Podcasting? Yep, we got that.

The number seven just got a whole lot luckier if you ask me. Beta 7 was just released (download it now), and just when I thought no new exciting features would be added to MT4 because honestly, we really are trying to release this sucker, our developers start pulling rabbits out of their hats...

Following a lively discussion on ProNet, Brad and Antoine teamed up to deliver to Movable Type for the first time: fully integrated, out-of-the-box podcasting support. Yep, no plugin required. Here is a summary of the features they added to support podcasting:

• Introduced several new template tags which can be used in RSS and Atom feeds, as well as on the published blog side to reference assets that have been uploaded into a post, thereby allowing a user to:
• Upload an mp3 via the posting interface, and have that mp3 encoded as an enclosure in an Atom or RSS feed.
• Wrap an audio/video player around uploaded assets or files in the blog's published HTML.
• Introduced several new file types including "Audio" and "Video." This will allow users from within the application to filter by media or file types to see "All Audio Files" or "All Video Files".
• No feature in Movable Type would be complete without the ability to aggregate media assets from across multiple blogs. So yeah, you can do that too.

But wait, that's not all. If you download Beta 7 now, not only will you get podcasting support, but we will also throw in over twenty eight new professionally designed themes that you can apply to your blog!

Oh no, we're not done yet. Here are even more features in Lucky Beta #7 that we think some of you just might raise an eyebrow about:

• Over 28 new themes professionally designed and illustrated. Select from minimalist themes, cityscapes or landscapes. Select a theme and go. No publishing necessary. Changes are instant.
  
• Select the layout for your blog with no need to edit or install new templates. Just select from a variety of one, two and three columns layouts and go.
• Use the revamped QuickPost feature to quickly create a post on your blog from anywhere on the Internet. Visiting a site you like? Click the QuickPost bookmark you added to your browser's toolbar and be blogging in seconds. (Oh yeah, and QuickPost also works for pages!)
  
• Use a variety of new widgets for your blog including: a tag cloud, recently uploaded photos and more.
• When publishing your blog a new progress indicator will show you the percentage complete of the entire process and how many pages remain at any given time.
  
• Share an entry you created with a friend by emailing people in your Movable Type Address Book a summary and/or excerpt of your post.

Of course, none of this counts the usually impressive list of issues we fix each release, not to mention the shrinking list of known issues. If you have been waiting for a beta to try out for the first time, well, this is the one for you! Download it now.