I’m sure you have heard about 1.5, but let me say what it is just in case you haven’t. 1.5 is the next major release of Freelancer Panel. It is actually the only major upgrade yet. It will feature some design tweaks, and many new features, and a complete recoding of two aspects.
The Name
Why doesn’t 1.1.0 exist? The simple answer is that this is a major upgrade, and I wanted to show it through the version. This is not just an average upgrade. 1.6 will (most) likely exist, I don’t plan on making major upgrades too often.
The Features
Unfortunately, someone lately has been stealing my work. I’m all for competition, I love it. I think it makes products better, and makes people work harder, allthewhile making the consumer’s experience better. But just copying off of someone else is very wrong. I have only seen previews, so I am hoping they finally see that stealing is wrong. To get back to the heading, it’s still too early to release the features in fear of them being stolen yet again. Sorry guys. 
The Status of the Beta
All of the coding features have finally been completed for the alpha. The designer still has a few things left to do. I also need to upgrade the installer to support the new SQL changes (about 60 in all). I will do that sometime this week. I am hoping for a beta release in the oncoming weekend. But the designer’s work is out of my hands, I’ll do my best to try and have him get it done by then.
Beta Testers
Beta testers really help make the product much better! The original beta team was fantastic. They found many bugs before the stable version was released. In over 6 months, only 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 was released. That’s very good! I would love to have existing clients join the beta team.
Beta testing is free of course. There is generally no compensation either. However, you really do make the product that much better for yourself, and for others. It is also a good way to get your name listed on the ACP, if I feel you’ve made quite a contribution to the software.
Beta testing is basically using non-stable software. You would act like it’s a production environment (not suggested to actually run it in one), and try to break the software. If you find a bug, you report it to be fixed before everyone else gets their hands on it. Feature requests, security issues, and all the like is also welcomed and encouraged.
As I already said, 1.5 alpha is pretty much finished. There is very little time left for feature requests left! Minor features will be included in 1.5.x, while major features will be included in 1.6.0, which is a long way’s off. So please join the beta team and request features!
