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Wednesday, November 14, 2018

FlatPress lives! New maintainer aboard, new version ahead

Hi everybody,

in July, sad news striked: Edoardo announced the end of FlatPress.
It took quite a while, but now here I am to prove him wrong: FlatPress lives.

What’s the current situation?

Edoardo is about to hand me over all aspects of the project. Since I’m able to write this blog post here on flatpress.org, the first steps seem to have worked ;)
The transfer of the GitHub project is still to be done.

Who will maintain FlatPress from now on?

My name is Arvid, I am a software engineer from Germany. FlatPress is not my first experience with open source projects. I was founder, leader and coder of moziloCMS, a German open source PHP-based flatfile CMS.
I am a FlatPress user since 2013, you may know me from the forums as “azett”. Over the years, I contributed some plugins to FlatPress. Also, I built an inofficial version FlatPress 1.0.3.php7 based on the latest FlatPress release 1.0.3 to be used with PHP7. (See my GitHub fork here.)

What’s the plan?

I want to keep the project FlatPress running, so all you FlatPress users out there are able to keep running your FlatPress-powered blogs.

I won’t come up with dozends of fancy-shmancy new features. As first step, I will just make sure FlatPress works correctly under current PHP versions (which it sadly does not right now). My PHP7 version of FlatPress will most likely become the next official FlatPress release. Also, HTTPS support is very important.

Another big issue on my plan is to revive the community. It has been very quiet on the forums lately.

What can YOU do?

  • Let me know you’re out there.
    Leave me a comment below, drop me some lines on the forums or send me an email. (There will be an offical flatpress.org address later.)
    I need to know that the effort is worth it.

  • Help me testing the upcoming new FlatPress version.
    Download the latest version of my FlatPress fork and test it thoroughly. There is also an update package (1.0.3 to 1.0.3.php7).
    Does everything run fine under PHP 5 and 7? Do all your plugins and themes continue to work? Let me know on the forums!
    As soon as I have access to the official FlatPress GitHub project, I can then pull the changes from my fork to the official FlatPress repository and release an official new FlatPress version.

  • Get aboard the FlatPress team.
    If you like to join me on my mission, let me know. You may be a coder, a template designer, or maybe you just want to help me moderating the forums and the wiki. Every help is welcome!

  • Keep up to date.
    To stay informed about the further development of the FlatPress project, check out flatpress.org once in a while. You may also subscribe to the RSS feed.
    (The forums also have an RSS feed, did you know?)

  • Spread the word!
    Tell the world that FlatPress lives. Tell everybody how simple and great this blogging tool is. Get active on the forums, help each other, and give a warm welcome to new users. Revive the community - it is a vital part of a buzzing open source project.

And finally: A few words of thanks

I would like to thank Edoardo Vacchi a.k.a. the NoWhereMan, who kicked off this fine piece of open source software. A big salute to your years of effort on this really great flatfile blogging system, Sir! Also thanks for handing me over everything and thus giving me the opportunity to keep FlatPress alive.

Thanks to Matthias Mauch as well - my PHP 7 version of FlatPress is based on his FP-Patch.

More to come soon

I am looking forward to getting your comments and responses. Let’s see if this all works - I’d love it to!

Best wishes,
Arvid

  1. fos

    Saturday, November 17, 2018 - 19:48:31

    Thanks a lot for continuing the project!

    I’ll definitely continue using FlatPress for a while, though I’m also considering to finally finish a Jekyll importer I started after the initial discontinuation announcement. In any case I’m really relieved to see the project alive and thus having options on how to continue.

  2. RT Cunningham

    Thursday, December 13, 2018 - 01:08:55

    I’ve dropped in from time to time to look around and noticed it languishing. It’s nice to know it’s going to be finally updated to work with the latest version of PHP (now 7.3).

    I’ve downloaded the fork and I’ll play with it to see what is what. This will be my first time doing so. I’ve been using WordPress since 2006 and I would love to move away from using a database. Coding my own CMS has taken me years and I still haven’t finished it.

  3. RT Cunningham

    Thursday, December 13, 2018 - 01:09:56

    By the way… https DOES start a valid URL. Your comment form won’t let me enter it that way.

  4. arvid

    Sunday, December 16, 2018 - 12:41:59

    Thanks for your kind feedback.

    “I’ve downloaded the fork and I’ll play with it to see what is what.” - Let me know if everything works fine! :)
    And sorry for the quite odd URL checking here, there will be a fix some day.

  5. David

    Monday, December 31, 2018 - 10:38:07

    It’s great to see FlatPress in active development, and I’m looking forward to new releases. The “plan” sounds very sensible! (And I’m having great difficulty getting past your “captcha” - is there something more transparent you could use??)

  6. arvid

    Monday, December 31, 2018 - 11:24:58

    David, thanks for your feedback. I’m currently working on the upcoming release 1.1. Renewing the website (and this odd captcha thingy), wiki, forums etc. is next on my list.
    Have a great start into the new year!

  7. abrother

    Thursday, January 10, 2019 - 03:54:37

    I am setting up my own blog on PI 3 server and found flatpress there~
    I wanna sign up a forum account and discuss some problem but can’t do that now.
    Many thanks for your effort to continue this project ~

  8. arvid

    Thursday, January 10, 2019 - 12:53:00

    Welcome at FlatPress, abrother!
    Sadly, registration on the forums is broken, we’re working on it. Feel free to send a mail instead!
    -> http://flatpress.org/home/static.php?page=contact

  9. RT Cunningham

    Sunday, January 13, 2019 - 01:50:52

    I checked it out. It’s not my cup of tea, so to speak. I’ll continue working on my own. Thanks.

  10. arvid

    Friday, January 18, 2019 - 09:12:28

    Hi, sad to here. Would be very happy to see you around soon! :)

  11. Steven

    Monday, February 4, 2019 - 14:35:45

    Hi,

    Glas Go hear flatpress is not dead. A week ago i’ve just got my idea of a blog and flatpress comes to mind, because I used it years ago.
    I’m from Germany so a have to deal with a thing called DSGVO and I want to get this done with flatpress. So I’m also interested in the code, at some point I can help eventually.

    So arvid, keep your work up
    Have a great day.

  12. Arvid

    Saturday, February 9, 2019 - 13:11:02

    Steven, thanks for your comment. Try the latest master from GitHub, it’s very near to the upcoming next release 1.1.
    If you build anything useful regarding the GDPR (or in Germany, “DSGVO”) - maybe a consent dialog plugin? - please let us know! And feel free to send in problems and questions you stumble upon while diving into the FlatPress core.

    All the best aus dem Ruhrgebiet,
    Arvid