OK, it's already almost a week since I've been to Blog World Expo... and I thought I should post a quick recap...

First off, Blog World is a fun place to hang out at! I didn't take any pictures of the conference, the expo halls and the crowds but you can still check out this tweetup dinner video to get an idea of what some of us looked like on the last evening.

I have to say I'm very impressed by how twitter allows people to meet up at random places. That's how that after hours dinner took place after the end of the conference.

By the way, if you are on twitter, you might want to follow http://twitter.com/b2evolution

That said, the most interesting part for me was meeting with bloggers and getting feedback on the software!

Even if I wish I had met more b2evolution bloggers, I got a lot of feedback and interesting ideas! There is nothing like real people explaining what they really want to do with their blogs! Believe it or not, a live discussion makes your point way better than a cryptic forum post!

One feature I've worked on since I came back is page level caching. This is a direct result from talking with Nelson Guirado about performance issues on his host. While we cannot control the server load and speed of the hosting companies, one thing we can do is try to make b2evolution use less server resources per page, thus operate faster.

Page level caching goes a long way in that direction. Basically it caches your blog pages so that subsequent results will be served much faster and with significantly less queries to the database. This also drastically cuts down on the load time for your visitors. (You need to not be logged in to experience the cache effect).

Page caching is already available in CVS. It's also activated on b2evlution.net, including this blog you are reading right now. If you see anything odd, by all means, let me know.

For more 3.0 features, stay tuned, either here or on twitter!

b2evolution is now part of the PLESK Application pack (they wouldn't list the versions of their bundled software though ).

This comes in addition to:

• Fantastico for cPanel (not always up to date... but widely available: InMotion, WebHostingPad, etc...)
• SimpleScripts (my personal favorite installer -- available at HostMonster and BlueHost -- very well updated!)
• Installatron (well updated; I wish more hosts would use that one!)

So, if your web host does not provide 1 click install of b2evolution yet, or if it's an outdated version, feel free to tell them they are seriously slacking!

b2evolution 2.4.5 "Monument Valley" has been released!

In a nutshell: 3 months worth of bug fixes, a new skin (Glossy blue), additional skin template and widget params, enhanced display speed in backoffice and better URL handling of tag pages.

Download Here »

Also note that the new download page now includes links to download quick upgrade patches if you are already running 2.4.1 or 2.4.2. You have to scroll down though, I figured we would not want to have those displayed too high which might be confusing new users.

Upgrading from a previous 2.x version will only take you a couple of minutes. Skins from any previous 2.x version are compatible. Plugins from any 1.10.x or previous 2.x version are compatible. Version 3.0 will be an alpha release and will not be stable for a couple of months. We highly recommend you upgrade to 2.4.5. This guarantees your site is as secure as possibly be.

This version will also install a demo photoblog (as blog #4) for first time installers. If you already have b2evo running but would like to see it, check out the demo server.

2.4.5-stable "Monument Valley"

• Search widget radio buttons are now optional.
• New skin: GlossyBlue
  (including support for default widget containers)
• More skin template params
• The installer now creates a demo photoblog
• Enhanced backoffice display speed
• More tag URL options
• Enhanced URL resolution for categories and tags
• Enhanced sitemaps
• Fixed the bug where thumbnails are not created in skins when the viewer is not logged in
• Additional bug fixes

I have updated all 2.4 translations that were sent to me. You can download them from the language packs section.

If you have additional up-to-date language packs, please contact me directly.

If you want to create a new one, you're welcome to do so. You might want to use an existing language pack from a previous version as a start base though. It's up to you...

Finally, language packs in 3.0 will be essentially the same except that they will include definitions for the locales they can serve in a small file called for example fr-FR.locale.php. (A 3.0 language pack can actually define several locales at ounce by including several such files.) Those files will be detected by b2evolution and imported automatically.

This should make it even easier for users to install new locales. All they'd need to do is copy the files into the locales folder and then enable the desired locale from Global Settings > Regional.

Read more »

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a nice summer vacation in some nice place (even if it was just a virtual place )

I personally went through a lot of crazy adventures, not the least of them being moving from France to California... then meeting a lot of people around here! (I blogged a bit about it in French only... however I also have some photos ... in no particular order)

Also... since living in California is actually quite expensive, I figured it would help to take on some extra client work this summer, which left me less free time to work on b2evolution those last couple of months.

Fortunately, Yabba's been pretty active in the meantime and b2evolution 3.0 should be pretty yabbariffic !! All I can tell you right now is that's it's gonna be even better than AJAX!

We will most likely have a 2.4.3 service release fixing some bugs this month and then we'll move on directly to version 3.0 with some big new features! More on that later...

Also, I'll be at Blogworld Expo in Las Vegas on the 20th and 21st this month. (I still can't believe it's just an hour away from home now!) If you're going too, email me, post a comment or even ping me on twitter. I'd be delighted to meet you and talk about the evolution of b2evo...

Finally, I've been thinking about replacing that "Multilingual multiuser multiblog engine" baseline up there with "Easy as a blog, powerful as a CMS". What do you think? (or maybe this isn't even proper English... LOL)