Composr 11 alpha1 released

Version 11 alpha1 has now been released. This version is an alpha release of the next major version of Composr. Upgrading to this release is unrecommended for live sites, v10 sites, or v11 sites running off of git.

To upgrade follow the steps in your website's http://mybaseurl/upgrader.php script. You will need to copy the URL of the attached file (created via the form below) during step 4.

A database upgrade is required for this release. Be sure to run step 6 ("Do a database upgrade") in the upgrader after step 4 and, if applicable, step 5.

A block file is missing: composr_homesite_make_upgrader (sources/blocks/composr_homesite_make_upgrader.php or an overridden equivalent to this path)

Please be aware that this is an alpha version! Many bugs have not been fixed yet. Please report bugs and issues on the tracker at https://compo.sr/report-issue.htm or https://compo.sr/tracker/. Most notably, we are aware of the following:
  • You probably cannot yet upgrade a v10 site to v11.
  • The new template editor is still very buggy.
  • Mass updating of non-bundled addons through the addon management screen will work for most, but not all, addons. You will have to manually download and import addons that will not update.
  • The points leader-board sometimes does not generate.
  • The code is not up to Composr standards yet; we will be fixing code quality issues over the course of the next alpha version.
  • The following may not work on PHP 8: anything using ZIP, some non-bundled addons (especially WebDav); we expect the core Composr software to be compatible up to PHP 8.3 (but a stray deprecation warning may pop up; please report these to the tracker). You will still get a warning about PHP 8 being untested since we are not fully confident in its compatibility yet.
  • There may be some weird theme issues including console errors; please report these to the tracker.
  • Composr may cause Apache crashes on Windows (especially AMPPS) when trying to compile JavaScript or CSS if Apache has a low thread tolerance.
- Composr 11 has not been tested on MacOS yet.

There have been many changes in version 11 compared to version 10. Here are some of the most notable changes:
  • Brand new modern and responsive default theme
  • Brand new JavaScript framework for Composr which virtually eliminates many injection attack vectors
  • Major changes to the theme system including new theme options which can be overridden by theme
  • Better theme wizard colour equations (including better dark mode support) for visibility
  • New template editor (still a WIP with many bugs)
  • Improved optimisations and caches
  • New display screens / modes for galleries, news, catalogues, and more
  • Points escrowing (members can send points to another member, held in escrow until a written agreement is satisfied between the members, with the ability to dispute them to staff)
  • Voting power feature to weigh topic poll votes according to a member's points balance
  • Topic poll re-theming
  • Improvements to the antispam options
  • Upgrader improvements to better support rolling releases (e.g. releasing new features and database changes over time)
  • More strict Content Security Policies
  • Site-wide announcement messages
  • More logging for debug purposes (Admin Zone > Audit > Low-level logging)
  • A user interface for monitoring scheduled tasks and running individual tasks manually
  • A complete rewrite of the statistics system, now utilising KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and ChartJS graphs
  • eCommerce improvements especially with invoicing
  • Points ledger for monitoring every points transaction that takes place (including the ability to reverse transactions e.g. abuse)
  • Improvements to the warnings system (ability to reverse point transactions as a punitive action, improvements to content / post deletion for spam, ability to auto-generate punitive action text in Private Topics separate from saved messages / explanations, improved interface for viewing warnings / logs and reversing individual actions, hooks functionality to make your own addons which define other punitive actions)
  • Improvements to health checks; health check is now a bundled addon and regularly maintained
  • New privacy tools (staff can purge / anonymise personal data based on search criteria or get SQL queries to find said data; members can download or purge their data from their profile [inclusion of personal / uploaded files in the data downloads is coming in the future])
  • Many more changes and fixes!

Special thanks to these individuals who contributed code to the git repository for this release:
  • Patrick Schmalstig
  • Chris Graham
  • Salman Abbas
Edited

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Composr 11 alpha2 released