1.8 will not get out of beta, but the 1.x series will.

1.6 is the alpha release, 1.8 is the beta release.

Their may still be more betas to come, or release candidates, or many other types of releases until a final release is done.

But 1.8 will have a update released within the following weeks/months, but to my knowledge it will still be beta.

And the next version/release will be out in several months.

btw, you do not need fantastico to update, just use ftp...

balupton wrote:

... btw, you do not need fantastico to update ...

Indeed! I still use Fantastico to make me a new installation, but then I immediately convert it to whatever version I feel like installing. After you do that Fantastico will complain about not being able to upgrade anymore, but so what! It's a tool you can use a little or a lot. I'm using it a little nowadays.

You will need your conf/_config.php file from your current installation, and your skin if you customized it, and your media folder if you've uploaded any images or whatnots. After that delete all the files from your server. Download the version you want to run, unzip it on your local PC, then edit conf/_basic_config.php and transfer the database connection info from your old _config.php to the new file. Also your baseurl (paying attention to having a trailing slash nowadays) and admin email ID. Finally set "config_is_done" in the new file to 1, then upload all the new files.

Go to your_path_to_install/install/index.php and tell it you are upgrading. Bam. Done. Upload the stuff that was in your media folder, and check the wiki manual for how to upgrade your skin from 0.9.2 to the 1.8 release. Double-bam. Double-done!

Thanks to both of you for the posts. Unfortunately, the server that hosts me won't upgrade to any beta version of anything. Release and stable seem to be the hallmarks of their operation. With that in mind, the only way I can get them to upgrade is to have a non-beta version available. From what I hear from above, there may never be a non-beta released. This is worrysome and may push me into using onother software package. Too bad. But thanks anyway.

Oh no, sure there will be a non-beta released. Just not of the 1.8 branch.

It could be, v1.9, v1.10, v1.11, who knows.

But there will be a final release in the v1.x series in the following months.

I don't know if that's a true statement or not. 1.8.1 doesn't have to carry the 'beta' label given the overall stability of the 1.8 release. I can only think of 3 (and maybe 5) issues with 1.8 at present. To the best of my knowledge only ONE of those issues is something the average user will notice.

johnny27 we're not talking about your server automagically upgrading for you. Fantastico is a package that many hosts use. THEY decide what is in Fantastico, and each host decides if THEY want to upgrade to the latest Fantastico release or not. YOU decide, or at least you *should* decide what you run on your web space. BTW I believe you'll find the same conditions apply to anything you can install via Fantastico. If Fantastico doesn't include the latest release of *whatever* AND your host doesn't offer the latest release of Fantastico then you're not going to be able to automagically upgrade via Fantastico.

Is there a problem with using 0.9.2? It is actually quicker at serving up web pages than 1.8 is, and is probably the most supported b2evolution release available in terms of tips & tricks and hacks and such.

Issues with v0.9.2? Nothing serious. I want to add some plug-ins and nothing I've found supports this version - they all seem to be written for v1.8 I also want to use Performancing (Firefox extension that's wonderful!) and can't get it to work. Evidently it works fine with v1.8.

As for using v1.8 on my own, are you saying I can just upload it to my space on the server and it will just start working? The server admin doesn't want anything beta that he has to support. He also doesn't want anything "messing up" his server for others.

Since I'm a novice at all this and have no programming abilities, I'm sort of working in the dark here.

johnny27 wrote:

Issues with v0.9.2? Nothing serious. I want to add some plug-ins and nothing I've found supports this version - they all seem to be written for v1.8 I also want to use Performancing (Firefox extension that's wonderful!) and can't get it to work. Evidently it works fine with v1.8.

I'm going to look at that "performancing" thing, but yeah: there are plugins for 1.8 that don't exist for 0.9.2 and the other way 'round as well. Plus plugins are much easier in the 1.8 world!

johnny27 wrote:

As for using v1.8 on my own, are you saying I can just upload it to my space on the server and it will just start working? The server admin doesn't want anything beta that he has to support. He also doesn't want anything "messing up" his server for others.

