In addition to the new Joomla Platform, the following new features have been added, with links to the Feature tracker issue.

• Add ablility to turn off the email to user when an Admin creates a user (Andrea Tarr)
• Improvements for batch processing (Michael Babker)
• Menu item parameter "Note" (Marcell van Geest)
• No "new user notification" email sent to admin (Kenny Wickstrom)
• Implementing default text per language in syndicate module (Jean-Marie Simonet)
• Implementing image option for the offline.php default page (Jean-Marie Simonet)
• Joomla! update notification button in the quickicons module (Nicholas Dionysopoulos)
• Debug Plugin Reloaded (Nikolai Plath)
• *Option to set Joomla to Site Offline (YES) during installation (fade2grey)
  
• Patch to enable change of newsfeed display direction (Mathieu Cattin)
• Add a true autoloader to the CMS (Rouven Weßling)
• Database Version Check (Mark Dexter)
• "Select a Menu Item Type" in modal box in menu item edit page (Dennis Hermatski)
• Improving SEO: New system plugin: languagecode (Jean-Marie Simonet)
• Manager for Language Overrides (Patrick Alt)
• Easier workflow by linking Menu Manager: Add Menu to Module Manager: Module Menu (Andrew Eddie, Jacques Rentzke)
• Add an option to filter the mod_whosonline by groups of the connected user (Christophe Demko)
• Add a check for native ZIP support to the Installation (Rouven Weßling)
• Add ability to support other databases starting with Microsoft SQL Server / Windows Azure (Hooduku Team)
• mod_status optimization (Kyle Ledbetter)
• Category filtering on content doesn't including sub-categories (Ofer Cohen)
• User Notes (Andrew Eddie)
• Use the images and urls fields to create simple standardized layouts (Elin Waring)
• Custom Black List in Text Filters - Ready to test - Makes it possible to overwrite default blacklist - Joomla 1.7 (Tore B. Krudtaa, Denise McLaurin)
• Captcha in the core (Jonnathan S. Lima, Rouven Weßling, Nicola Galgano)
• Finder Integration (Rob Schley, Michael Babker, Elin Waring, Chris Davenport, Omar Ramos, Viet Hoang Vu, Jean Marie Simonet, Rouven Weßling, Louis Landry, Gabriele Pongelli)