2.1. What Is New in WSS 3.0

This new version of WSS comes with a lot of new features and functionality. It is also faster, but it requires more memory than its predecessor WSS 2.0. It is still a free add-on for any Windows 2003 Server edition, and WSS in itself requires no special client access licenses. Following is a list of the most important changes compared to WSS 2.0:

• Undelete: Recover deleted list and library items, such as documents, plus complete lists and libraries. Note that undelete does not work on entire sites!

• Item-level security: Set permission on individual list and library items, such as a contact or a document. You can also set permissions for a folder in a library.

• Send-To: Send a link to a document, or send a copy of the document to another location.

• Receive e-mail: Libraries can receive SMTP messages, including their attachments.

• Content types: Create multiple document templates, each with individual metadata columns, workflows, and policies.

• RSS support: View all updates of a list or library by using a Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feed; see more about this in Chapter 7.

• Gantt support: Create Gantt charts for any type of list with start and stop dates.

• New Site templates: Use site templates for wiki and blog sites.

• Surveys: Take advantage of enhanced features, such as conditional branching and page breaks.

• People and groups: This new type of column allows you to use any user name or group as metadata.

• Two-way synchronization: Allows an Outlook 2007 user to take document library offline and to synchronize task lists, contacts, and calendar lists both ways between WSS and Outlook 2007.

• Security trimmed: WSS now hides links and objects that a user does not have at least Read permission to.

• Workflows: Any list or library can have one or more workflows associated with it.

• Master Pages: The look and feel of a WSS page is now controlled by a Master Page, which is an ASP.NET 2.0 feature.

• Tree view: Display a tree view of your site's content and also any subsite and its content.

• Breadcrumb trails: At the top of each page is a breadcrumb trail that shows the pages you visited before the current one.

There are actually even more new features in WSS 3.0, but the functionality now is very good. WSS 3.0 will satisfy the needs of many smaller installations that do not require more advanced features such as global searching, Excel services, and Business Data Catalog, which come with MOSS 2007.