It’ll prob be at least a few months. My bet is to get started with 1.2.2.
Moderator
James Huff
(@macmanx)
Volunteer Moderator
Yes, v1.5 will be a long time. It’s currently in alpha stage, which is before beta, which is before release candidate, which is before final. Start with v1.2.2, it’s easy.
If you have the time and not eager to start blogging, you can actually wait. See if 1.5 has a lot of features you want that 1.2.2 is missing. Things like theme management (which seriously isn’t that important) and pages. If you really are giong to build a web site based on these 1.5 features, consider waiting.
“Pages” are used for making ‘About’ pages and stuff. If you’re just running a normal blog with a couple of extra pages asides posts, just start by installing 1.2.2 and blog. If you’re thinking of having lots of pages (non-posts like About pages and others) within 3 months or something, you may want to consider waiting for 1.5. 🙂
I’m curious… what’s the downside of using CVS now?
Moderator
James Huff
(@macmanx)
Volunteer Moderator
It’s in alpha. Alpha comes before beta, which comes before release candidate, which comes before final release. IOW, it has a long way to go. One build may work perfectly, the next may destroy your entire site. The Nightly Builds are only recommended for users who are very experienced with PHP, have some experience with MySQL (or phpmyadmin), and keep regular backups.
Macmanx,
While I agree totally on your description of how the normal alpha-beta-release candidate flow happens, I would be so bold to say that we are probably not as far away from release as you assert. The alphas certainly have problems, but relatively speaking, they behave quite well. As you said, however, the 1.5 alphas are not for new bloggers. That said, I don’t know that much about PHP at all, and I am running some successful test sites.
You also mention the backups…that’s critical, and always good advice, even when using 1.2.2.
Now I’m scared, because I have been using CVS without backups. I didn’t realize it could “destroy” my entire site.
What is the process for backups (i.e., how often, what do you backup, how do you back it up, ect.)?
Moderator
James Huff
(@macmanx)
Volunteer Moderator
Backup your files (those in your wordpress directory) by downloading them via FTP. Backup your database (posts, settings, etc), by following this tutorial: http://www.tamba2.org.uk/wordpress/backup/
Backup as often as you like. I prefer to backup weekly.
I backup my database on a weekly basis (fortunately, I have good tools from my host for this). The more often you can do this, the better off you’ll be in case of emergency.
I copy any file I’ve changed to my pc before uploading the new version.
I glom my entire site to my pc (through ftp) before I install an upgrade.
how often: i usually backup at least once a week and prior to doing something drastic to my account, like upgrading to a new wp version.
what do you backup: everything. if you don’t care too much about your account outside of wp, then backup the wp files you’ve changed, the plugins folder, and the db.
how do you back it up: your hosting provider should have backup tools for you to use. cpanel is available to me, so i just click on ‘backup’. from there i download my dbs and the generated zip archive of the files for my account.
Mark Ghosh (Laughing Lizard here on the forum) of Weblog Tools Collection had a One-Click-Backup routine at one time. Anybody know if it’s still around and is usable?
Craig: It’s at the WP Plugins DB. It says you can only install it from the plugin manager, though. I haven’t tried it.
Nice app, that WP Plugins DB one-step installer! It isn’t playing nice with the current CVS, though.
That, plus the potential problems outlined in this thread for someone who is PHP-challenged, like myself, have convinced me to go back to 1.2.2.
Thread Starter
ururk
(@ururk)
Thanks!
I’ve started setting WordPress up (1.2.2). Finally worked most of the bugs out… running on a IIS server, no Apache, so can’t use mod_rewrite. But otherwise, just skinning* now. In fact, it only took me 5 minutes to get it set up.
This is my first time using PHP, though I have done some asp and shtml programming.
*or themeing
The backup/restore plugin (v1.3) from the WP Plugins DB didn’t work with either WP 1.5 or WP 1.2.2. An older version of the plugin from the developer’s site (v1.2) didn’t work with WP 1.2.2. So, I can’t use that to do backups. Furthermore, I couldn’t get three other plugins to install on WP 1.2.2 with the one-click app there. I’m so fickle, I’m going back to CVS. I can see that either way I’m going to have problems and I’d just as soon have problems “on the cutting edge” than not.
