Today’s Update Brought to You By the Letter

β

In our last update, Les hinted that the next update on ExpressionEngine 2.0’s progress would be more significant than the last few, which have been pretty standard fare, letting you know that we were progressively on the march and happy with where we were.  But this week we’ve crossed a major milestone and I’ve crawled from the icy confines of the Fortress of Solitude to bring you this news: our focus is now shifted to beginning a beta program.

The beta for ExpressionEngine 2.0 will be conducted in multiple phases, the first of which is invitation-only (but don’t worry, it’s short!).  This first phase of the beta will begin in early July and include Team Kaylee (our developer preview participants), the Pro Network, and a short list of private invitations, such as those who won at last year’s ExpressionEngine Roadshow.

The second phase will be a semi-open beta. Participants will be determined via an application process. We’ll post the details on what we’re looking for here on the EE Blog. We hope to keep the time between phases short, but please understand that the intention is to have a high-quality beta process, which may require extending the time between phases. We will keep the community informed here on the Blog, as always.  And don’t worry, the criteria will not be as tightly focused as the developer preview.  We will be pulling from all segments of our community.

During the beta, participants will be under a loose NDA, but unlike Kaylee, will be able to use the software on live, non-critical or personal sites, and will have access to a 2.0 bug tracker and specific support forum.  In addition to updates as the phases open, keep in expectation of our biweekly updates on the overall progress; we’re still not spinning up the Van de Graaff just yet.