R173 Release: February 28th 2011

Question

We are announcing a new Business Catalyst release, scheduled to go live on Tuesday, February 28th.
The  R173  release comes with an updated DNS infrastructure (hardware and software) for better performance and reliability, updated web form interface for improved usability and several bug fixes.
Updated DNS Infrastructure
With this release we are going to replace the existing DNS infrastructure with a completely new solution (hardware and software) that aims to fix many of the DNS problems you've found while using Business Catalyst, greatly increase performance when resolving domains and support higher loads for new site creation.
For a smoother migration path, the new solution will be switched on a day after the release, on March 1st.
Updated Web Forms
We have updated the Edit Web Form user interface to simplify the discovery and usability for web form settings. Starting with R174, we've added a more visible Edit Properties button and updated the Web Form Properties dialog:
Related to web forms, the Reports > Web Form Usage menu entry in Admin Console will be shown only if the user has View Reports permission and at least a form is created on the site.
Issues fixed  by R173 release
Issue 3106414 - Fixed a bug preventing users to update Credit Card details for a recurrent payment created with SagePay payment gateway
Issue 3107053 - The Secure Zone Report Summary window does not log the login event
Issue 3109864 - Updated the message displayed when accessing Admin -> Manage Domains user interface for a trial site
Issue 3110882 - Fixed a bug causing passwords to be incorrectly updated with '******' when  site customer are updating their details using the Update Customer form
Issue 2930622 - Fixed a bug generating a JavaScript error when opening web form builder
Issue 2930642 - Fixed a bug causing special characters in web forms drop down lists to break the new web form builder
system_visitorDeviceClass  and visitor.device will  return the  detected device even if multiscreen templates are disabled
Improved delivery rate for weekly system reports
Known issues
Site Settings -> Site Map menu entry in Admin Console is displayed to all users having Edit pages permission and cannot be hidden. For the next few months, users who don't need Sitemap should ignore this menu entry.
Business Catalyst V3 beta updates
Added Copy Campaign button in the Email Campaign wizard on Stats and Preview and Send screens.
Added the Export report button in  Secure zone usage report screen
Added a confirmation message after a  successful customer deletion
Fixed a bug causing the Download Import Template button within  Web App to open a blank page
Added a confirmation message  after successfully deleting multiple cases/orders
Fixed a bug causing an incorrect CSS style usage on  V3 after page reload when using Internet Explorer 8
Added a Preview button in edit announcement screen
Updated Site Settings>Billing Settings user interface to add 3 missing functionalities: Upgrade Site Plan, Upgrade Credit Card and Cancel Site
Fixed a bug on Internet Explorer 9 preventing users from editing web app settings
Fixed a bug on Chrome causing the instant search results to be displayed over the search box in CRM>Search user interface
Fixed a bug causing Preview page to open the Admin V3 user interface instead of the site page
Fixed a bug preventing users from accessing Module Manager in Admin V3
Fixed a bug on Internet Explorer causing a redirect to an empty frame instead of a redirect to Web Form Detail page after closing any popup from Site manager -> Web Forms interface
Update Edit Page screen to move Page Name field in the top and have the URL and Page Title fields auto-completed based on Page Name value
Heads-up: upcoming changes in the next release
We'd like to give you a heads-up with upcoming changes in the following release, without setting anything in stone though.
User Interface V3 will become default for new users
Starting with our next release (March 2012), all new users will have access by default to the Business Catalyst V3 user interface, but will be able to switch to the current user interface. The change will affect all user types (Partners and Customers) and all sites (existing and new).
New names and module tags for Announcements, Literature and Bookings
To improve consistency across the new Admin, the Announcements, Literature and Bookings modules, their corresponding tags and user interfaces will be renamed. Existing  tags and modules will continue to work as today, but users will no longer be able to insert them through module manager going forward. For each modules, the following name changes will occur:
Announcements will become  News and the following tags and modules will be replaced:
{module_announcement} will become {module_news}
{tag_announcementurl_value} will be replaced by {tag_newsurl_value}
{tag_announcementid} will be replaced by {tag_newsid}
{tag_eventfromdate} will become {tag_newsfromdate}
{tag_eventtodate} will become {tag_newstodate}
Bookings will become Events and the following tags and modules will be replaced:
{module_booking} will become {module_events}
{tag_bookingday} will become {tag_eventday}
{tag_bookingmonth} will become {tag_eventmonth}
{tag_bookingyear} will become {tag_eventyear}
Literature will become Media Downloads and the following module will be replaced: {module_literature} will become {module_mediadownloads}
Updated user management interfaces
To simplify the user  and email accounts management workflows, we're going to update their corresponding user interfaces in the next releases. Going forward, we will separate the admin user accounts  from email accounts management and start using an invitation workflow for user and email accounts creation.
Besides the change of workflow itself, this update completely changes the way we are thinking about the platform and represents the first step into the Business Catalyst future. The user and email accounts user interfaces rely on REST APIs and backbone.js to completely separate the UI from the application login and provide more development flexibility and increased performance. Going forward, every interface we'll touch will be built on this infrastructure and will allow us to publish APIs which partners can use to extend or tweak the platform.
Note: by separating email and admin accounts user interfaces, you will no longer be able to create users that don't have access to admin and email.  Existing user accounts that don’t have email and admin access will continue to live on the system, but they will not be visible or editable in the new interfaces. We recommend you to use the current user interface to transition these accounts into  either email or admin accounts.
SEO options will be enabled out-of-the-box
Site Settings -> SEO menu entry in Admin Console will be removed. The options available now are:
SEO friendly URLs for eCommerce, Announcements, Web Apps -- these will be enabled for all sites by default and cannot be turned off
Enable partial URL matching for SEO friendly URLs -- this option will be deprecated. Existing sites will keep the current setting but able to switch it off using a special interface
Enable sitemap.xml for search engines -- this will remain as is for existing sites, and always  enabled for new sites
Note that trial sites will not be indexed by search engines. Should you want to disable search engine indexing after upgrade, please use a custom robots.txt file or upload an empty sitemap.xml.
If you'd like to use a custom sitemap.xml file, simply upload it to your site. If this file exists, it will be served instead of the BC-generated sitemap.xml.
Related to SEO, Enhanced 301 Redirects is being delayed for a few months.
Dropping support for Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 4 or below
Starting March 20th, we will discontinue support for Internet Explorer 7 or lower and Firefox 4 or below. In order to continue using Business Catalyst Admin user interface without  problems, you and your clients need to upgrade to a more recent browser:
Download Internet Explorer
Download Safari
Download Chrome
Download Firefox
Thank you,
Cristinel Anastasoaie
Adobe Business Catalyst Product Manager

Answer 1

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