topic box to the right hand side. This view is only shown at the index level, and as soon as you select a topic articles are again listed by published date.

That's Not All

There has also been a few other enhancements, and a lot of bug fixes, all of which will be detailed in the final release. All this should pave the way for a significant step forward for the AMS module, and should help people avoid the trouble spots present in AMS 2.2.

As always, as a token of my appreciation towards donators, and to hopefully motivate others to donate towards the continued development of AMS, there will be a donator only version released at the end of this month with a general release scheduled for early March. So if you want to get in early, be sure to donate $10USD or more via the donatons block to your right. Unlike other modules, AMS is coded by a paid programmer as I have no coding skills myself, and as such it is essential for continued development that donations continue to roll in. By the time AMS 2.4 is released, $1100 USD will have been spent on it's development, and I can garantee that 100% of all donations (minus PayPal fees) go towards the development of AMS, so please donate something if you use it.