Freebase.com gets a major facelift with this release. The new Freebase logo sits atop a new design for the entire site. We hope you like the lighter layout that emphasizes the content of the pages over the navigational gears and knobs. But that’s just for starters…

Highlights of Note

• Create a base - bases are collections of views and types (like mini-Freebases about a particular subject) created and curated by a community of users. Bases are functionally very similar to user domains with a couple of important differences:
• Bases are in a shared namespace – instead of being associated with a particular user the key for a base exists in the /base namespace. (Administrative rights are largely unchanged – you can maintain control or share admin rights with other users)
• You can claim a hostname for a base – the key you select for the base is also the hostname, so you can access a base with a nifty short URL like tallships.freebase.com
• New base homepage
• Featured views – the new design emphasizes the views created for a base with prominent visuals and hooks into those views selected as featured view by the base administrator. (Note: views have been created automatically for all existing types and the first six found in each of the old domains have been marked as featured by default – you can easily edit which views appear from the ‘all views’ page)
• News feed of recent activity – this feed lets you keep abreast of edits within a base and of new users joining
• Schema links directly into schema editor – quick access directly into the schema is available via the schema tab
• Search a base or all of Freebase from the header – the search box in the header will default to searching in the context of the current base but also allows you to search all of Freebase
• New homepages – new layouts for the Freebase homepage as well as the data and developer pages (now called explore and make)
• Freebase bug database – we’ve also opened up the Freebase bug database for public access. Now you can review the details for any Freebase.com client release. For instance, here’s the list of newly fixed items we worked on for this release.

For more on how to build a base see the help topic, Build a base.

Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts with more information about new features.

Detailed list of fixes for A4.00 visible at bugs.freebase.com