i finished the need_for_speed branch in cvs and merged it with the main branch of antville. Here's a brief summary of what i did:

• cleaned up code and optimized performance
• logging (both access-logging and incrementing the read-counter of a story) is now done asynchronously. from now on it can take a minute for new referrers to be stored in database, same with read-counter of stories (but they should be correct now)
• it's now possible to display an existing weblog on the main frontpage of an antville-installation instead of the more or less static default frontpage. this is done by simply entering the alias of the weblog system configuration.
• added a new default story-skin called "embed" which will be used by the < story >-macro unless a different skin was chosed using the option "useskin" (see here).
• Implemented a "rescue"-mechanism to prevent stories/comments from being lost because the creator/modifier was logged out (timed out) or lost the session because of a changed ip-address: users will be redirected to the login-form as usual, but before the contents of the story/comment are saved in the session-object. After a successful login the story/comment will be created automagically.
• added a permalink for comments in their default-skins.

This version is currently only available in CVS (it's not installed here on antville.org!) Please give it a try and report any bugs or strange misbehaviour. If no serious bugs are appearing i would like to propose this version as v1.0 FC, with the final release coming within the next two weeks.

Having trouble following the story explaining how to use the CVS because you're on Windows? No problem. Here's what you do:

1. Get WinCVS. You need a version that supports the 'pserver' authentication method. At the time I'm writing this, 1.2 is the latest 'stable' release, but that one doesn't do pserver. Get the 1.3 beta or something newer.
2. Install it. If it's missing Python or TCL, ignore the warnings, you don't need that.
3. Launch it. In the preferences dialog (which may open on its own or hide in the 'Admin' menu), fill in the form in the 'General' tab: Authentication: pserver Path: /opt/cvs/apps Host address: adele.helma.org User name: anonymous
4. Save and close the preferences and choose 'Login...' from the 'Admin' menu.
5. You will be prompted for a home directory. Choose where you want to have your Antville.
6. You will be prompted for a password. Leave that empty, just click OK. If everything went well, the cvs server should now tell you that it loves you or something. 'CVS exited normally with code 0' would also be a good response.
7. Make sure that in the preferences, in the tab 'Globals', the option 'Checkout read-only' is checked.
8. Now choose 'Checkout module ...' from the 'Create' menu, enter 'antville' as module name and change the folder where you want to have the files if you changed your mind.
9. Click OK. The files are downloaded and you're done: you have the latest, newest Antville!
10. What now? Close WinCVS, open the folder you just downloaded and read the readme file you find there.