In January I wrote about The Road to Discourse 1.0, and I mentioned that we planned to reach version 1 in “the next few months”. That time has come. I’m pleased to announce that we will leave beta and officially release Discourse V1.0 next month, sometime in July 2014.
I have not had the time to contribute, as I’d once hoped to do, but I’ve still been following this project with tremendous interest. It’s been fun watching it grow and change, and the prospect that it’s ready for release is exciting! Congratulations to everyone involved!
IPB is releasing new version very soon. They advertise it as biggest release and huge milestone for the company. They are not that competitive to Discourse, but interesting coincidence.
Why do you care how long it takes? The only thing V1.0 means is that the software gets a blessing and they increment the version counter. Discourse is still Discourse, Discourse is still going to change, and that’s a good thing.
For those anxiously awaiting the official release, I suggest you spend your time kicking the tires in every way possible.
Correct me if I’m mistaken, but the way you get Discourse set up and installed right now - with roughly 30 minutes of fairly straight forward Docker config - is exactly how it will work in 1.0 as well. So either by yourself or with the help of your more tech-savvy accomplice you can dive into the howto’s and:
Install Discourse on a VPS like DigitalOcean (there’s usually enough free credit floating around that you can get the first month for free)
Get to know the backend panel
Make sure e-mail is working properly
Make sure invites are working properly
Test the converter script if needed
Test theming
Configure logins
Try install some plugins
Figure out domain set-up
Figure out CDN
Test backups
Test multisite
Set up Discourse for development
Make your own simple plugin
There are so many golden nuggets in Discourse, I’d wager you probably won’t be aware of them all by the time Stable is ready.
How much documentation can we expect with the V1.0 release? I’d like to use it for a project but the lack of a well documented API for plugins really is a deal breaker. Plugins are really really really important.
That’s really the only thing holding me back for now. Other than that is looks like an amazing piece of software!