Drupal 5.0 beta was released on 2006-10-31. Though it comes with a large list of new features as of this writing there is no official press release. But you can see the changes made here in the changelog. Somethings just cannot be described they have to be experienced. Like the new installation system which may put Drupal up a few notches against other CMS's like Joomla, Mambo and Typo3.

If you are a newcomer to Drupal then the following may not mean much to you. So we encourage you to try the demo version to get a better picture.

Drupal 5.0 beta (development version)

1. completely retooled the administration page
• /admin now contains an administration page which may be themed
• reorganised administration menu items by task and by module
• added a status report page with detailed PHP/MySQL information
2. added web-based installer which can:
• check installation requirements
• automatically generate the database configuration file
• install pre-made 'install profiles' or distributions
• import the database structure with automatic table prefixing
• be localized
3. added new default Garland theme
4. added color module to change some themes' color schemes
5. included the jQuery JavaScript library 1.0.2 and converted all core JavaScript to use it
6. introduced the ability to alter mail sent from system
7. module system:
   • added .info files for module meta-data
   • added support for module dependencies
   • improved module installation screen
   • moved core modules to their own directories
   • added support for module uninstalling
8. added support for different cache backends
9. added support for a generic "sites/all" directory.
10. usability:
    • added support for auto-complete forms (AJAX) to user profiles.
    • made it possible to instantly assign roles to newly created user accounts.
    • improved configurability of the contact forms.
    • reorganized the settings pages.
    • made it easy to investigate popular search terms
11. integrated urlfilter.module in filter.module
12. block system:
    • extended the block visibility settings with a role specific settings.
    • made it possible to customize all block titles

    .

13. poll module:
    • optionally allow people to inspect all votes.
    • optionally allow people to cancel their vote.
14. distributed authentication:
    • added default server option.
15. added default robots.txt to control crawlers.
16. database API:
    • added db_table_exists().
17. blogapi module:
    • 'blogapi new' and 'blogapi edit' nodeapi operations.
18. user module:
    • added hook_profile_alter().
    • e-mail verification is made optional.
    • added mass editing and filtering on admin/user/user.
19. PHP Template engine:
    • add the ability to look for a series of suggested templates.
    • look for page templates based upon the path.
    • look for block templates based upon the region, module, and delta.
20. content system:
    • made it easier for node access modules to work well with each other.
    • added configurable content types.
    • changed node rendering to work with structured arrays.
21. performance:
    • improved session handling: reduces database overhead.
    • improved access checking: reduces database overhead.
    • made it possible to do memcached based session management.
    • omit sidebars when serving a '404
    • Page not found': saves CPU cycles and bandwidth.
    • added an 'aggressive' caching policy.
22. removed the archive module.
23. upgrade system:
    • created space for update branches.
24. forms API:
    • made it possible to programmatically submit forms.
    • improved api for multistep forms.
25. theme system:
    • split up and removed drupal.css.
    • added nested lists generation.
    • added a self-clearing block class.

Happy Publishing!

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