There's so much that's new....here are a few of the highlights. Contact your PaperThin representative for more details, or to schedule a personal demonstration of the many new, exciting features and enhancements.

New 4.0 Features

Static Site Generation
The Static Site Generation module is designed to further extend CommonSpot's scalability, performance and total cost of ownership. By separating the process for handling dynamic and static content, a more scalable, reliable and higher performance site can be realized. In looking at most sites, the majority of the content can be classified as 'semi-static' in nature, meaning that once a piece of content is published it does not change until it is edited and republished at a later time. Under the Static Site Generation model those pages that are semi-static in nature, and have no other dynamic components, will be generated into straight HTML at publish time. These static files can then be served more cost effectively at a high performance from one or more straight HTTP servers. No ColdFusion server is necessary. The smaller number of pages within your site that are truly dynamic (i.e. search results, pages with personalized content, pages requiring authentication, or pages with embedded, non-static custom scripts) will be handled through a dynamic CommonSpot server. Thus, when implementing the Static Site Generation model you will have at least two domains. For example PaperThin might implement www.paperthin.com for all of the static content and dynamic.paperthin.com for those dynamic pages. CommonSpot will automatically detect whether a page contains dynamic content, or it can be forced to either be treated as static or dynamic.

Page Output Types/Extensions
In addition, the Static Site Generation model now allows for the integration of application/modules built with other interpreted languages such as ASP, JSP, CGI, PERL, PHP and other server-side modules. Within the new Page Output Types/Extensions section within the CommonSpot Administrator, the site administrator can register supported page extensions and assign security on who can create pages using this extension. This capability is not limited to static generated pages. CommonSpot pages can now use different extensions, provided you configure your HTTP server to correctly map the desired extension to ColdFusion.

Query By Example Element
The Query by Example feature enhances the search capability that you can provide on your site. With this element, you can allow visitors to query existing simple forms, custom metadata, and custom elements, and have the results of the query display on a page. For example, you might allow visitors to search for:

• sporting events that are scheduled in the next two weeks
• documents dealing with neck surgery
• product information by price or category 
• articles written in the past year by a specific author

With the query by example feature, users can now find the information they are looking for even faster and easier. The Query By Example element is accessible in the Element Gallery under Miscellaneous Elements. Similar to the Search Form elements, the Query By Example element just displays the search form. The results of the Query By Example are displayed using a Page Index, Custom Element or Datasheet element. Each of these three elements now has a checkbox option that allows the user to filter results using Query By Example fields.

Spell Check
We're pleased to introduce comprehensive spell checking in CommonSpot. This feature can be found throughout the product, allowing spell checking of all appropriate fields in all authoring dialogs. The main settings for Spell Check are located in the CommonSpot Site Administrator. Administrators can manage default Lexicon Sets, create company or industry dictionaries, globally force spell check on or off or allow users to choose whether spell check the current dialog, and lastly define whether users can maintain their own dictionaries. At the subsite level, Spell Check support has been added to Languages under the Subsite Properties section, allowing you to manage the default Lexicon Set for each subsite. The check box at the bottom of almost every dialog allows you to turn spell checking on or off on a per use basis. The dialog for misspelled words is very intuitive, as it is similar to most Spell check dialogs.

Visual Difference
When multiple users are involved in the creation, review and approval of content to a Web site, it's helpful to be able to quickly see what changes have been made by a previous author. The Visual Difference feature allows an author or approver to easily view all changes made. The "WYSIWYG" tab displays the Visual Difference with a color coded system to define the additions and deletions (i.e. deletions appear with a red strikethrough font, while insertions have a yellow background color). The Compare tab displays a "Side by Side" comparison of the two versions, allowing you to see and scroll through both versions simultaneously. The Visual Difference functionality is accessible both from the publishing icons and from within version history. From the publishing icons, you can see the differences between an element's content while in different states (current, work-in-progress, pending approval). From within version history, users can compare selected versions of a page or element.

Pop-up Calendar
Throughout the product, wherever date fields occur, we have introduced a new pop-up calendar, to make it easier to enter date fields accurately.

International Date Formats
In the subsite properties dialog of each site under the Language section, there is now a Date/Time Settings section. This feature is designed to control the input and rendering of Date Time fields. We have preloaded all of the default Locales supported by ColdFusion, and allow you to modify the settings as you wish. This feature is particularly helpful for multi-language sites.

Copy Subsite Properties
A new feature added to the Administrator is the ability to copy subsite properties to other subsites. Accessible in the Subsite Administrator, this feature allows you to copy the following properties to other subsites: Content Security, General Security, Webmaster e-mail, Character set and date/time settings, Verity Collection, Default Verity Indexing, Cache Formats, Version History, Enforced and Default Keywords, Page Title Prefix, Default Page Indexing and Template Variables. Once you've copied the parameters you can navigate to that subsite and change any additional parameters, if desired.

