As planned, CS 2008 will be released with full group functionality, as you can already see with the beta. However here is a brief outline of how they work and what you can expect.
Basically CS grouping creates a small community in a community, so it's like a tiny CS in side your larger CS :-D
Each Group has a large amount of available features, including a members list page, blog, forum, RSS, ect.... Here's a shot of what a group page looks like from communityserver.org, sorry it's a bit blurry.
From this you can see there is an aggregate page, and on the bottom left there is a Request Membership box, you can configure your group to work this way by setting it to public with Open Membership, public with closed membership, or completely private. The group admin also has extensive permissions to configure the group as he sees fit, he can configure the group url, theming, a group Avatar, enable post ratings, disable and enable the blog, forum, comments, trackbacks, media gallery, and much more!
Another Shot of Admin Permissions:
Of course the normal permissions with groups are available, such as setting who can create a group based on user role, who can join a group based on group privacy, and then there are the two default themes with the groups, the standard CS Blue, and Lean and Green!
Although CS 08' is still in beta, you'll find group functionality quite functional, but there is still many improvements to come until the final release. I hope you find the new CS groups as interesting and exciting as I do!
A rather short post, but more posts to come!
Thanks,
Ryan
