The Symphony Blog

From the Lotus Symphony 1.3 release notes:

What's New in Symphony 1.3?

Functional enhancements:

* Enabled Microsoft Office 2007 files import support.
* Significant enhancements in DataPilot in spreadsheets, including show/hide field items panel, drill down to details, DataPilot cache support, and default styles.
* Numbering enhancement in documents to improve interoperability with Microsoft Word.
* Enabled Microsoft Office and IBM Lotus SmartSuite password protection support for spreadsheets.
* Enabled network URI access and hyperlink support that allows you to create network connection hyperlinks for URI protocols including FTP, MailTo, and SMB.
* Enabled envelope support which allows you to create an envelope, set envelope properties, and set printing options.
* Enabled Widgets Catalog server support.
* Improved print performance.
* Enabled Sumproduct's ForceArray formula support in spreadsheets.
* Significant start-up performance improvement on Mac OS X.

Usability enhancements:

* In presentations, page layout is more visible by locating the Properties sidebar in the right panel.
* Provided better animation effects interoperability with Microsoft PowerPoint on font-relative effects, fade-exit effects, and multiple motion paths; and enabled the animation play at automatic page transitions.
* Provided an automatic cursor in presentation screen shows as a default option.
* Presentation pages can be deleted continuously without any prompt.
* Provided new graphic bullets and clip art.
* Provided enhanced color pallette in color picker.
* Enhancements in live text.
* Enabled support that allows you to open a file by dragging and dropping a file to the home page or the New.
* A continuous improvement in mail merge in documents.
* Default font is changed to Arial in presentations and documents.
* Enlarged the pull-down list length upper limit to 20 items to make more options visible.
* Enabled Ctrl+left Shift and Ctrl+right Shift hotkey support to switch BIDI layout.
* Enhanced toolbar and main menu usability.

Programmability enhancements:

* Provided rich Lotus Symphony document model APIs for Spreadsheets and Documents.

Online help enhancements:

* Enhanced help content for spreadsheets, common, and preferences topics.

Web site:

* Added drag-to-install function in the Plug-ins section.
* Added support for multiple downloads and enabled Atom feeds for clip art and templates in the Gallery section.
* Expanded search function for the Forum.
* Rotated announcements on the Home page.

There is also an excellent video demonstrating some of the new features.