If you’re into blogging and host your own blog, you are aware of the need for MySQL databases when you install most blogging platforms, and this is because most blogging programs, and indeed most content management systems store their data in a database. This is generally not a problem because most web hosts offer MySQL databases. But there are situations where you may not have or want to use a database.
Flatpress is a standard-compliant multi-lingual extensible blogging engine which does not require a database to work. Better yet, it’s open source. FlatPress stores all of its content on text files and therefore you don’t need a MySQL database. Installing it is a breeze, and you can get several themes to work with. Theming is done with Smarty and PHP, and the Wiki on the official Flatpress site has some useful information on this and other topics. There are a good number of plugins available, including Akismet, Categories, Calender, etc. Flatpress also has the ability to use widgets using the blockparser plugin.
All in all, FlatPress looks like it’s worth exploring, and is something I will be looking at and playing with more.
Have you used or do you use FlatPress? Please share your thoughts and experiences with us.
I am very happily using FlatPress here – http://www.moviestormblog.com – for a corporate blog about Moviestorm (software for machinima, previsualization and 3D animation) – and it’s working like a charm. Installation was a breeze and the guy behind FlatPress was incredibly helpul with regard to some specific questions and specialized customization.
Tari,
Thanks for sharing your site. Very nice, you have a very good looking blog.
How easy was it to integrate the other elements, the forum, site, and the rest? Also, how do you find the performance of your flatpress blog in terms of loading speed and such?
thanks again.
i have been using flatpress a whole year now. i am very happy about it. i like being able 2 use BBCODE and/or XHTML… and do my own customization on an open source CMS w/o having 2 cope w/installing MYSQL.
surfer,
thanks for sharing your experience. BBCODE does make formatting content pretty easy.
Can you share your url and maybe some of the customizations you’ve made?
thanks
i am pretty much satisfied with flatpress, and successfully using it since quietsome time.
I think FlatPress is great, and the developer is always helpful. It’s very stable, very fast, and dead easy to install. I’ve used it for a number of sites now – so I’m getting to know my way around it’s “innards” (and learning a lot in the process).
It’s very customisable once you figure out the Smarty templating system – which isn’t too difficult. Maybe this link will help someone – it’s one of the easiest-to-follow guides to how Smarty works that I’ve seen.
http://devzone.zend.com/article/1238
Thanks for the link Paul. I love devzone tuts, they really explain things well.