That's what I'm saying! I do it regularly now. I use Fantastico to make a database, then upload the new files (after grabbing the login credentials from conf/_config.php) and use whatever version I happen to be uploading. I have a 1.8 for myself, a 1.7CVS for another one of myself, and test installations of 0.9.2 and 1.6 and 1.8 - all of which started life as whatever my fantastico happens to be installing at the moment.

Your server admin might have a different view!!! Do you pay for your hosting or is it something a friend is allowing you? If it's the former then I feel the host should say clearly why you can't install a beta with a strong record out of the gates. The alpha was icky, but the beta is strong. One of the strengths of b2evolution is the quality of the code. The interface isn't always the easiest to figure out, but the code behind it is pretty tight.

johnny27 wrote:

Since I'm a novice at all this and have no programming abilities, I'm sort of working in the dark here.

Do you have an FTP program that lets you upload files to (and download files from) your server? If so, and if your host is okay with what you want to do, then there is pretty much no programming skills required. You will need an FTP program. I use FileZilla. You will need a nice editor. I use HTMLKit. Both are free. Most importantly, you should engage whoever is hosting your site in dialog regarding what the term 'beta' means and what types of problems your host would freak out over.

ALWAYS have a backup of your database and files handy just in case something doesn't work! If your host is comfortable with the idea maybe you could do an upgrade and see how it impacts the server for a trial run. If not you can use your backups to 'downgrade' to the 0.9.2 package.

EdB wrote:

I'm going to look at that "performancing" thing, ...

You'll love Performancing. I used it with Wordpress when I was trying out packages.

EdB wrote:

Do you pay for your hosting or is it something a friend is allowing you? If it's the former then I feel the host should say clearly why you can't install a beta with a strong record out of the gates. The alpha was icky, but the beta is strong. One of the strengths of b2evolution is the quality of the code. The interface isn't always the easiest to figure out, but the code behind it is pretty tight.

It's a commercial server in a data center and I'm sort of tagging on to someone else's section of it. I'm limited in what I can do.

EdB wrote:

Do you have an FTP program that lets you upload files to (and download files from) your server? If so, and if your host is okay with what you want to do, then there is pretty much no programming skills required.

I use SmartFTP (best FTP ever - give it a try - it's free also) and just picked up CodeTech (a Dreamweaver-like editor that's a Firefox extension) so I'm set there.

EdB wrote:

Most importantly, you should engage whoever is hosting your site in dialog regarding what the term 'beta' means and what types of problems your host would freak out over.

I'll do that this weekend.

EdB wrote:

ALWAYS have a backup of your database and files handy just in case something doesn't work! If your host is comfortable with the idea maybe you could do an upgrade and see how it impacts the server for a trial run. If not you can use your backups to 'downgrade' to the 0.9.2 package.

This is always excellent advise.

Thank you for your complete and thoughtful comments and information. It's certainly an unexpected pleasure!

Just to finish out this thread: The server has been updated (well, my section anyway) to v1.8 and mostly it's working well. Speed is much slower and there's a problem with the display of posts by day (another question in a new thread...) but the plugins work well and I'm actually learning a bit about HTML editing.

Thanks to all for the info and the time you have devoted to this. :!:

johnny27 wrote:

Speed is much slower

Hm, I hope this issue will be resolved when it's out of beta? Doesn't sound good.

nomad wrote:

johnny27 wrote:

Speed is much slower

Hm, I hope this issue will be resolved when it's out of beta? Doesn't sound good.

Actually, this is related to another issue that I've posted in another thread: When you ask the blog to post by "days," no matter how many days you set in the settings, it gets EVERY POST so it is very slow because of that. Since I have about 80 posts a day, the blog page gets long (and big to transfer) quickly.

Until I figure out what's causing this, I'm forced to post by "number of posts" and the speed is fine that way.