Hawkix Blog

Yes ! I’ve just released PG4WP 1.1.0, and it is the official release having support for WordPress 2.9.x series

Many thanks to all of you who tested the development releases and gave me feedback and patches to make PG4WP better.

There are still some annoying problems (read more here), but they are in the TODO list for the next release.

Here are some of my ideas for the future :

- resolve most problems introduced by rewriting rules

- build up some kind of “modularized” support for WordPress’ plugins that need special handling

- have WordPress’ import feature work correctly at least with WXR files when using PG4WP

- convert PG4WP into some kind of Framework to easily integrate support for other databases (maybe I’ll call this DBs4WP ?)

- maybe build up a SQLite version, but are there people interested ?

It is time for you to give me any other ideas or wishes, just comment on this post

PGP4WP 1.1.0rc3 is out, integrating some patches transmited by Boris HUISGEN (many thanks to him).

I tagged this release as stable, but it still needs testing before I remove the ‘rc’ status.

See the changelog if you want to know what has changed.

Please vote in the plugin directory if it works for you.

[Update] A bug was introduced in PG4WP 1.1.0rc3 when handling permalinks, so I released a quickfix in 1.1.0rc4 that shouldn’t have the problem.

You can download PG4WP 1.1.0rc4 from the plugin directory here.

Time for some news about PG4WP.

Hawkix Blog is now running WordPress 2.9.1 using PG4WP 1.1.0rc2

I’ve tagged a 1.1.0rc2 release because I didn’t get much feedback until now.
‘RC’ means it is a Release Candidate, I feel confident about it being stable enough for production use, but it still needs testing.

Please note : error logging is active in this release, but you can disable it in ‘db.php’ that you have to copy in ‘wp-content’.

The ‘readme.txt’ file is up to date about installation, don’t forget to read it.

[UPDATE] Some people asked me were to download this release, so here is the direct link to the zip file in the wordpress plugins directory

PG4WP 1.1.0 is almost ready for release.

All I need now is some feedback from people who can test the latest development version.
You can leave a comment to this post to give your feedback.

Fresh install of WordPress 2.9.1 seems to work smoothly, at least with PHP 5.2 and PostgreSQL 8.3 (this is my test/dev setup).

Upgrading from WP 2.8.6 to 2.9.1 works ok, there is just one query that generates an “INDEX not found” during the upgrade (for my testing database), this is a non blocking error.

If you are brave enough to test upgrading  from WP 2.8.6 (or any older release) to WP 2.9.1 please note that you should upgrade PG4WP before you start WordPress’ upgrade.
Don’t forget to make a complete backup of your data before trying this.

Important note : the ‘db.php’ from the development archive has PG4WP_LOG_ERRORS set to true, so if you don’t want these logs don’t forget to change it after copying the file to ‘wp-content’.

Here is the download link to the latest development version of PG4WP

The developpement Version of PG4WP has initial support for WordPress 2.9.1 fresh installs, you can test it and give your feedback as a comment to this post (please give some informations about your setup).

You can download this version in the plugin directory (in the “Other Versions” section).

As always, don’t forget to make complete backups before testing a development version.

Note : upgrading from WP 2.8.x is not ready yet (it works, but generates errors about indexes that may make your setup unusable after upgrade), I have some more work and testing before I put this part into the development version.

Some of you may have noticed that 2 new releases of PG4WP were recently published (1.0.1 and 1.0.2).

Be warned that these new releases are not intended for WordPress 2.9.x, they are aimed at reorganizing files an directories and small enhancements.

Here is the list of changes :

= 1.0.2 =
* Updated support for plugin zdMultilang 1.2.5
* Got rid of some remaining hardcoded table prefix
* Added the possibility to log only errors

= 1.0.1 =
* Reorganisation of directory structure
* Updated installation procedure
* Changed the fake server version to 4.1.3
* Added support for Unix socket connections (just leave the “host” field empty when installing)

I’m now working on update for complete support of WordPress 2.9.1 (upgrade from 2.8.X AND fresh install), version 1.1.0 should be ready in a few days.

Wow ! Time is going so fast …

WordPress 2.9 seems to break compatibility with PG4WP 1.0.0, which is unsurprising.
Whereas I’m watching new releases of WordPress, I’ll wait some days after the bugfix release (version 2.9.1) before I start to work on updating PG4WP to make it work with WordPress 2.9.

While I’m working on this new release that will be numbered “1.1.0″, please note that 2 patches were developped by users of PG4WP (thank you for your work guys) :

• Stéphane Mariel : http://www.mariel.fr/docs/driver_pgsql.diff
• balrog-kun : http://www.openstreetmap.pl/balrog/wordpress-pg4wp-update-2.9.1.patch

There is not much work, but I want to test as much as possible before I publish the next release of PG4WP.

Here are the main goals for this planned 1.1.0 release :

1. Should work with at least WordPress 2.8.4 (existing installation)
2. Should work with WordPress 2.9.1 (fresh install)
3. Should upgrade smoothly from 2.8.4 to 2.9.1

PG4WP is now present in the plugins directory at WordPress.Org, allowing for a direct access to the latest versions and the changelog.

Yes ! PostgreSQL for WordPress 1.0.0 is out

This means I think the code is stable enough to be used in the real world

I optimized a bit the code, mainly to have often used code reached faster.

Another big change is in the size of ‘db.php’ that cuts down from about 32kB to less than 1kB.
It was initially a copy of WordPress’ ‘wp-db.php’ with some changes in it, now it loads up the file from your WordPress installation making any needed change “on the fly”.
The main advantage is that I don’t have to keep my version in sync with WordPress’ one.
Please be warned that this new method requires PHP 4.3+ to work, so this becomes the minimal requirement (anyway you shouldn’t use an older version of PHP).

I’ve also changed the directory structure, so that the ‘pg4wp’ directory goes directly in ‘wp-content’ instead of going into the ‘wp-content/plugins’ subdir.
This is because PG4WP is not really a plugin, you need it to be installed and running before any plugin can be loaded.

If you enable debug logging, the log files are now written into ‘pg4wp’.

A ‘readme.txt’ file is included in the zip, describing PG4WP for the plugin directory at WordPress.Org
I’m still waiting for my account there to put PG4WP.

I use PG4WP to run this blog since I opened it, and encountered no real problem with it (only “not working features” that I corrected since then).

If you use PG4WP to run your blog (in fact this is true even if you don’t use PG4WP), don’t forget to make regular backups (and verify that you’ll be able to restore them in case anything goes wrong), ‘pg_dump’ is your friend if you are running PostgreSQL

If you installed any previous version, don’t forget to remove the ‘pg4wp’ directory from your ‘wp-content/plugins’ directory as this one is no more used.

Download :

PG4WP 1.0.0

I’ve set up some days ago another theme to enhance this blog on wide screen (from 1028 pixels and up), and I choosed Fluid Blue by srinig.

It has some problems with translations (I’ll work on it), but I think it’s efficient and fits my needs.

Work on PG4WP was suspended for a few days waiting for feedbacks while working on another project, intended as a commercial service : Hawkix Backup.
This will be an online backup service that fits home and SOHO needs, I’ll write more about it in a few days.

I’m going to release PG4WP 1.0.0 soon, and I’ll put it simultaneously in the WordPress.Org plugins directory.