PivotX 2.0 alpha 2.

We've just released alpha 2 of PivotX 2.0. If you're not up to speed on the cool things it can do, please check out the page with the feature overview(with videos), skip directly to the screenshots, or you can read the announcement for alpha 1.

This alpha does not contain many new features, but instead focuses on bugs that were found in the first alpha. That said, there are a few new things, such as the improved interface for the Dashboard and better and more widgets, like the Google Calendar Widget and the Lifestream Widget (Twitter, Jaiku, Tumblr). You can read more about the changes in the Changelog for alpha 2.

There still isn't much documentation, so you'll have to make do with the short installation instructions below. (Hey, if you need more information, this alpha just isn't right for you, anyways. ;-) )

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

Note: Please be aware that this is still an alpha release of
PivotX 2.0. This means functionality is missing, and there will be bugs. So, do not use this release on live websites just yet.

This release comes in two flavours.

• PivotX 2.0 alpha 2.zip
• PivotX 2.0 alpha 2.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 alpha 1 or alpha 1½ , 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.

As promised before, we'll be doing monthly releases, where each version will be closer to PivotX 2.0 final, and contain more features, and less bugs. See you back here in the last weekend of January!

Installation Instructions

There are two ways to set up the alpha. 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_alpha2.tgz
tar -xvzf pivotx2_alpha2.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_alpha2.tgz
tar -xvzf pivotx2_alpha2.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 alpha, please go to our new forum. Note that it's not necessary to report bugs or missing items, because we're aware that it's still an alpha release. ;-)

Finally, some things to note

1. We're developing using Firefox and Internet Explorer 7. Internet Explorer 6 works somewhat.
2. Safari 3 and Opera 9.5 currently show some quirks, mainly with the Wysiwyg editor. Upcoming versions will fully support these browsers.
3. We're still working on the new Localisation module, so you should keep the language settings on 'English' for best results.
4. Some functionality is still missing, like Tagging and Trackbacks. Don't worry, these will be added soon!
5. Don't use more than one weblog just yet.
6. 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 the first alpha is still on PHP 4.x.
7. If you're using MySQL, please make sure you have MySQL 4.1 or higher. It will work on 4.0, but you might get character encoding issues.