We are sorry for that the release has been delayed for such a long time, but yes, the official release of RC4 is coming very near and here we would like to introduce another new feature that has been recently added:
Enhanced theme/template system (Template Manager)Virtually all HTML tags within PHP files have been converted to use
Smarty template files. We have already finished converting the News, Links, Downloads,
FAQ, Headlines, Partners, and Forums modules, and all blocks within each of
the modules.
Theme packages are installed/uninstalled through the web interface, just
like we have now for the modules. Only the Smarty enabled themes will use
this interface, and non Smarty version themes will work the same as before
without installing or uninstalling. The installation will store all
template files that a theme has (including module/block template files if any)
into the database, and administrator can edit the template/css files from within
the template administration section (template manager). Of course, the files under themes/ directory can still be
edited directly and import the changes to the database.
Currently, the installation will only import html and css template files.
However in the future, we plan to do the same for image files for each
theme, so that any image files within modules can be replaced with theme
specific image files and that the files can be managed through the image
manager
we have introduced and announced earlier.
Module developers and theme designers are advised to create their
modules/themes utilizing the Smarty template system, to take full advantage
of all the powerful features we have added like the theme manager described
above. However, themes/modules using the old method would still work fine
(may need little modification in theme.php though), so you may of course
continue on developing in the same way if you wish to.