With DNN 5 RC2 coming out last week the general public finally has the ability to get hands on with the latest version of Dotnetnuke.  I downloaded and istalled it this weekend for my first hands on experience with it.

Here is a quick list of items I noted while taking  quick run through it.

• Install and Setup went without a hitch and was painless.  I did notice a few changes in the wizard, but nothing major.
• We now have the ability to Deny roles and users when assigning permissions.  This is something that I have written into a number of modules on my own over the years.
• Modules support Web Slices in IE8
• Modules that were once only available to people with Administrator access are now available to to be dropped on pages.   One of these modules is called "Tabs" which I think should really be titled pages.
• Support for Skin Widgets.  I saw some Skin Widget stuff at OpenForce08.  Very cool!  Basically, they allow you better control over the skin for formatting and SEO type work.
• The Module Install, Skin Installer and Authentication Provider installer have been all placed in one nice area called, "Extensions".
• The Icon set has been updated and looks much newer.
• The ability to setup notifications so DNN will let you know about Updates to your site features.
• You can enable/disable the "Remember Me" option when logging in.
• Seemed must faster in my development enviroment

I am looking forward to digging in deeper but that is what I saw just by spending a few minutes with it on Sunday.