Hannon Hill Corporation, has released Cascade Server 7.0 for beta testing. The newest version of its CMS software introduces several major new features, including a Twitter feed module, deep site copy, inline regions, and an improved asset chooser. The introduction of the Twitter module represents a new strategic initiative by the company to offer more components that end users can easily set up to generate dynamic content for their websites that would normally require more technical expertise.
The Twitter feed block is the first of many modules that Hannon Hill plans to offer in future versions of Cascade Server. It allows end users to insert a feed of Twitter comments into any region of a page on their website, and it can be customized to pull in any combination of tweets and mentions for a specific account or use a general search query. Hannon Hill’s module strategy was created to provide more out-of-the-box functionality to end users for organizations with limited IT resources, while still allowing full customization of site features and maximum flexibility.
Deep site copy allows users to copy all of the content of entire sites, including navigation and administration assets. Links contained within assets of a site will be re-aligned in the site copy to point to the corresponding assets within the copied site. These and other improvements to the existing site copy functionality will make it easier for customers to create new sites from existing template sites.
“Deep Site Copy is going to be a game changer for templating out entire Sites,” said Charlie Holder, Sales Engineer for Cascade Server. “Bringing new departments and organizations into Cascade will be as simple as starting the copy routine.”
Other noteworthy features include inline regions and an improved asset chooser. Inline regions allow non-technical users to apply blocks to similar pages from the page edit screen. The improved asset chooser includes a new dropdown menu with historical items and search results and appears as an inline overlay rather than a pop-up window.
Hannon Hill CEO, Kat Liendgens commented, “We always strive to ensure that in every release of Cascade Server, there's something for everybody, including administrators, developers, and end users. Cascade Server 7 is chock-full of great features, but it is also a true testament to our philosophy to always put our customers first and to listen to their ideas and suggestions.”
Hannon Hill’s customers have been notified of the beta release and invited to test the new features in a sandbox environment or by downloading and installing it on a test server. Users who have previously tested a Cascade beta release can use their existing credentials again, and other customers can request access to test Cascade Server 7.0 Beta. For more information, please see the Cascade Server 7.0 Release Notes or visit HannonHill.com.