Movable Type 4.15 beta 2

I've been testing Movable Type 4.15 beta1 for a few weeks now with plans to migrate from Movable Type 3.33 to 4.15 when the product finally launches. According to the Movable Type roadmap wiki, the final non-beta version will launch in 6 days. Well, technically it says "Target Release Date: May 19ish" so they're leaving some wiggle room. Regardless, I'm pretty excited about the pending launch. There are essentially three version of Movable Type as so eloquently explained by master Movable Type plugin developer Mark Carey from MT-Hacks.com.

In general, all MT versions include the same identical core, MTOS (Movable Type Open Source) . "Packs" are effectively plugins that add-on to the core. So we have:

1) MTOS = MTOS (Movable Type Open Source)
2) "Commercial" = MTOS + Professional Pack (Custom Fields, etc.)
3) "Enterprise" = MTOS + Pro Pack + Enterprise Pack

I was testing MT Commercial 4.15 Beta1 which allows me to add custom fields. I found several bugs in beta1, including a couple that required me to hand edit some Perl code to get MT4.15beta1 to successfully upgrade my MT3.33 database. Unlike the MTOS "nightlies", which have regular updates, the Commercial version has been stuck on beta1 for quite some time. However, I just happened to be viewing the Movable Type website's file directories and looking at the MTOS nightlies when I decided to click "Parent Directory" to go up one level. I then clicked on the betas directory and saw a listing of all the available betas. Then I saw a file called MT-4.15b2-en.zip that was obviously the beta2 version I had been waiting for!

Looks like they have an English and Japanese version available, as seen here with both beta1 and beta2 files listed:

MT-4.15b1-en.tar.gz         24-Apr-2008 10:29 4.3M
MT-4.15b1-en.zip             24-Apr-2008 10:30 5.3M
MT-4.15b1-ja.tar.gz         24-Apr-2008 10:31 4.0M
MT-4.15b1-ja.zip              24-Apr-2008 10:32 5.0M
MT-4.15b2-en.tar.gz      12-May-2008 21:12 4.4M
MT-4.15b2-en.zip           12-May-2008 21:13 5.4M
MT-4.15b2-ja.tar.gz         12-May-2008 21:14 4.0M
MT-4.15b2-ja.zip             12-May-2008 21:14 5.0M

I didn't see any news about MT 4.15beta2 launching. So I googled it and still didn't see much. I checked Movable Type's wiki and blog and no announcement there either. According to the filename dates above, they did just upload them yesterday, so perhaps they haven't gotten around to announcing it. Of course, it looks like they're launching the final code in 6 days anyway.

Actually, they do list the download link to Beta 2 here, but this page mentions all the betas and doesn't point to this as being 'big' news. Usually MT will make an announcement somewhere. Anyway, the page says, "Professional Pack Betas: Beta 2 - corresponds to MTOS beta 5b". So it looks like Beta 2 finally has "parity" with MTOS beta 5b, which has been ahead of the commercial version for some time. It does indeed appear that Six Apart is close to launching the final code since the code bases are so close now.

Well, migrating to MT4.15 should be fun and with some cool new features.