We only fix security issues when discovered on the 7.2.x-stable branch. We do not maintain older or newer (development) branches.
We will not maintain forever…
We strongly encourage those who are continuing to use the software to fork the project and continue development on their own.
]]>You can find b2evolution v7.x in the download area.
We also made a quick video to show v7 (others should follow):
Please note we will stop supporting b2evolution v6.x by the end of September 2020. If you haven’t done so yet, we recommend that you upgrade to b2evolution v7 now. There are no specific issues with upgrading from v6 to v7. The v6 skins will work without modification on v7.
Everyone Stay Safe! ;)
]]>We had 8 releases of b2evolution 6.x last year but most of our work behind the scenes has been focused on b2evolution 7.x.
To this day b2evolution 7.x-PRO is already used by several PRO clients but we have not released a stable public release yet.
This is due primarily to the fast pace of adding new features that change the final widget/skin behavior. In public releases we need to write upgrade procedures for this, which is time consuming.
As a result, we are dropping b2evolution 7.0 and are moving directly to b2evolution 7.1. One major change is that site skins will be able to display a configurable Menu instead of just an automatic list of collections.
In the process we have also put the e-commerce features on hold as they are not among the current concerns of our PRO clients.
We expect a beta release of 7.1 in the coming weeks.
]]>Some time ago, I got asked why we are making b2evolution. I started writing a blog post about it, but didn’t finish it at the time. Today seems like a good day to round it up ;)
Short answer: we want a system that saves us time on website maintenance. Even more so, when you maintain multiple websites: you don’t want to handle upgrades and tuning multiples times.
b2evolution does that by reducing the number of independent pieces that need upgrading and catering. Everything you need is integrated in a single package, including user accounts, forums, private messaging, documentation publishing, and of course: blogs. And that single package can support multiple web sites on a single installation. Finally, it can auto-upgrade itself.
Granted, the amount of integrated features can be a little overwhelming at first, but if you’re in for a rather large and complex website, or better yet: multiple websites, nothing will save you as much time as b2evolution in the long run (meaning: once initial setup is done).
Personally, I have built many websites since I started crafting my first HTML pages at UPenn in 1993. And, throughout the years, I’ve used many different tools to get that done. It started with a plain text editor. That lasted for several years. Then came Dreamweaver. That was a syntax coloring editor with automation functions that made it easy to maintain sites with dozens or even hundreds of interlinked pages. But as the web continued to grow and the amount to publish was growing likewise, I quickly found myself in a situation where I had to publish thousands if not tens of thousands of pages. That is when I had to switch to what we called at the time "a blog engine". Today we call it a CMS: Content Management System.
At the time I chose to use b2 as my blog engine. But, as it turned out, it quickly got abandoned by its author. So I picked it up where he left it, and started extending it under the name b2evolution. Eventually, we rewrote the whole thing. That is the short story. You can find a longer version and how it relates to WordPress here.
But today, why continue building our own rather than using another CMS like Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal?
Well, because I tried them and they failed me. They’re probably fine if you want to publish a single website and if that site doesn’t require too many plugins to get to what you need. But in my experience, they quickly require too many different plugins and modules to be installed, upgraded and maintained separately and/or too much custom code, with an even higher maintenance burden. Furthermore, they completely break down if you want to publish many different websites.
The goal with b2evolution was to have everything we needed integrated into a single platform. Install it once. And upgrade it once when there is a new release. No need to upgrade each plugin independently and solve incompatibilities with the other plugins along the way. Beyond that: with a single install of b2evolution, we can actually run multiple sites at the same time. Again a huge time saver on upgrades.
Today b2evolution integrates all the features we need for every new website we create, including user forums, private messaging, email lists, reference materials, multilingual support and of course: multiple blogs.
No other CMS (content management system) is as integrated as b2evolution. No other CMS is as easy to maintain.
b2evolution saves us so much time on website maintenance compared to any other existing solution. In our experience, nothing else even comes close.
That’s why we do it ;)
For a long time b2evolution has insufficient documentation. I believe we hugely improved on that point in the last couple of years. Check out the Online Manual here.
We’ve also been thinking of making feature presentation videos for a long time to show them in action. We have always pushed that to "next month", knowing there was a new user interface coming out soon. That’s an endless loop. At some point we’ll need to just bite the bullet and start cranking out those videos!
Finally, we recognize some users have a hard time getting b2evolution up and running, despite web hosts offering automated install. The auto installers work fine but many times there are other configurations on the web host side that create problems (e-g: ).
Thus we are wondering if we should offer "b2evolution hosting" ourselves, i-e: a SaaS (Software as a Service) version of b2evolution. That means you could just sign up for a plan that matches your needs and get going. You’d never need to worry about installing b2evolution, about .htaccess files, Linux file permissions, apache modules, upgrades, backups, etc.
Your thoughts on those matters are welcome in the comments below!
Happy May everyone! :)
]]>Among other features, it supports webmentions, as previously promised here.
]]>Next release will be 6.11.0 which will include a few new features like webmentions support.
Most of our efforts, though, are now focused on b2evolution v7. An alpha version is already out but the next release will include an all new "Quick start wizard" which should make it easier to get started with a setup that matches the user’s needs, rather than a default demo setup.
]]>With this new version, we are releasing features that didn’t need to wait for version 7.0 to come out. Yes, v7 is coming soon. It’s just that it’s such a major thing (really !) that it has a lot of little bugs to iron out.
Now, this seemingly small 6.10.3 release is actually a major milestone in b2evolution’s shift from glorified blogs to full-featured Content Management System. In this release you can define Item Types with very refined custom fields. You can then create Items of the desired types. You can use the custom fields in various ways (either in your content or in your skin code) and you can even compare items of same or different types with each other (b2evolution will automatically produce detailed comparison tables like this one).
Once again, we are describing big concepts here and we should actually show some examples. We’re guilty of that again. We’d like to promise we’ll solve that once 7.0 is out, but history tells us we’ll likely be absorbed into v8 by then…
OK, I don’t know how, but we really need to sort that out!!
]]>So scratch that. I’m back to posting tidbits of news whenever they come up.
And here you have it: b2evo 6.10.1 (stable) has been released. Release notes here. You can download it or auto-upgrade it. We are using it on this site and a handful of others. It’s proven stable already.
The reason we released 6.10.x and not 7.0.x is the infamous GDPR. (Do you enjoy all the GDPR related emails you get these days?)
b2evo 6.10.1 goes a long way toward GDPR compliance. I’m not saying 100% here because this regulation is very deep and we won’t know for a while if we finally hit the bottom or not. One thing for sure, the FUD around it is even worse as with the previous cookie regulations. Anyways, if you find something that’s "not GDPR enough" in your opinion, please let us know and we’ll address it.
Ironically, the other big thing in 6.10 is mailing lists & automations. It’s loaded with super powerful features but we haven’t quite finished the doc yet. So I’ll get back to you on that later. For now, let’s just say it plays super nice with user preferences and easy unsubscribe and it is GDPR compatible ;) … but more on this later…
Cheers!
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