PivotX 2.0 alpha 4.

We've just released alpha 4 of PivotX 2.0. This will be the last Alpha release for PivotX 2, before we move to Beta status. 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 announcement for alpha 2.

Like the previous release, this alpha contains a bunch of new stuff and functionality, and at the same time works towards a more stable and solid version. Some of the highlights of this release:

• Added support for the Metaweblog API (you know, XML-RPC)
• Tagging works
• Added optional caching, to speed up the rendering of pages dramatically
• Weblogs are more versatile: offset and category parameters work. You can now use [[weblog]] in other Pages as well.

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. Next month we will go to Beta status, which means it'll change from 'really don't use on public websites' to 'ok, you can use it, if you know what you're doing'.

This release comes in two flavours.

• PivotX 2.0 alpha 4.zip
• PivotX 2.0 alpha 4.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.phps', which you can use to convert your old entries to MySQL. Just rename it to 'convertentries2sql.php', and open it in your browser.

If you're upgrading from a previous Alpha, 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. That said: there's one thing to note: If you change your templates, please make a new folder inside templates/. That way you won't overwrite them when updating.

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 February!

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_alpha4.tgz
tar -xvzf pivotx2_alpha4.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_alpha4.tgz
tar -xvzf pivotx2_alpha4.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 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. Some functionality is still missing, like Trackbacks and spam protection. Don't worry, these will be added before the next release (Yay, beta!)
3. Don't use more than one weblog just yet.
4. 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.
5. 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.