FLATPRESS README (or "the file that nobody reads except who writes") (draft 1) ============================================================================== ## 1. WHAT THE FLATPRESS? First of all, let me thank you for choosing my FlatPress. I hope you'll enjoy using it as I (almost) enjoyed writing it :) FlatPress is a brand new blogging platform under heavy development. Now, you may be like: «Another blog?? Who the heck would need that?». ## 2. WHO THE HECK NEED THAT? Oh-kay, FP is flat-file based. This means *it doesn't require databases*. Actually all the content in stored in text files, so you don't need MySQL if you can't afford an hosting service which can provide that to you. ## 3. COOL. I STILL DON'T SEE WHY I SHOULD USE IT «...as I could use SimplePHPBlog, Pivot, etc...». Good question. FlatPress was born as an extension to SPB. But let's clear the things out 1. This is not a _fork_: we didn't take the SPB code and edited it; 2. This is not a rewrite: we didn't take SPB concept and reinvented its wheel This is a *new* project, which inherits from SPB just its *storing system*. This means you can take your content/, images/ dirs from your SPB installation, put them in FP's fp-content/ dir as they are, and, once installed, it should almost work out-of-the-box. This is the aim. Note that we don't want every single SPB user to switch to FP, it's just that, as a SPB user myself, I wanted an easy way to switch from that to my project and by the way its storing system is not bad at all :) ## 4. IF IT'S NOT THAT BAD, WHY THIS REWRITE? As I said, this *IS NOT* a rewrite. This is a new blog. At the time we (I) started this project SPB lacked some features, it wasn't W3C standard-compliant and, above all, it was obviously a pain to upgrade if you had made many changes to the code. So the most important lacks were a plugin system and a little more flexible theming engine. FlatPress uses the same plugin system of WordPress. Beware: this doesn't mean you will be able to use any of the WordPress plugins without any effort. Only a few of the plugin "hooks" have been implemented (search the sources for apply_filters and do_action to know which ones). Also FlatPress uses the famous Smarty template engine for the themes (the same of PhpBB). Of course, this now will sound great (and quite conceited), then remember 1. This is my first complete work in PHP 2. It's unfinished :) ## 5. ANYWAY, IT SOUNDS PRETTY DECENT, HOW DO I GET IT TO WORK? OK, let's see what it will take you to run the fruit of my sweat (sounds juicy, doesn't it? Yech!). A basic Apache+PHP system as a server should work. It has been small tested on IIS, too. If you experience any problem, just let me know (be detailed describing the problem). As I said, no need for databases. Anyway I must ask for a version of PHP >= 4.3.0. I can't tell if it will work on older versions so if it something is going wrong, first check this :) Unpack the .tar.bz2 you downloaded from the main site (probably http://flatpress.nowhereland.it/) and http://flatpress.nowhereland.it/downloads/) and then upload it on your webserver (or test it locally). Point your browser to http://yoursite.com/flatpress/ and just follow *carefully* the istructions :p ## 6. FINAL WARNING AND GOODBYE This you're using (or you're about to use) is intended as a TEST version; it should be very stable, but it if it ever blew your PC up, just remember you'd been told. Kidding. People tell me I'm quite unprofessional presenting this project. You'll see why when you'll install FlatPress for the first time... If that won't make your day, I just hope to make you smile :) Once you're ready tell us what you think on the main site; any feedback is appreciated! ## CREDITS I want to thank here some people that helped (and are helping) me with this project. Hydra, betatester, small-coder, and official cheerleader :D drudo, theme designer, supporter, space and time provider Other thanks to giulio and alcor for their precious advice. As an additional note, I'd like to thank also Tychondriax another friend of mine who occasionally helps me with betasting and bug-discovering :) Thank you all, guys, without you I would have already given up. Edoardo Vacchi (NoWhereMan), August, 2 2006 email: real_nowhereman at users dot sf dot net www: http://www.nowhereland.it flatpress home: http://flatpress.nowhereland.it