To get the most out of your Q4 system we are now providing online training on a regular basis. Every Friday from 12:30pm to 1:00pm Chris Jones our client specialist will be conducting an interactive WebEx session to help you get the most out of your system. Each of these sessions will also be archived and made available for On-Demand viewing at your convenience. To participate in the meeting you’ll need to register at https://q4websystems.webex.com/meet/chrisj.

This week’s session will cover an overview of previewing, publishing and workflow for about 15 mins followed by questions and answers. If you are a client please sign up right now - if you are a potential client please contact our VP Sales, Catherine Crofton (catherinec@q4websystems.com) to set up a meeting tailored for you.

If you haven’t heard, Internet Explorer 7 is now available. It was soft launched last week and has a number of very useful features. If you use IE you’ll soon receive a notice to download the new version. We recommend that you do, you won’t be disappointed.We are happy to say that our entire suite of Q4 products are IE7 compatible. As well, all of our customer web sites have been seamlessly upgraded to be compatible with IE 7. However, seems like this latest release has taken some vendors by surprise. See the IR Daily post “IE7 Launches, Dump Big Vendors Now” from November 6 for more details.

Since Internet Explorer 7 is nearing a full release (currently at Release Candidate 1) we have begun investigating the impact this may have on our product. Our initial look has shown some small things we will have to deal with but nothing that will present any major problems.

We will however be continually assessing and planning our strategy around supporting the latest version of one of the most popular browsers available.

Disclosure reveals itself in complex ways. A number of users have asked about implementing their sites’ in multiple languages because their company operates in multiple countries or are based in a country that has more than on national language. Our dirty little secret is that our server has been capable of storing multiple languages all along but we hadn’t been able to provide an interface to this until now. For version 3.1 Q4 Web Systems brings multilingual site management to you.

Each language is managed in its own tab using the same admin interfaces that you are already used to. A summary tab is there to give a cross view of your language implementation.

Languages can easily be managed in a paired format or create completely independent content that is language specific:

Publishers can get a high level view of all the pages and cross reference language implimentations:

Creating language specific (or paired) branches of pages is easy as well:

After two and a half months we are ready to release version 3.0 of the Q4 Servers. Most of the observable changes will be within the administrative area itself but there have been many code improvements on public sites as well.

We have run our tests scripts and done our visual tests so it’s time to put our work out there. The migration will be completed on the weekend of the July 15th.

If you are a client and have questions please do not hesitate to contact us. If you are not a client we would be very pleased to give you a demo.

Version 3.0 includes 10 new features and over 50 code updates and improvements. Each of these features and improvements has largely come from your feedback on how the system could be improved.

Here are the 10 updates you should know about:

1. Cleaner Look and Feel:
Overall you will find that the look and feel to be more cohesive and designed with the “anti-design” of web 2.0 type applications. Our strategy is to focus on functionality and let the artistic design flow around this goal.

2. To Do list:
Customers have been asking for a simplified view of the To Do list. Now you can filter by items that below to you - instead of filtering your items out of the total list. We’ve also added quick links to common tasks to make it easy to get things done. All of the original features of the To Do list remain as is.

3. Q4 Record History:
The record history has been improved by allowing you to click on a specific version of the content which will open up your website in preview mode to that exact change. You are also now required to provide a comment when you submit something to be publish. This comment is then stored with your change. This ensures a much more detailed record of changes over time.

4. Q4 Server Security:
Many of you have requested or inquired about the level of security that can be imposed for your various administrators. It is now possible to set access permissions to any page or module for any role type. You should find that the logic is very similar to how Microsoft Windows behaves and easy to start working with. In a near future release you will be able to create protected areas from within your public website using this same feature.

5. Site Analytics
Site analytics are now available for any of your websites. In a future iteration the analytics will be directly accessible from the administrative area. If you are interested in this and have not been assigned an account please contact support@q4websystems.com to have one setup for you.

6. Friendly Urls
Q4 Server now includes friendly (plain language) urls. Transitioning to this system will make it easier for search engines to index your site for content and also provide a much more detailed view of your website analytics. As you can see from the URL below the url now reads: www.tahera.com (the domain), Operations (the top level section), Exploration, PolarProject (the content).

7. Regions and Projects/Mines Content:
Projects/mines and region pages have been moved from the Content Admin area to the Public Page List. Over time we will be creating a tighter bond between the website and the content. Creating content in this context will allow us to be more straightforward in how we train new users and open up more possibilities for how content can be reused.

8. Help
The underpinnings of a new help system have been installed. Where ever you see this icon: you can click on it to receive help regarding the content type you are currently looking at. You can also search all the current help files in the system.

9. Manage Sub Pages:
Managing sub-pages in v3.0 is a whole lot easier. You can now manage sub pages from a parent page. For example, if you need to sort or add a new child page into a section this can now be managed from the top level page. All the information that you are used to seeing is still there and ready to be used.

10. Page Templates
Some page types get created so often it would be convenient to have pre-made page structures for easy creation. In version 3.0 we now have the ability to easily create these for you very quickly. If there is a page in your site that you would like to make a template send an email to support@q4websystems.com and we’ll set it up for you.