Miscellaneous Settings
This new Site Administrator feature allows the administrator to define a number of general site settings, providing additional controls for what contributors are able to do, and required to do. Additional Visual Difference facilities for remoting from a Solaris or Linux server can also be set here. New settings include the ability to Show Page Activate UI, Allow Image Resize, Enable Reject Approval Option, Require Publication Comments and Enable Usage Stats (and define the number of days to retain usage stats), and E-mail a copy of Log Entries whenever an error is caught by CommonSpot.

XHTML/CSS Positioning Support
We have followed the W3C recommendations and with a few changes in your servervars.cfm file, you can render XHTML Transitional Compliant code from any CommonSpot page. While the code rendered is perfectly compatible with HTML 4.1, in order to take advantage of full XHTML compliance, you will need to make the following adjustment to you servervars.cfm file located in /commonspot/keys (We recommend that whenever you are working with your servervars.cfm file that you proceed with caution and care and that you ALWAYS make a back up). Additionally we now support designs based on CSS positioning. Under previous versions the CommonSpot indicator menus would not position correctly. These issues have been addressed so that your base templates and custom ColdFusion modules can now use relative or absolute positioning.

New 4.0 Enhancements

Metadata Forms
We've significantly enhanced functionality and usability of custom Meta Data adding the following capabilities:

• Multiple Bindings - ability to bind metadata forms to multiple objects, where in prior versions the metadata form was bound to only to the originally specified object
  
  
• Extended Bindings - ability to bind metadata forms to render handlers, External URLs, Uploaded Documents, Page Sets, and image formats
  
  
• Field Grouping - ability to group fields under user defined tabs
  
  
• Field Joining - a new option within the selection box field type allows the contributor to select the value from another metadata forms field or custom element field. This allows for you to bind forms together.
  
  
• Default Values - ability to set default values that can be ColdFusion expressions
  
  
• Field Level Security - ability to show/hide fields to different users/groups. This allows for some simple workflow process to be established.
  
  
• Additional Field Types - we have added additional fields types including Radio Buttons, and Date and Time controls
  
  
• Custom Fields - ability to register your own field types via a published API.

Simple Forms
Several enhancements have been added to the Simple Form, so that it is not so 'simple'. We've added the following capabilities:

• Multi-Page or Multi-Tab Support - simple forms can now span across multiple pages or can have multiple tabs separating a grouping of fields.
  
  
• Summary Page - if your form has many fields spread across multiple pages, it might be desirable to show a summary of the data the user has entered. The Simple Form element now supports the inclusion of a summary page if desired.
  
  
• Rich Text Layout/Editing - ability to layout the simple form using the WYSIWYG editor. This allows you better customize the look and feel of your Simple Forms.
  
  
• Exporting - the datasheet element now supports exporting its result set to Excel, making it easy to export all data entered through the Simple Form.
  
  
• Other - All of the enhancements mentioned above for Metadata Forms (outside of binding) also apply to Simple Forms

Custom Elements
All of the enhancements mentioned above for Metadata Forms (outside of binding) also apply to Custom Elements.

Replication Enhancements
There have been several enhancements regarding replication. One new enhancement is the ability to exclude a subsite from being replicated. This option is accessible from the Replication Scope, where you can select the 'Subsite Exclusions' and check off the subsites you do not wish to replicate. Additionally, the Replication Servers option has been separated from the Replication Records section; there is now a new section called Servers where you can edit each server separately and test each server. This will give you more control for replicating to more than one target server. Now when you create/edit a replication record, you can control the destination and delivery parameters for more than one server. Additionally we have added logic to restart partially completed synchronizations.

Page Creation Enhancements
In order to simplify the page creation process, several enhancements have been made to the Page Creation dialogs, which allow Administrators to define which fields are displayed to the end-user, which of two tabs the field appears on, and the field default values. Additional options are also provided to allow the following: ability to define a maximum length for the Page Name and Page Title fields ability to require that the description is different than the title ability to force the filename to lower case ability to define default values These settings are controlled in the CommonSpot Administrator under the new Page Creation/Properties UI option.

Uploaded Document Enhancements
We have given administrators more control on the uploading of documents. In the Site Administrator we've added a new section called File Formats where administrators can determine: which file formats uploadable, the maximum size of the document given its format type who can upload certain formats Additionally, anonymously accessible document are now directly linked. We only link to the uploaded document through the get-file.cfm URL if the document is not viewable by anonymous users. This enhancement solves some of the file download naming problems that occurred when downloading via the get-file.cfm URL.