• Admin Control - Increasing it as much as possible, so that administrators can do almost anything percievable without need to divulge into code.


• Module Development - Making it as easy for the community as possible, so that any decent programmer can make a highly powerful module leveraging the strengths of Core with utmost ease.

• Workspace windows model
  Desktop environment has always been faster than web environment due to many reasons. One of the important reasons is the way desktop environment handles multiple windows - Taskbar, Easy window switching, Cascase windows etc. Couple it with multiple workspaces model of common Linux Desktops like KDE, Gnome etc.
  Now this is what we have offered in the Admin area of new .Net CMS. This effectively means reduction by atleast 80% of time spent in navigation from one page to another, then going back etc. Ex: Page 1 (say "List Articles") to Page 2 (say "Import Articles") - When these 2 links are opened, they get stacked in a Taskbar at bottom of your Workspace. Then you can easily switch between them just like on your desktop. Cascade windows, Tile windows, Save workspace views, Load a workspace view make this experience all the more powerful and efficient.
  
  
• Multiple Portal Instances
  Ever felt like having two different versions of website with different strucures, designs etc but using a common installation and database? Well, now you can have that. A "Portal installation" supports running multiple "Portal Instances" which can be configured from admin area with ease.
  So now you can have entirely different views of the website home for users of say Group 1 and Group 2, or any parameter of your choice and need.
  Even the admin area and user area are by default implemented as 2 different portals, each with its own template.
  


• Templates (Themes)
  Just like before you can have different templates. But this is much more powerful than the old ASP system. ow you can select a different template per Portal Instance, or even per Page. To understand this better, read ahead.
  


• Boxx Model
  Well, this is the heart of the new .Net portal. In simplest form, it eliminates the technical gap between a "Page" and "Content section on a page". Boxx model enables everything to be seen as a "Content section" and nothing else. A "Content section" is known as a boxx.
  Examples can be: List articles boxx, Add article boxx, Top articles boxx, Latest articles boxx, News boxx, Bookmark nes/article boxx, Search tags boxx etc.
  Now, a page (the entity that we open by giving a URL in address bar) is not a page in the traditional sense. It is now essentially a collection of settings that you define from administrative area, deciding that what all boxx are to be shown on a specific URL you want and in what order and what design structure (templates).
  


• Boxx Model - Example (Designing Home Page)
  Say, if you want to create a home page for a Portal Instance named "Team-X", you will go about it as follow:
  
  
  
  • Admin area: Create a new URL entry in database using a simple form, say "Home.aspx"
    
    
  • Admin area: Select all the boxx you want to show there - Welcome, Top news, Latest articles, Latest dowloads, Top images slideshow, Statistics
    
  
  
  • Admin area: Choose a template structure which defines how the boxx selected above will be organized.
    
  
  
  • Admin area: Use a core module named "Navigation", where the link for this URL/Page will be displayed in user area. And yes, this setting is also configurable per "Portal Instance" per "Template".
    
  
  
  • User area: Open link - http://[domainname]/Team-X/home.aspx and enjoy!! Yes, you do NOT need to create a file named home.aspx and upload via FTP and all that. A URL/Page is now essentially just a setting in database managed from admin area.
    I'll leave it now onto your imagination to think what all you can do with the power of this model!!
    
  
  
• Boxx Model - Some more flexibilites
  
  
  
  • A boxx can be displayed within another boxx. For example, a generic Tags boxx can be displayed within Articles boxx, or a News boxx or anything that you want.
    
  
  
  • A boxx can have multiple layouts, each configured to be displayed on different URL as per your requirement, obviously again conrolled from Admin area.
    
  
  
  • A boxx can work standalone or as a child or parent of any other boxx based on your business requirements.
    
    
• Versioning
  Versioning is implemented as a core feature of .Net CMS. While updating data of any boxx in admin area - articles, news, page or just anything - you can choose to have versioning enabled.
  This means that any change will overwrite old data only after archiving it for later rerieval or restore.
  


• Module to be shipped with first release
  Though we are planning many more modules than the ones mentioned here, here is a brief list of definitely-included modules in upcoming release:
  
  
  
  • Member boxx (Register, Logon, Control Panel, Auto logout, Session timeout reminders etc).
    
  
  
  • Messaging Centre (Inbox)
    
  
  
  • Ticket Support System
    
  
  
  • Page Manageemnt
    
  
  
  • Articles Management
    
  
  
  • News Management
    
  
  
  • Assets Management (Images, Downloads etc)
    
  
  
  • Discussion Forums
    
  
  
  • Tags Management
    
  
  
  • Centralized Search
    
  
  
  • Newsletter
    


• Technical jargon
  Though I wanted to keep this document as non-technical as possible, its tough to finish off without mentioning some technical jargon about extreme stuff we have done in. So, here goes a qick brief list, which can be ignored at will (though this is still a pretty non-technical list):
  
  
  
  • Event Subscription/Publication - For interboxx communication
    
  
  
  • Execution Plans - For being able to see every data activity as a single transaction and give a DataAccess API to boxx developers which is at least as good as .Net LINQ.
    
  
  
  • Diagnostics - Inbuilt diagnostic tools and APIs to track performance at developer as well as user level.
    
  
  
  • Ezboxx Anthem - Highly advanced and very easy to use implmentation of Ajax.
    
  
  
  • Configuration Tools - For easy access to config data while developing boxx.
    
  
  
  • Consumable services - For functionalities ranging from upload to data verification.
    
  
  

thats great news on megabbs... I'll make sure that once theres a beta of the .net megabbs out we'll create a module to allow it to be used in the portal. but we'll also be implementing our own forums, so we won't be needing to wait on matt to release. (we'll have migrations scripts to upgrade from megabbs asp to the ezboxx .net forums

Looking forward to it, looking very nice.. cant wait to start writing mods with the api..

 -Norman