Here is a screen shot of the default theme:

This version is going to have a lot of changes from v1 and I will list the most notable below:

• New tag based themes
• New add-on architecture to allow new code to be added easily
• New admin layout
• New user system
• Uses a completely new repo on GitHub

I am sure I am leaving some things out but feel free to download it and have a go. Hopefully you will like it.

As you may have noticed this week we totally redesigned our site and are now working on a new release of 68kb. In this release we are cleaning up a bunch of code and totally rewriting most of the system to work with CodeIgniter’s latest release.

Not only are we rewriting a lot but also adding some of the most requested features. Right now we are getting close to having a beta available of this but there are still a few features we want to add in. The reason I am writing this is really for two reasons. Number one is we are interested in getting a select few users who wouldn’t mind beta testing this new version, and number two to keep everyone updated with what is going on with the script.

If you are interested in doing some beta testing please reply here and I will get in touch once we get closer to a final product. We will also be posting some more posts about some of the new features. So stay tuned and be sure and subscribe to our rss feed.

The reason for the delay is we have other commercial software and released a new major version of it earlier in the year. Since that time we have been busy keeping up with demand which is a great thing.

After the July 4th holiday (We are in the USA) development will be picking back up again and we will be moving toward getting v1.0 released some time this year.

For 68 KB we are now changing the licensing and going with the New BSD license. This means it will be open source and available for free. Since we are now going open source we have moved the files over to Google Code so you can access the SVN repository and always see what is going on. Here is the link to our project page: http://code.google.com/p/68kb/

Although the SVN side of things will be moved to Google Code we do plan to keep our forums and knowledge base hosted here on 68kb.com.

I want to thank everyone that has downloaded 68KB and for using it.

Before I was manually inserting the queries and prefixing the tables by pulling out the prefix value from the database settings. Now I no longer have to do this and the install runs a whole lot smoother. For us probably the biggest advantage to this system is now when you install the knowledge base the database tables have the charset that you enter in the config file. This should make the whole system more multi-lingual and available to more people.

Also this should allow for support for multiple database types besides just MySQL. Although currently we are only going to officially support MySQL but who knows what the future holds since the Sun buy out.

I am still very excited about the 1.6 release of CodeIgniter and I am really glad we decided to develop our script on top of it.

From looking through the change log I do not see any issues that will make this a difficult transformation but I do see a lot of neat little features that will benefit both the development and you. I should be able to give more details on these once we get everything updated.

Based off the beta testers feedback we have added these new features:

• Captcha for contact form
• New variable in config.php for attachment file types
• Attachments are now uploaded to uploads/articleid
• Added search log
• Created a cookie filter for article views. Now each user is only counted once.

Upgrading

To upgrade from b1 (0.0.1) to this release (0.0.2) you should follow the instructions here:
http://68kb.com/knowledge-base/article/upgrading-instructions

Also you will need to edit the includes/application/config/config.php and add this line:

$config['attachment_types'] = "gif|jpg|png|zip|txt|pdf";

Change Log

Because this is still a beta release a full change log will not be included. However the following files have been added:

• templates/admin/default/stats/searchlog.php (added)
• templates/front/default/printer.php (added)

Notes:

If you find any bugs please report them in our bug tracker.

If you need any support please visit our user forums. The login is the same as you use in our customer area.

I also found an AppleScript named SVN Zapper from Alex King that appears to do the same thing.

Per Version

The per version pricing is the way most of the bigger companies price. For example Adobe Photoshop, you can purchase the latest edition and use it forever but to get the latest edition you have to pay an upgrade price.

In my opinion this pricing model benefits the customer more than the company because you can pay once and never have to pay again if you do not need the latest edition.

One Time With Renewals

This pricing scheme is you pay once then have a fee every year to continue to recieve updates and support. From what I have seen this is what most small businesses use because the company continues to get some type of recurring income to help them stay a float and the customer only has to pay a small fee which makes the overall cost of ownership pretty low. The downside to this model is keeping up with who has paid and if they have a valid renewal.

Monthly

This is normally a hosted application that you would pay monthly for. This is a big benefit for the company because they do not have to worry about theft and they continue to receive monthly income while you use the product. Of course the company would also have a larger expensive in servers and bandwidth.

Free with paid support

Free or open source product but you do not receive any support unless you pay for it. This scheme is really in the favor of the customer because they may never have to pay a dime if they do not need any support.

As you can see there are lots of different pricing schemes and although each has advantages and disadvantages I personally like the first two options the best. I believe they have the biggest benefit to both the company and the customer.

$autoload['language'] = array('kb');

Now my language file is auto loaded and anywhere I need a string of text I use:

 echo $this->lang->line('kb_hello');

The only downside is it is a lot more coding than just writing “Hello” but in the end it is worth the extra time to add features like this and it keeps you from having to edit the template files just to change the wording.