I'm not sure how many of you actually even look over the requirements page, but cron has been required up until now (the event system relies on listen.cron.php being executed every so often to process internal events, like new item notifications, people signing a guestbook). It basically just affects notifications, award and activity point dispersal and keeping things synced.

I haven't made such a big deal about working for not requiring cron, because Theia has a pretty spiffy and easy to use admin tool that lets you schedule cronjobs through Theia's interface.

Well, I finally decided I will rework the event system a little bit so that events can be set to "automatic", and will be processed as they occur. I will still encourage cron to folks though as using cron wisely can significantly improve the performance of a website!

Update: I have just added the tool/interface for choosing how you want events processed (immediately, as they occur, or let cron do them). The cron method is encouraged because it will means a *significant* performance increase, but finally another option is available for people who don't have cron! This support will be included in 1.0.0b4 on August 15th.