Putting the 'Happy' and 'New' in Happy New Year!

(updated 1/25/13) As we look ahead to the coming months, we've already begun to add several features to Exponent which will appear in the next version sometime during the first quarter of 2013.  Here's some new features we've already begun integrating:

• In-place (AJAX) content changes and displays.  Primarily these will be seen in the calendar when changing months, or the blog/news modules when changing pages or moving to the next/previous items.  It will also be seen if the optional Events 'lightbox' feature is turned on. ​You'll also notice we've added an event 'copy' action to help (re) create new events based on existing events and we now now support images in the default calendar.  The 'all day event indicator bar' can also be seen.
• We've implemented a 'mass mailing' feature for admins to easily contact either all users or selected groups or individual users.  This should help with notices of site changes and we're sure it will become handy.You'll have the option of adding an attachment and/or sending in 'batch' mode to prevent each user from obtaining the entire email list in their email message.
• (update) We've added a Event 'cancelation' feature to mark an event as canceled without deleting it.
• (update) You may take advantage of 'grouping' without adding categories in the portfolio and filedownload modules by using the accordion or tabbed views with categories turned off.  The items will be grouped by month/year or year if sorted by date, and grouped by alpha (rolodex style) if sorted otherwise.
• (update#3) We've added 'virtual folders' to the File Manager which allows you to group files.  This along with some other tweaks and fixes makes it easier to locate files in a large library.  We've also updated the File Uploader to take advantage of HTML5 drag and drop file additions on some systems.  And we've added the new multi-select feature to select and use more than one file so you don' t have to keep going back to the file manager to add each file.  And with that we've added a new multi-add Photo Album feature to create multiple photo album items in one easy step.  This feature will also allow you to delete more than one file at a time.
• (update #3) There will be several new views available including a new 'headlines' view for the file downloads module and two collapsing/expanding views called 'toggle' and 'accordion' for the text module.  There is also a new translucent navigation module 'flyout sidebar' view which can be opened and pinned or closed over the page.
• (update #3) We'll the new text module 'inline' view to allow you to edit text items directly on the page.  See this article.
• (update #3) We've merged the 'Configure Action & View' and 'Configure Settings' views so you have a 'one stop shopping' experience when it comes to configuring an existing module on the page.  You'll also have immediate access to any view specific settings on-the-fly as you change actions and/or views on the new 'Module' tab.
• ((update #4) We've upgraded the form module to a 2.0 controller.  While in the basic sense most of the initial improvements will be transparent, however we now store the form (database) at the site level, so the form (data) may be referenced in any forms module, on any page.  We've also opened up the forms permissions to both optionally restrict input, and optionally allow all users to view stored data (or by permissions).   We've also updated the 'style' of the forms controls to be more consistent and modern (html 5 features).
• (update #4) We've added optional auto-image-resizing during file uploads to provide a 'max-width' assist with the software.
• (update #5) We've added a 'Quick Upload' feature to the file selector which allows the user to quickly upload a new file and add it, in one quick step instead of having to go through the 'file manager, uploader, file manager, select' shuffle.  The process is similar to using the 'Upload' tab within the WYSIWYG editor for inserting a graphic.  We now also allow multiple files to be attached to a file download item which will make them available on the single file item view, while defaulting to the 1st item for quick downloads. 
• (update #6) We've added a new 'private module' feature to optionally 'hide' some modules on a page by permissions.  This will work like or in conjunction with the page private/public feature which requires a 'view' page permission to see the page.  This allows site guests to use the same page as registered users, but the registered user would see additional content (if granted the view permission to that page).

2013 looks to be a good new year.  We'll plan to keep fixing bugs and adding new features, but may slow down the release cycle as Exponent has become mature.  Happy New Year!