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.

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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... )

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 !! :D 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)

b2evolution version 2.4.1 "Nevada" has been released. This is the first 2.x release we consider to be rock stable!

Download b2evolution 2.4.1 »

This version basically builds upon the already stable 2.4.0 with weeks of merciless bug fixing. There is no major fix but a lot of little things that have been ironed out.

Also, upgrading from 2.4.0 is merely a 5 minute file upload operation. There are no database changes. It is not necessary to run the install/upgrade script. And needless to say, it is not necessary to update your skins.

Upgrade is highly recommended for all users. As of May 1st, the 1.10 branch will no longer be maintained.

Major changes:

• Added some basic quicktags in simple edit mode.
• "Blog Logo" renamed to "Image / Blog logo".
• Enhanced comment forms with optional customization features. Removed extra fieldsets.
• Cosmetic enhancements.
• iPhone optimizations.
• Fixed wording in various places.
• New powered_by( array() ) skin tag (can be used to replace the long html blurb that was used before).
• Plenty of small bug fixes.

Next version should be 2.5-beta which will introduce new features and hence be less stable.

b2evolution 2.0 comes with a brand new backoffice design a.k.a admin skin, named "Chicago":

Though not completely polished yet, we hope it reflects how much effort we're putting into the new b2evolution 2.0.

Of course, if you're nostalgic (or if your IE chokes on CSS), you can still use the legacy or the evo admin skins.

By the way, you can now switch admin skins easily from the "evobar" at the top of the screen. In case you wonder: yes that bar is also displayed on top of the public blog page... if you're logged in!

Other than that, you can see on the screenshot that the backoffice now comes with a "dashboard" which gives you fast and easy access to the items you need the most like the comments awaiting moderation (with one click buttons) as well as your recent draft posts (am I the only one repeatedly forgetting to publish my drafts? ;))

b2evolution 2.0.0-alpha will be out in a few days now.

Ok, version 1.10 has been out for 3 months now and it's been super stable for 2 months.

Now, I can't stress this enough: if you haven't done so yet, for your own good, please upgrade any prior version to version 1.10 now!

If you're running 1.8 or 1.9, it is very easy too!
1) Download the latest stable 1.10
2) Optionally save your current /conf/_basic_config.php file if you don't want to reconfig later.
3) Upload all the new files over the old ones
4) Optionally, upload your previous /conf/_basic_config.php file back
5) Go to /install and run the installer which will take care of upgrading/fixing a few details in the database.

Your 1.8 and 1.9 skins will work on 1.10.

Again, please trust me: you want to do that upgrade and you want to do it now. Not tomorrow and certainly not next week.

Note for those who are waiting for 2.0: we will indeed release a 2.0-alpha as soon as I find a desk to work on (I'm in the US until the end of the month with a super heavy schedule... and unfortunate shady hotels in between :P).

But this will be an alpha. It will be months before 2.0 gets as stable as 1.10. Plus the upgrade to 1.10 is super easy while the upgrade to 2.0 will not be so easy.

Did I mention that now is better than tomorrow? Seriously.

I am in Chicago this week, attending HostingCon 2007.

I'm not really attending the sessions actually. I'm mainly here to talk with the hosting companies about how we can better run b2evo on their shared hosting plans. Because that's actually how most b2evo users run it! (Ok, I'm also here to visit Chicago, which btw is pretty impressive... in many ways... but you'll have to check out my personal blogs for that kind of stuff ;))

One issue, of course, is to make installation as seamless as possible. Most of our hosting partners already offer easy installation method through cPanel + Fantastico Deluxe. However, in many cases there is room for improvement and we'll work on that. More on this later...

The other big thing, of course, is PHP 5!

You may have heard about the PHP group abandoning support for PHP4 at the end of the year. (Was bound to happen...)

You may have heard about the gophp5.org initiative. (Feels like a guerilla operation to me...)

And you may have read about some popular software strongly sticking to PHP4. (Huh!? What about supporting NCSA Mosaic?)

I'm sort of in the middle...

On the one hand, I reckon that the PHP 5 features would make the development of b2evolution easier and that it would even improve performance in some situations.

On the other hand, I also reckon that PHP 5 is not enabled by default on mosts hosts and that trying to use it involves more setup work on the user's shoulders.

And finally, I'm pretty disappointed with the PHP group who created the PHP4 vs PHP5 incompatibility problem in the first place. I still strongly believe there would have been an easy solution to the upgrade path.

(At this point I have to plead guilty for introducing my own lousy upgrade issues on some previous versions of b2evolution. However, I pledge to make upgrades easier after 2.0.)

Anyway, the PHP5 situation being what it is, my belief is that we can work it out with the hosting companies!

Having talked this through with a couple of them it turns out that:

1. They all support PHP5, but in different ways. BlueHost has it enabled by default (nice!). Most of the others support it optionally. Sometimes you have to request it from tech support, but most of the time you can enable it through .htaccess or your own php.ini ... that is, if you're geeky enough for that kind of stuff! Anyway, the bottom line is: there is no standard way to enable PHP5 from one host to another.
2. Mosts hosts actually did not realize that it is an issue to the development of software apps... since we somehow managed to still make it run on PHP4 so far.
3. Many hosts actually did not realize that the lack of a standard mechanism to switch to PHP5 is a problem for seamless install.
4. Many hosts actually did not realize that all PHP applications today, including b2evolution of course, do already work on PHP5 as well as PHP4.

After discussing this thoroughly with several hosts, I do believe there will be an acceptable consensus: most hosting companies seem to be willing to start to roll out PHP5 by default for all new accounts, a couple of months from now. (The current customers would still need to ask their tech support to be upgraded).

So I do have hopes that PHP5 will actually make it mainstream this year at all major hosts (and that the smaller ones will automatically follow). If it doesn't... We could still join the gophp5 "guerrilla" thing. However, I'd really like not to force PHP5 on the users as long as it requires an extra step in the install process.

Regarding b2evolution 2.0: we're still compatible with PHP4 of course. I personally run half of my servers on PHP4 and the other half on PHP5, just to make sure it works on both ;)

Now, being in the US with the tiny laptop makes it much harder for me to actually wrap up that 2.0 release... but I haven't given up yet! Stay tuned ;)

-Francois.