As an eZ Publish 4.4 user, you will benefit from numerous exciting new features in this new version, including:

• A brand-new, native Online Image editor that provides rich online image edition features. The Online Image editor improves the user experience of editors and art directors, reduces cost, and saves time and money.
• Entirely re-vamped in eZ Publish 4.3, the administration user interface has been refined and improved for this version, making the eZ Publish administration interface one of the only Content Management tools to effectively combine extremely powerful features with top-level usability and simplicity.
• An integrated access to the eZ Service Portal from within the eZ Publish administration interface simplifies access to support, maintenance, and monitoring services provided with the eZ Publish Enterprise subscription.
• An Archiving system leverages the eZ Find search engine to archive high-volume content in a smart and efficient way.
• Easier publishing of video content to any platform. A native HTML5 video datatype handles Flash and HTML5 h264 video playback in a seamless manner.

eZ Systems is also introducing a major new components for the eZ Publish 4.4 platform, available as developer previews:

• The eZ Publish API developer preview targets Mobile Application development among other uses. The API is the future of eZ Publish application development. ( iPhone and iPad application makers take note ! ) Consisting of robustly designed server and remote APIs, the developer preview makes accessing all the great eZ Publish features easy. On the client-side, e.g. the iPhone and iPad SDK, the rest-based eZ Publish remote API can be seamlessly integrated.

Welcome the eZ Online Image editor, because Web Content is more than text !

At eZ, we know content is not only text, but also images, video, audio, interactive content and digital assets ! That’s one of the many things that separates eZ from the rest of the Web Content Management solutions that focus on HTML editing.
With that in mind, we have furnished the eZ Publish 4.4 Enterprise release with a tool that gives editorial staff the power to edit images directly in eZ Publish. With Online Image Edit you can apply filters to all or portions of the image, add a watermark to the image, or crop and resize the image--all with the comfort of an elegant ajax-based user interface. Publishing images made easy !

The new administration interface, phase 2 !

eZ Publish 4.3 established the basis for the new eZ Publish administration interface--the foundation for improved user experience in future versions. In eZ Publish 4.4, a number of additional features and refinements on the administration interface make users’ lives even easier !
Browsing and navigating the content repository has never been so simple. An AJAX sub-item navigation panel means less clicks and quicker response time when you are navigating through a large number of assets.

Other refinements have improved management of tabbed user preferences, access to content previews, and usability.

Integrated access to Service Portal

To create the most engaging user experience possible, we focused on simplifying the lives of eZ Publish administrators. In previous versions of eZ Publish, administrators with eZ Publish Enterprise subscriptions had to juggle an additional login and password for yet another application in order to access the Service Portal and get the benefits of eZ Publish maintenance, support and monitoring.
In eZ Publish 4.4, eZ Publish Enterprise subscribers simply access their Service Portal from within eZ Publish’s administration interface via the Service Portal tab. A secure, single sign-on system between eZ Publish and the eZ Service Portal infrastructure means less clicks, less information to memorize, and more time to focus on tasks that really matter. Frequent users of the eZ Publish Enterprise subscription will love this new feature !

eZ Publish API developer preview: next-generation development for Mobile App and other multi-channel content experiences

In conjunction with the release of eZ Publish 4.4, eZ will put the Developer Preview of the eZ Publish API into the hands of the community, offering a glimpse into the future or eZ Publish development. Developers from the community will have access, and are welcome to participate in the shaping of the final APIs. The Developer preview promises to make the release of eZ Publish 4.4 a revolutionary moment in the on-going evolution eZ Publish.
The remote API gives you all the power of eZ Publish functionalities, in a lean and elegant solution for remote applications such as the iPhone, iPad, other phone. mobile media, or online TV devices. The remote API is built on a REST-like architecture, the now-established standard for remote communications between applications over the net. It will be easy to embed in a variety of SDK. including the iPhone SDK.
The API improves on the server-side as well, with a far more cleaner and simpler server-side API, which is still based on PHP, but which redefines and simplifies the way developers implement their solutions. eZ Publish 4.4 will take development to new heights of reliability and sustainability.

HTML5 Video Support, autocomplete and integrated Captcha has arived as well !

The list of improvements included in this release goes on, but we would like to touch on a few of the more exciting developments here:

• The video datatype now supports native HTML5 playback, enabling the direct publishing and playback of video content on non-Flash friendly devices that have HTML5 support. such as the iPhone and iPads !
• Searching with eZ Find, end users will be guided now with autocomplete search field helping them in their search !
• The new redesigned User Session Handler achieves a significantly higher performance on high-traffic sites--a must-have feature for editors of large audience web sites.
• The user generated content module, eZ Comment, now includes a native reCaptcha integration.
• The XML Export extension handles any XML transformation on ezxml-based rich text content, simplifying publishing towards targets such as indesign, indesign server, or any other print publishing system.

eZ Publish 4.4 is the highest-quality platform in the history of eZ Publish. The new platform includes numerous bug fixes, improved stability and performance, and a refined user experience. More than ever, eZ Publish out-strips other Open Source offerings, and for stability, solidity and quality matches or surpasses the traditional proprietary software solutions !