I am not on the core team so nothing I say is official or should be relied upon for important business decisions...

But my understanding is that 5.5. is in alpha or beta now, and I'd guess that it should be released between now and the end of the year. I suppose it could be later than that but I'd be surprised (and I'd certainly be *very* surprised if it took longer than the first few weeks of January).

Almost all of the changes in 5.5. revolve around the dashboard -- there's not too much that's different in terms of creating your theme and adding content to the site. So you don't have to worry about learning how to build a site now and then throwing all that knowledge away when 5.5. comes out. That being said, upgrades always introduce unintended bugs, so if you need to launch this site before the end of the year, it's probably best to build it with 5.4.2.x and not worry about 5.5 (maybe you can upgrade it after the site has launched, with the understanding that you'll need to spend a little time getting the kinks out).

Just one person's opinion, though -- if your risk tolerance is low than stick with the current release version (5.4.2.something).

I'm not on the core team either, but I know that it is definitely in BETA right now.

Concrete has a live web show that happens every Friday. They recently gave a live demo of 5.5, and you can check it out at the following link:

http://www.concrete5.org/about/blog/totally-random-web-show/totally...

I recommend following this live show, as they have been talking about 5.5 every week and answering questions.

yeah it's a difficult decision. it was the vid that growthcurve mentioned that initially gave me the hesitation regarding the switch. in it they talk of a late november release, so it seems pointless to dedicate time to learning redundant technology now. having said that i want to move forward to c5 and avoid developing new web sites with the old system in the meantime... but i may have to.

In last weeks totally random I think the plan was to wait 'till January before releasing 5.5 because they didn't want the usual new version niggles through the holiday season.

Personally I am developing with the current version, but not worrying too much about making dashboard stuff look perfect because that is what will be changing significantly.

ok, i didn't realise that they had continued to address the live date in the later broadcasts. if it's jan then that it's definitely out as we need to develop sites with a custom dashboard before then. thanks for the help.