A year after work the 5.1 code was branched and work started on version 5.2, Phorum 5.2 has reached alpha status. The major features for 5.2 are done. Of course, minor features may be added and code may be reworked extensively based on user feedback.

Brain Moon attributed much of Phorum’s success to Maurice Makaay who's worked to clean up the code and make it easier for module developers. Maurice has also been instrumental in the documentation project.

Users should take note of the following new features:

• Brand new template. Emerald is a more modern, full featured template. It uses many interface design recommendation used by usability professionals.
• Rewritten search engine for faster search with more options.
• New hybrid read page that is threaded and shows all messages
• Better error messages when posting to help your users know what is wrong.
• All new code for forum feeds. Both RSS 2.0 and Atom are supported.
• New announcement module that gets announcements out of the message list and into a more prominent position.

The features for administrators are as follows:

* New APIs for making modules that work with the core. (Along with full docs)
* Template core changes so that similar vars in different templates have the same name.
* More modules included with Phorum and officially supported.
* Module run time ordering. You can not control in what order you modules run.
* Sanity checks updated to help admins know if their Phorum is running properly.