Today we will be putting in place some substantial back-end changes to the SiteMason service as well as launching an improved SiteMason website. Most of these changes will not be noticable to SiteMason users. We encourage everyone to test the SiteMason website and admin area thoroughly to make sure we didn't miss anything. Also note that the database back-end for the News Publisher tool has been revised substantially, and we encourage you to double-check the functionality of any News Publishers you may have installed.

Here's the new stuff we're adding to SiteMason later today:

News Publisher -
Improved conversion of URLs and email addresses into links
You can now mark an article as new, in which case a "New" icon will appear next to the headline
You can now add a link to a sound byte to an article (complete with a nifty icon)

Page Builder -
The paragraph editor is now generated by XSL templates. This should make future modifications easier to implement.
There's a new WYSIWYG paragraph editor available to people using Mozilla 1.3 and higher.
Added <dir>, <dd>, and <dt> to the list of tags allowed in Page Builder elements.

Custom Form -
Fixed an obscure bug where using "Copy Form" would not copy fields with a label of "above" or a button orientation of "horizontal".

Site Manager -
When adding a Link Tool, you can now use port numbers in the URL.

Here are the changes/fixes taking place in SiteMason today:

The logout routine now works properly in all cases.

Tool Groups now show alias and shared tools buttons.

Tool Groups now use pop-up windows to get a name before adding the group.

URLs have been moved below the site names in the Site Manager.

Preview is now a button instead of a linked URL.

Added JavaScript checks (and error messages) for insufficient fields when trying to post an article in a News Publisher.

Special characters are now handled better in image captions in News Publisher.

News Publisher now automatically converts email addresses and URLs in articles into links.

Fixed Export Data in Custom Form to also export the time stamp.

Fixed an error where the tool menu element in the Header and Footer tab of a Site Builder would cause an error if there were no tools in the account.

Fixed problem where clicking "Add & Edit" with a Paragraph in Page Builder would bring up a non-functioning editor in IE for Windows.

Added <big> and <small> to list of allowable tags in the Paragraph Editor.