MDPro Lite, alias MDLite, is ready :)

After a lot of work and a lot of time, finally MDLite, for now just in RC release, is ready. To help us make the final release as soon as possible, please download it, use it, test it and report any bugs, and/or your comments and suggestions. You should also be aware that development of MDPro 1.076 has stopped, as we will turn our full attention to preparing MD 1.1. Any additional security fixes for MD 1.076 will only continue for a short time.

Before beginning to use MDLite, please keep in mind that this is an RC release. So please don't use it in an operational site. This release will allow you to install it for testing purposes and to discover its new features.

Another important note about MDLite is that MDLite represents a transitional development as we move toward producing MD 1.1 with a new core. As explained further below, we have rewritten a large amount of code, made it simple and easy to use, added documentation, optimized performance etc. With MDLite and MD 1.1 you will see that we have changed our philosophy and have focused on creating a small core to allow users to install ONLY the modules, blocks and addons they need. MDLite also introduces a new MD directory and files structure. This structure will continue to be improved upon in MD 1.1.

The next several weeks will be very exciting for you as we have many surprises, releases and new things happening soon :) Some suprises come from our GPLdev Assocation project. I will keep you informed about this very soon. Additionally, we will open discussion with some development posts in our forum  as we believe it is important to keep our community involved in the next developments at MAXdev.com. Our staff are working to continue development of MD 1.1 and look forward to receiving your comments, suggestions, and ideas for future development.

The first question people ask me about MDLite is "Can I upgrade from MD 1.076?"  At first, I considered releasing MDLite without an upgrade procedure; however, because so many people have asked for an upgrade procedure, I decided to develop and include the upgrade procedure ONLY FROM MD 1.076.  So yes, you can upgrade from MD 1.076, but please read all instructions carefully before beginning the upgrade.

You should also be aware that some modules will not work with MDLite, and other modules will  need a few modifications to let them work with MDLite.  In the coming weeks we will add a post in the forum or tutorials in our documents section with some tips for making these modifications. MD Staff and thirdy party developers are working to develop and/or rewrite new modules to work with MDLite. Several modules have already been completed and others are nearing completion for use with MDLite including: new calendar module, classified, newsletter, forum, contact, legal, MDchannel, gallery, multisites, latest comments etc... All of these will include templates for AutoRender :)

You can read about here [1]

So, before you decide to upgrade, please consider it carefully, perhaps make a test with a separate installation and try out the new core and modules.

I want to take this opportunity to say many thanks to all the people who have made this project and MDLite possible, so many thanks to :

Sjah - Sjahrazad Alamsjah - Designer - http://www.uiarch.org/ [2]  
Skin - Alessio Pellegrini - Designer - http://www.pointnet.it/ [3]  
Serg - Sergey Alexandrov - Bug manager, developer
Oleg - Oleg Berngardt - Autorender Developer
Csipiemonte - Luca Gioppo - Lead Developer
WindMeUp - Stefan Koehler - Co-Lead Developer
Capretta - Gagliani Angelo - Document Manager
Peterbest - Peter Best - Developer
Cino - Romeo Bandinelli - General Secretary
Dmcl1 - Denise McLaurin
Duster - Eddie Rhodes - English documentation
Dmiranda - Diego Miranda - Developer
CybLeNoir - Michele Gianni - Developer
Moviemaniac - Enrico Fedele - Developer
Asrul - - Malaysian support and co-webmaster of http://www.masa2.net/ [4]  
Poke - Pochettino Marco - Developer
Aldebaran - Franco Ghezzo - Documentation and translation
Bruce - Luca Rossi - Translation
Francesco Kaitner - Il Barone Rosso
Simone Onofri - Simo
CoolOs - Guy Vigneault - french support
Undernature - Marco Scarselletti

and sure to all people who contribute and thirdy party applications and developers, you can read about here [5]

Many thanks also to GPLdev association and all MDBoosters. I would also like to remind you that we always need help in our staff. If you are interested in contributing seriously with development, writing documentation, support, design etc. ... just contact us and let us know.

So let's go now and discover MDLite!

TiMax

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Following is a brief list of the new features:

- Totally rewritten online documentation
- Help tooltips within administration pages to help the administrator
- Tooltips can be enabled/disabled for advanced administrators
- Improved Multilanguage system
- Multilanguage options can be enabled/disabled
- New style, cool and light
- New logos, new icons and new layout.
- Introduction of Adodb Lite class, lighter than adodb and requires less resources
- Files that need to be written to are concentrated in specific directories
- Additional functions for themes are automatically recognized
- LDAP/Active Directory


MDAdvice

- New important function. In the admin panel, the administrator can readily view news coming from MaxDev support sites, including notices of security updates and new version releases.


