If you've been paying attention, 1.0.0b4 will contain numerous major new feature improvements. Among the biggest are massive improvements to the "my status" feature (which feels more like "twitter" now and has even extra options), and the big improvements to the search tool. Before, it wasn't possible to search the site for anything other than items, but this is finally changing, as a single search will look up sections, items, members, services (and soon to be admin tools)! This is all thanks to everything slowly gaining tag support.

A hot tag cloud has also been added, which is sure to help increase traffic and accessibility around your site.

Finally, there is even a "related item" feature, which works automatically to find similar items and displays these when viewing an item.

Additionally, 1.0.0b4 contains some major performance improvements, as many queries have been cut down, and more caching has been implemented.

Last but not least, cron will no longer be required. It will still be assumed by default, can be avoided and not used altogether, and still have everything with your site function normally.

The biggest thing on my "to do" list that most likely will not be seeing itself in this next release is improvements to the "friendship" system. For one, there should be friend groups (like "favorites", "family", etc..) and you can't even stop being friends with someone now. Plus, this area should be spiced up a bit to be more visually appealing. Because some of these other features I've been working on are taking more time than expected, this feature is going to have to wait to be improved until the 1.0.0b5.

Even though I've already accomplished a tremendous lot with the "my status" feature, there are still several things I want to do... Allow the admin to configure the auto-refresh time interval and how many updates get listed per page. Plus, I'd like to add three new notifications (when someone your following posts an update, when you get a new follower, and when you get a new reply). I will also add a short summary area (like on the home page) on people's profiles so the last few updates get displayed there, with a link to more.

Oh, and I have a bunch of images I have to make today... Most of them are for the "my status" feature, but there are still numerous ones that need to be created.

Yesterday I was thinking that 1.0.0b4 may not make it to the anticipated release, but now I am just thinking to disregard the improved friendship support, and focus on finishing off the "my status" thing as best as possible, and still go ahead with the release then.

Plus, I know now that 1.0.0b5 will *not* come out after two weeks from 1.0.0b4, because this is what I've been doing, and it's a bit too hectic, and things end up getting rushed to tie up so many loose ends on the last day. I think I will end up focusing on monthly releases from now on, as opposed to bi-weekly. If you would like to see new releases at a different interval, create an account and vote on this poll.