PivotX 2.0: Beta 12

The latest release of PivotX 2.0 is beta 12. This version is really pretty solid for a beta release, so we encourage all current users to upgrade to this version. If you're not up to speed on the cool things PivotX can do, please check out the page with the feature overview (with videos), skip directly to the screenshots, or you can read the forum annoncement for beta 12.

There's a lot of new stuff in this release, compared to previous beta releases. We've also fixed a lot of bugs, so with this version we're getting much closer to PivotX 2.0 final. In fact, this will be the last beta release before we move on to the Release Candidate(s). From now on we'll be focusing purely on bug-fixes, writing extensive documentation, and we'll be rolling out a new site where you'll be able to download and share Themes and Extensions for PivotX.

Some of the changes / improvements in this release:

• We've made a lot of big and small changes to the User Interface; It is better looking and more consistent throughout.
• Added a scheduler to regularly clean the cache files and check for moblog entries.
• Previewing entries and pages is now only possible for logged in users.
• Moblogging ported to PivotX - much improved.
• Tightening of when Mysql functions are allowed.
• Added: Allow users to upload/select an image to go with their profile.
• Added some 'shortcuts' to the dashboard.
• Added two new (shorter) variants of mod_rewrite to choose from.
• Major improvements to the registered visitor code.
• Added 'weblog' parameters to several tags, to allow the templates to override the default weblog. 
• Some modifications to make sure that PivotX plays well with usability guidelines. Most notably: the border setting for [[popup]] and [[image]] has been deprecated. Use CSS instead.
• Updated swfupload to version 2.2.0 beta, modified the PivotX implementation: Uploaders working again in Flash 10!

As was mentioned above, we're still working on the new documentation. It's going to be really comprehensive, but for now there are a few pages that might be of interest.

• Upgrading from Pivot 1.x
• Importing from Wordpress
• Some notes on the Templates and Template Tags.
• And finally, there's the short installation instructions below.

If you encounter any issues, please tell us about them in the Forum.

Note: Please be aware that this is still a beta release of
PivotX 2.0. This means there will be bugs, but they are getting fewer and further between all the time.

This release comes in two flavours.

• PivotX 2.0 beta_12d.zip
• PivotX 2.0 beta_12d.tgz

Some of you might be wondering why there are no upgrade packages. Well, that is because you should not use this release to upgrade your current Pivot. That said, the package contains a file 'convertentries2sql.php', which you can use to convert your old entries to MySQL.

If you're upgrading from a previous beta, just follow the instuctions below. Because of the way we store things, there is no chance of overwriting anything. Still, it never hurts to make a backup first.

Installation Instructions

There are two ways to set up the beta. A 'traditional' way, where you download the zip file, extract and upload to your webspace, or an easier one for those of you who have shell access to your webspace.

Regardless of what method you choose, you should first check if you have access to a MySQL database. And if you do, take note of the username, password, database name and database host. If you don't have MySQL you can use 'Flat Files'.

Method 1: Downloading, extracting and uploading:

1. Download the .zip file with the scripts
2. Extract the file on your computer
3. Upload all extracted files to the webspace where you'd like to set up PivotX 2.0
4. Chmod the following folders to 777 (or anything else, as long as you make sure they are writable by the webserver)
   1. images/
   2. pivot/db/
   3. pivot/templates/ (and all files in it)
5. Open the location you've put PivotX 2.0 in a browser window.
6. Follow the on-screen instructions to set up the first user.
7. Log in, and have fun!

Method 2: Set-up using the commandline

1. Log in on the shell, and go to the folder where you wish to set up PivotX 2.0.
2. Copy and Paste the following commands to the command-line: curl -O http://pivotx.net/files/pivotx2_beta12d.tgz
tar -xvzf pivotx2_beta12d.tgz
chmod -R 777 images/ pivot/db/ pivot/templates
3. If you can't use Curl, try this instead: wget http://pivotx.net/files/pivotx2_beta12d.tgz
tar -xvzf pivotx2_beta11.tgz
chmod -R 777 images/ pivot/db/ pivot/templates
4. Open the location you've put PivotX 2.0 in a browser window.
5. Follow the on-screen instructions to set up the first user.
6. Log in, and have fun!

If you have issues with the beta, please go to our forum.

Finally, some things to note

1. We're developing using Firefox and Internet Explorer 7. Internet Explorer 6 works somewhat.
2. Some functionality is still missing, like Trackbacks. This will be added, if more than one or two people actually want this.
3. Although we haven't thoroughly tested it on PHP 4.x yet, we will promise full support for php 4.3.x for a while just yet. We'd like it if everybody was running PHP 5, but our investigations show that over 30% of the users of our current users are still on PHP 4.x.
4. If you're using MySQL, please make sure you have MySQL 4.1 or higher. It will work on 4.0 but you might have character encoding issues.