i decided to merge my additions and modifications in the helmaville branch with the main branch. here's a short list of changes i implemented so far:

1. storylist macro
2. custom clipping in renderTextPreview
3. the title property of stories and comments is kept along with its corresponding value in the xml content
4. new doctype / document header in page.skin for xhtml conformance
5. created a new createtime_macro() function in the hopobject prototype and removed it from at least four specific prototypes.
6. shortcuts (improved but still experimental)

moreover, i am currently going through this list and strike out feature by feature (as far as i feel able to implement it):

1. changed explicit and verbose date format parameter to "short" in comment skins
2. default title in new comment ("Re: previous title"; experimental)
3. extended the topic macro to support generation of topic icons, links or simple plain output of the topic's name

i hope i did not forget anything... (and that everything works and nothing else is broken)