Movable Type Beta Weblog - Where in the world is MT 3.3?!

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Where in the world is MT 3.3?!

by Jay Allen

I know that you've all been very patiently but eagerly awaiting the final release of Movable Type 3.3, and frankly, we don't blame you. In fact, we really can't blame you since it was us who told you yesterday that it would be ready today.

And so that's what we've been working towards. The entire Movable Type team has been going gangbusters implementing your features, fixing your bugs, testing the fixes and striving to give you the best dang Movable Type 3.3 possible. And, by most measures, we get the feeling that you've been pretty happy with the results, to say the least. This, naturally, makes us, in turn, very happy.

Attention to the details

However, now that we've resolved every bug and feature case in the release and had a chance to look around, we realize that there is still yet more work to do on some of the important non-code related things that really make a release great -- end-user and developer documentation, website changes, support and, hey, maybe even helping to ensure that some of your favorite BigPAPI plugins are converted to Movable Type 3.3's Transformer plugins.

It is for all of those good reasons that we've decided to postpone the final release for an unspecified amount of time in order to make sure that we and, in turn, your experience with the whole product, are solid on all fronts. Hopefully you'll thank us when we're done.

What about the code?

Oh but wait! There is, of course, this little matter of the code which has been sitting here, ready to be used and, frankly, burning a hole in our servers. It would be a waste, really, to have that code unused any longer than absolutely necessary.

So, as a thank you for your participation in the beta test, we're releasing our Movable Type 3.3 Beta-Final Release Candidate^[1] giving you a special sneak peak at the final code now instead of making you wait all that time. You can find it and its release notes over there on the left sidebar

It's the least we can do to say thank you... Just do us a favor and upgrade to the final version when we do release. It makes it easier on everyone...

Finally, The MT team and I offer our apologies for yesterday's irrational exuberance. What can we say? It's not every day you finish up on a massive release like this. And I for one say, thank goodness for that.

Enjoy the F.R.C.!

^[1] - The same license applies as did with the other beta releases.

Posted on June 28, 2006 4:40 PM in Announcements

Comments

Thanks for the update :)

Posted by: demonsurfer | June 28, 2006 6:14 PM

So technically one could start the migration now if the plugins we use are already compatible with 3.3?

How would it work when the "real" 3.3 non FRC gets released in the wild?

Posted by: Sara | June 28, 2006 7:40 PM

So technically one could start the migration now if the plugins we use are already compatible with 3.3?

Absolutely. We don't expect only the version number to change between this and the final release. That's not absolutely guaranteed as our continued QA efforts may uncover some big critical bug that every single one of us has missed all this time. Doubtful, but always a possibility.

How would it work when the "real" 3.3 non FRC gets released in the wild?

You download MT 3.3, install it on your server and go on with your day. :-)

Posted by: Jay Allen | June 28, 2006 9:18 PM

Ok, I agree with your decision to postpone. When you release this product, I want a complete package. However, I'm really disappointed that you haven't posted a new date. It's hard to understand how you overlooked all of those details in a release date, and now have no information to share with us. As you can imagine, it's frustrating. The beta release still has a limited license and isn't really good for upgrading existing sites.

The work takes as long as it takes, but you've really left us in the dark.

Posted by: William Beem | June 29, 2006 8:21 AM

It's hard to understand how you overlooked all of those details in a release date, and now have no information to share with us. As you can imagine, it's frustrating.

It's less about overlooking details and more about pulling the emergency brake because of quality control. I can understand the way you feel and yet I'm quite sure that if you were in our shoes, you would have made the same decision.

We're frustrated too, but it's the right thing to do.

Posted by: Jay Allen | June 29, 2006 8:33 AM

Do you think it will be out before the weekend Jay?

Posted by: demonsurfer | June 29, 2006 8:57 AM

Unfortunately, I can tell you with certainty that it will not.

Posted by: Jay Allen | June 29, 2006 9:45 AM

Ok thanks - I'll stop refreshing this page every 30 minutes then :)

Posted by: demonsurfer | June 29, 2006 9:49 AM

Could you please include make-l10n script set in final? That will help users to translate messages without been necessary to mod sources.

Posted by: Sakis | June 29, 2006 9:50 AM

demonsurfer: Refresh the page? Don't you use a feed reader?! Even if you don't, the release post headline will appear in your newsbox within MT.

Sakis, I'll talk to my team and see if that's a possibility.

Posted by: Jay Allen | June 29, 2006 10:09 AM

What about the templates for the 3-column format? I want to change the default layout to a 3-column format, but messing around on my own just leaves me with a view that looks wonky.

Posted by: Lola | June 29, 2006 10:35 AM

Out before 4th July? I guess you're working on plugins now too - there's a lot of them. Hmm. Wonder if SimpleComments will work. Arvinds BlogRoll 2.11 is working fine with FRC, and CommChal. is working too - no more hash codes in the activity logs heh :)

Posted by: demonsurfer | July 1, 2006 11:50 AM

guess not :/

Posted by: demonsurfer | July 4, 2006 12:15 PM

It will be ready when it's ready. That's the meaning of indefinite, no? :-)

Get a feed of the beta blog. Watch MT News in your app. Dinner ain't ready til it's finished cooking and asking when it will be ready doesn't make it come any faster.

Posted by: Jay Allen | July 4, 2006 1:17 PM

Posted by: demonsurfer | July 4, 2006 1:44 PM

So how's things coming along?

Posted by: Sara | July 6, 2006 9:07 PM

Where in the world is MT 3.3?!

Attention to the details

What about the code?

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