Archive for February, 2011

Survey: What version of PHP?

Feb
19
2011
1 comment

We need a little bit of help; should only take about 30 seconds.

Last week we started working on ProofBuddy 2.5. When we started 2.0 we looked at dropping support for PHP 4, but decided against it because we were still getting a large enough percentage of users installing on servers with PHP 4 that it didn't seem the right decision.

With ProofBuddy 2.5 we're at that point again. This time around unless there is an overwhelming need for PHP 4 support we're going with PHP 5.2. So we're asking for your help. Please fill out the following poll with the version of PHP that is on the server you're using for PHP.

What version of PHP is on your server

View Results

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How to find your PHP version

PHP Version in ProofBuddy


The Admin -> About page in your ProofBuddy admin pages will show you the version on your server. For example, the screenshot to the right shows version 5.3

For this poll we're lumping all version 4s into one choice. So if you see PHP 4 point anything please select version 4 in the poll.

Why the change
The biggest push is that PHP 5 offers features that PHP 4 does not, and we feel comfortable with this change since the end of life for PHP version 4 was announced more than 4 years ago and updates to PHP officially stopped in August of 2008.

The other factor is that WordPress has announced that WordPress 3.1 will be the last version to support PHP 4 and they are targeting version 5.2 for version 3.2. With the popularity of WordPress we feel that hosts that are still using a 4-year-old version of PHP will be forced to update or risk losing clients.

What if my host is still using PHP4?
The easiest answer is to find a new host. Of course that may or may not be realistic.

Many hosts - notably GoDaddy - offer both PHP 4 and PHP 5, and it seems that most of them use PHP 4 by default. But, there is typically a setting in your hosting control panel to switch to PHP 5.

Categories:Development Blog

New Extend section on website

Feb
13
2011
1 comment

We're working on a new system to make it easier to find and install themes and plugins, and more importantly to keep the version you're using updated.

Borrowing from WordPress.org we've install a Subversion server to house plugins and themes, and ultimately ProofBuddy itself. This is probably a little too geek for 99% of y'all. What it ultimately means is that we, and any other plugin or theme authors, will be able to publish updates and the server will automatically update the downloads with the latest version.

Once we're comfortable that this system is working the way it should we're going to start working on giving ProofBuddy the ability to update itself. Again, the inspiration came from WordPress. If you use WordPress you've likely seen the update notices that flash across the top of the screen and used the automatic updating features. Our goal is to give ProofBuddy this same ability.

That's still at least a few months off though. For now, you can visit our new extend ProofBuddy section. As the existing plugins and themes get added to the new system they'll get added into the extend area.

What's Next
Not necessarily in this order, but these are our goals for this section.

  • Move all of the existing themes and plugins into the new system
  • Automatic updates for plugins, themes, and ProofBuddy itself from within the ProofBuddy admin interface
  • Make it easier for potential theme and plugin authors to get started
  • Create a developer documentation site, likely a wiki to make it easier to update

And of course we'd like to hear any thoughts you have on how we can improve this addition to our site. Comments are open below.

Categories:News & Updates