Tinymax Module

Tinymax handles the new editor that replaces RTE. It has a powerful administration section that gives you control over:
- Tynymce editor, fast, clean and easy to use
- Image uploading handler, easier and powerful, it gives you the possibility to manipulate images while uploading
- File uploading handler
- Automatic insert of links to News, Downloads and whatever, depending on installed modules
- XHTML 1.0 valid output, with automatic invalid tag cleaning
- Multibrowser support: IE7, IE6, IE5.5, SP2, Seamonkey, Firefox 1.5x, Firefox 2.0, Safari, Opera (partially), on Windows, Linux e MacOS
- Multilanguage
- 3 automatic configuration levels


Add Article Module

- Improved module
- Simplified layout
- Multilanguage functions and options activated only on multilanguage sites
- New online manual

MDMenus Module

- Improved module
- Access-key handling
- Revised multilanguage support
- Automatic insert links to News, Topics, Modules, URLs, CMpro, htmlp
- New online manual

Topics Module

- Improved module
- Revised multilanguage support
- New online manual

Permissions Module

- Improved module
- Revised multilanguage support
- New online manual

Errore Module

- Written from scratch
- Users can be automatically redirected to a:
   - specific news
   - specific topic
   - specific module
   - specific URL
   - a customized page that can be created within the administration panel using the editor
- A redirection timeout can be configured
- Revised multilanguage support
- New online manual

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Modules Module

- Improved module
- Revised multilanguage support
- New online manual
- Improved layout

Submit News Module

- Revised multilanguage support
- New online manual
- Improved layout

News Administration Module

- Revised multilanguage support
- New online manual
- Improved layout

Preferences Module

- Improved module
- Revised multilanguage support
- New online manual
- Improved layout
- New features
- Added censor words management

Blocks Module

- Improved module
- Revised multilanguage support
- New online manual
- Improved layout

Autorender Module

This is one of the most important new features that will be introduced by MDLite. Autorender is the technical, graphical and functional evolution of the well-known AutoTheme. Autorender has been developed by MAXdev's staff and makes use of the popular Smarty templating system. The graphical layout has been totally revised, and new features have been added, including an online manual and cache handling.

Autorender is an HTML themes handler for Content Management Systems (CMS): MDLite. It allows the developer to completely separate HTML from php code, so that it is easier than ever to design new web templates without using php code. This means that you can use your favorite editor. Moreover, Autorender gives you the freedom to customize every single area of your website, including block display, custom templates, custom user pages, administration pages and custom modules. AutoBlocks offers you the choice to place blocks in every page and every position. All Autorender settings can be easily modified within its administration panel.

Autorender supports AutoTheme commands; therefore, it supports all AutoTheme's themes. It can use functions specific to the theme, and it supports Smarty tags. With MDLite's built-in support for Smarty, new theme development will become easier and more flexible than ever. Smarty tags can be placed inside both page and block templates.

With Autorender, you are not forced to use templates for every module and/or block. You can simply customize those areas of your site which you consider of vital importance, and ingore the others. You can even combine Autorender power, through its Smarty tags, with AutoTheme easiness to create even more complex themes, for those pages that require a more structured and complex design.

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Users Administration Module

This is the most significant change brought by MDLite. The previous User, New User, Lost Password, Your Account, and Groups modules have been all replaced by a unique module, called MDUsers, which contains all their features and introduces some new features.

A brief list:

- Online manual
- Complete multilanguage support
- New user creation
- Group assignment "on the fly" while creating a new user and/or editing an existing user (you can assign a user to a group at the same time you create the user)
- User search within every profile's field, even with conditional parameters
- New Dynamic fields handling
- Groups management
- Users can be moved/copied from one group to another
- Administrator can define the conditions of use directly from the administration panel or use multilanguage defines
- Registrations can be enabled/disabled
- A confirmation email can be enabled to verify the email used for registering
- New subscription moderation
- Minimum or complete registration profile
- Users can be allowed to choose their own password
- Graphic security code can be enabled/disabled for the subscription process
- Minimum password length can be set
- Minimum age can be set
- A default user's group can be set
- Theme changing can be enabled/disabled for users
- Home Page customization can be enabled/disabled
- Account deletion can be enabled/disabled for users
- Secure email checking
- Fields are validated with javascript
- You can configure the number of days after which unapproved user registration requests are deleted
- You can setup a password expiration
- Inactive users expiration, inactive users will be deleted after a fixed number of days
- Password encryption by MD5 or SHA1
- Administration notification of new subscriptions
- Administration notification of user cancellations
- You can configure a default redirect for each user group to a default page, News or article
- Panel layout configuration
- Reserved words management

and lot of other things

TiMax and all MAXdev Staff