A new version of the blogging application Serendipity is now at the beta stage, Serendipity 1.2 Beta 1.  The most significant changes in this new version of Serendipity is the authentication and session scheme for easier plug-in interaction.  Also support for theming/template authoring has been improved using Smartyfield.

The following is a list of some of the new enhancements according to the Serendipity 1.2-beta1 announcement since Serendipity 1.1:

• Templates for Backend (Entry Editor, Master Template) via Smarty
• New session/login system
• Improved database support for SQLite3 and PDO::Postgresql
  
• IPv6 support
• Better HTTP headers to support Caching
• Parent category and child category improvements
• Bugfix: RSS full feed for "let user decide" now properly works
• Bugfix: Saving/sending trackbacks and tracking exit-links works in circumstances involving cached entries
• Bugfix: Place possible dangerous user preference options to group management to prevent unwanted configuration changes

You can download the latest version on www.s9y.org.