It's a great news !

But what about teh flatfile database ? I hope it is still there ! It is the reason why I choose Pivotx.

Bolt (and Pivot 4, most likely) will both support SQLite, which comes standard with PHP 5.3, so you should be fine.

I thought it was two different things.
So if I upgrade to PHP5 when Pivot4 is out I'll not have to take care of installing SQLite on my small ressource-limited hardware ?

cool!

I just marked October 2 in my agenda. Yay!

I will do a review on my site. Looking forward to it. Congratulations!!

Great news guys! I was working on a new set of templates but think I'll wait for 4 now.

So I'm confused. A lot of the bullets in both systems are the same. Is Bolt going to be the next blogging / lightweight version? Will my current PivotX blog be able to upgrade to it? Will it support built-in comments or do I have to rely on Disqus?

Melissa: Yes, a lot of them are the same, or similar. That's logical, since in essence they both do "content management". Bolt will indeed be the more 'lightweight version', for smaller sites with weblogs, while Pivot 4 will be more suited for larger projects.
Bolt probably won't support built-in comments. In my opinion, if you want comments on your site, you probably want to take advantage of inter-linking with other people/sites, so a third party solution like facebook comments or disqus would be a better fit anyways.

This sounds like a serious change. Hope the upgrade path will be smooth and easy for current sites. And looking forward to see what Pivot 4 will bring us.

I like the name Bolt, but there already is a cms called Bolt (www.boltcms.com)...

Correct me if I'm wrong.. but.. how can you prepare for Pivotx 4 when there is no 3?

PivotX 3 exists and has been used internally, but it will never be released.

And is it already possible to do an upgrade from PivotX to Bolt? Or to Pivot 4?
Certainly for blogs with comments, not having comments in Bolt isn't really handy when it comes to migrating. Done some tests getting my comments imported into disqus and wasn't succesful at that.

No. We haven't written an upgrade/import script yet.

Regarding the failed import of your PivotX comments into Disqus: See the last two posts of http://forum.pivotx.net/viewtopic.php?f=..

I am a bit confused as to the difference between PivotX4 and Bolt. In a one-liner explanation it would be: Pivot4 is a full-pledged CMS while Bolt is a lightweight CMS. But it doesn't tell us the whole picture.

I am looking for a CMS:
1) That doesn't have a built-in comment and trackback system - since I use Disqus (and I don't want to bother with managing spam on my end; not to mention, it adds extra load too everytime you get hit with it); and trackback is dead
2) That doesn't have a built-in stats system - since I use Google Analytics;
3) That is flexible - I like adding my own "blocks" (I don't know what you call it) so I can avoid opening my template files just to insert, say my own banner rotation snippet; or say I want to make my skin/template/theme to have it's own options if it will show 2 or 3 columns; or an XHTML or HTML version; so if someone else uses it, they don't need to ask how to do this and that, the options are just there say "Skins > Skin Options"
4) That is expandable - plugins, modules, and the likes, pretty much optional but you never know there might be one or two great ones to add in the future
5) That is controllable - for example, I don't like using RTE when posting. I like doing it the old fashioned way, straight coding style because that way I have more control over the post than what RTEs can provide. Add to that, I don't like how RTEs changes my HTML tags to their own (e.g. they like to change b to strong; or i to em which they shouldn't be doing in the first place. The writer should have the say in it if s/he wants to italize or emphasized, or to bold or to shout.)
- Can I turn-off the RTE completely? Not the "use the HTML mode", even that, last I checked the major/common RTEs, it still cleans-up my HTML. So by "turning-off" I mean, it's completely not being used when posting new blog entries. It's not possible in WordPress (so I never used it), but possible with b2evolution and QuamPlures. Is it also possible with Pivot4 and Bolt? Because, again example, I want my b element to stay as such and not turned into a strong tag. My i as-is and not converted to em because I'm not making an emphasis, I just want to italized - as per W3C.

Those are what I can think of currently.

As someone who is coming from b2evolution:
a) Why should I wait for Pivot4?
b) Why should I jump to Bolt?
c) What is in Pivot4 that isn't in Bolt, and vice versa?
d) How far can I go in Pivot4 and in Bolt?
e) You said Bolt is for "small" sites/blogs, what is "small" then?
f) You said Bolt is the "lightweight" version, how lightweight is it and what makes it lightweight? (Or putting it another way, which software was it compared to? Pivot4?)
g) Or better yet, do you have a checklist table showing the differences between the two?

I only hope you can already reveal what's in Pivot4. I'm looking at switching to your product but with Pivot4 still a few months away but Bolt already available, I am trying to find a reason (or reasons) why I should choose Bolt; or why I should wait for PivotX4.

Thank you very much.

Hi Bob,
hi Hans,

i'm really glad to hear that PivotX is still evolving like the young plant in it's logo!

There's a thing or two you should consider when you launch Pivot4:
I hate to send microblog entries to a centralized server in the usa, especially when i am half-way to instant messaging with my mates. So:
*** PLEASE talk about your plans for a mobile app that allows for uploading an image with some title and description to my blog. (Quick'n'dirty solution will do! Parsing geoTags into a Map Widget associated to a subweblog might follow as extension.)

*** Bear in mind that syndication capabilities are getting more and more relevant in peoples' cms selection process. Be sure to add the whole bunch of RSS and ICS stuff to it. And keep that Trackback link.

For now i can't wait for the release, really. Will have to spread the word!

Hi, before migrating my blog from pivotx to Bolt, I tried a vanilla installation finding many problems.
Where I can find a faq/installation guide please? Inside Pivotx forum is quite difficult due to un-usability of phpBB imho.

Bye!

PS there is also a problem with your online site http://bolt.cm/a

What are the differences between Pivot 4 and the current version of PivotX?

Is Pivot4 still alive?

could please someone from the team tell us if pivot 4 will still support installation on host with no database (sdf.org in my case). From what I understood no way Bolt will work with no database.

Thanks

Bolt works with SQLite which is an integral part of the required PHP version. Have you tested Bolt on your server? I'm not sure about Pivot 4.