Smooth sailing

Thus far, the beta test has been remarkably smooth in terms of bug reporting and communication channels. Clearly many of you spent a long and grueling six weeks with us back in the Movable Type 3.2 cycle and that has really shown in the quality of bug reports and the lack of people reporting known issues or posting about bugs in the comments here on the blog. Certainly the beta test forums have helped to relieve the pressure some of you felt in trying to find the right place to communicate with other testers or just ask questions that existed in the 3.2 beta and we're glad that we made the right move in providing that channel.

In any case, I just wanted to say how much we've appreciated the low amount of management overhead that your adherence to our guidelines has produced.

The code repository

The external Movable Type code repository has been a massive hit for those who have played around with it. It's a really cool feeling to be IMing with someone and have them say in real-time "Hey! What's that wizard thing you just checked in?! OMG, no way! That's so cool!!!". Why, yes. Yes, it is...

We're very happy to provide you all with a real-time look at our work because we pride ourselves on it. If you haven't checked it out you can do so, even if you don't care to live on the bleeding edge by updating your site in real-time with our changes, by subscribing to the changelog feed. That feed alone is worth its weight in gold if you're a Movable Type fan.

The #movabletype IRC channel

Probably one of the biggest successes in this beta test is the IRC channel, which, at any one time has at least 10-15 testers hanging out and talking about everything from entry tags to black helicopters. Not only has it become the de facto hub for beta test activity (if only for its immediacy) but it's often the first (and sometimes only) place to hear interesting discussion of the nitty gritty development details and future plans from all of us on the MT team.

In fact, I think that you'll find that most people who have been hanging out there have really gotten a much better picture of how Movable Type gets developed and who is behind all of those great features you've come to expect, as we discuss most things right there in the channel. Plus, there's two of the newest and most welcome additions are CIA-17 and CIA-18 (depending on who's on their lunch break). These two fellas are the Movable Type code repository checkin bots, which report each checkin straight into the channel as we make it. It's like constant fodder for conversation, between the talk of black helicopters of course...

I know that I speak for all of us on the Movable Type team when I say that we're terribly excited to have such immediate and personal contact with you all and it's been great to get to know better those of you we didn't know well before. We'll certainly be keeping that channel active long after this beta test is over.

Feature posts and documentation

One thing we realize that we haven't done well at all in this beta cycle is give you more information about the application you're currently using. Sure, we've talked about Activity Feeds and Tags, but that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface on all of the feature posts we wanted to publish.

For example, we had planned on doing screencasts showing off all of the UI improvements in this release as well as the functionality of WidgetManager and StyleCatcher. We've been pining to write all about the massive improvements to MTEntries and template tag attributes. We've wanted to tell you all about all of the new tags in Movable Type 3.3. And now, we've gone and thrown Feeds.app Lite and the MT-Wizard onto the pile! Luckily, you all are a smart bunch and have figured out a great deal on your own. Still, we wanted to acknowledge that we haven't done this release justice in this regard.

On the bright side, one of the big reasons for that is that we've also been putting a great deal of effort into the final documentation for the release, so if there's something you're unclear about now, the hope is that you definitely won't be when all is said and done.

Movable Type 3.3 resolutions

The other obvious reason for the serene nature of the Beta blog in this cycle is the work we've been doing internally. Those of you who subscribe to the changelog feed know that every day we're slaying dragons left and right and Beta-3 represents a major step forward from Beta-1 or even Beta-2.

In fact, over the course of the development and beta test of Movable Type 3.3, the MT team has resolved a whopping 568 cases. That is an intensely insane number of cases and we have your submissions to thank directly for a large number of those. Keep on rocking until release and we'll do the same.

Beta-4 on deck

We will be inserting one more beta release into the schedule before release. This beta release will be very small (in fact, there are currently only 15 cases assigned to it) but will contain one of the most compelling feature enhancements in Movable Type 3.3: fully-operational Activity Feeds.

We expect that beta release to be ready sometime in the next couple of days and when it is, we'd appreciate your help in quickly making sure that that feature and the resolved cases in the release are as ready for release as they can be. When you see what we have in store, you'll wonder how you ever did without it so make sure not to skip Beta-4 when it's done cooking.

The Final Release

Barring any crazy last-minute showstoppers (which are, of course, always a possibility), we expect to followup Beta-4 with the final release of Movable Type 3.3 on June 27th. At that point, you can expect the Movable Type team to take a well-deserved week-long nap. Perhaps on a sandy beach. With umbrella drinks. You should have one too.