Phorum-5.2.8 final released

We are happy to announce our latest stable release Phorum-5.2.8.
It is a bug fix release over 5.2.7 fixing lots of issues found.

Some new things were put in too.
This includes:
- the rewrite of the bbcode module done through the MySQL-conference this year
- new APIs for Ajax usage and newflags
- some more hooks for better module integration
- updated / new documentation from Andy Taylor - mostly in FAQ and Admin Docs.

You can download it from our downloads page.

This is the excerpt from the changelog:

2008-07-22 07:23  mmakaay
	* Suppress output from the memcache cache layer for cases where
	  connecting to the memcached server fails. This prevents memcached
	  problems from breaking the page ("headers already sent".)
	  Additionally, the inline documentation was updated.

   2008-07-18 13:28  mmakaay
	* Fixed #772: possible corruption of serialized custom field data
	  (reported by Jonhoo).

   2008-07-15 18:11  brian
	* Fix for #731. Strip DESCRIPTION for search page

   2008-07-15 18:07  brian
	* moving the 5.2.x tags to the 5.2 dir

   2008-07-04 16:48  ts77
	* use display_name for reporter as suggested by Oliver Riesen
	  (fixing #761)

   2008-07-04 15:49  ts77
	* same date formatting in read templates as suggested by Oliver
	  Riesen (#749)

   2008-07-02 18:39  mmakaay
	* Fixed an incompatibility between file downloads with the "only
	  from this forum" restriction, in combination with URI
	  authentication. Before this fix, access for downloading the image
	  would be denied, even though the file was downloaded directly from
	  the forum. # Also a typo-fix-of-the-day change (learned that it is
	  "existent" :-).

   2008-07-01 14:30  mmakaay
	* Fixed a compatibility problem between the new BBcode module and
	  PHP versions prior to 5.1.0. The PHP function
	  htmlspecialchars_decode() is not available for those versions of
	  PHP. Thanks to Adam for noticing the problem and for providing a
	  work-around!

   2008-06-25 21:14  ts77
	* fixed undefined index in event_logger module (#748, reported by
	  Oliver Riesen)

   2008-06-25 21:07  ts77
	* stripped quotes from plain-text forum description as suggested by
	  Oliver Riesen (#743)

   2008-06-25 20:53  ts77
	* added line-height for thread options as suggested by Oliver Riesen
	  (#730)

   2008-06-25 20:20  ts77
	* made users tz_offset a float value for non-integer timezones

   2008-06-17 11:19  mmakaay
	* The "Force hiding of email addresses" option is now only
	  applicable to regular forum users. Administrators and moderators
	  can always see the email addresses of the users. For moderators,
	  this can be restricted by setting the PHORUM_MOD_EMAIL_VIEW
	  constant to false in include/constants.php. Some more fine grained
	  control for email address displaying will be added to Phorum 5.3.

   2008-06-16 10:15  ts77
	* quote anonymous authors with their name (fixing #744)

   2008-06-16 09:59  ts77
	* sort strictly by datestamp to get the recent_post (fixing #755)

   2008-06-16 09:32  ts77
	* added user's posts to edit screen (readonly), fixing #759

   2008-06-16 09:06  mmakaay
	* Another fix for #765: UTF-8 byte order markers at the start of
	  template files are now stripped by include/templates.php.

   2008-06-16 08:20  mmakaay
	* Fix for #765: catch the output of include files
	  (include/db/config.php, include/lang/* and
	  templates/*/settings.tpl) to prevent extra output like UTF-8 byte
	  order markers from breaking the pages.

   2008-06-13 18:28  ts77
	* case insensitive search for block tags in html module (fixing
	  #760)

   2008-06-05 00:21  mmakaay
	* Implemented some improvements for the Editor Tools module as
	  suggested by David King (phorum.org user "Optimal") and Oliver
	  Riesen. The behavior when adding tags using the buttons is now
	  much better. The textarea won't scroll up anymore if it is
	  scrolled downwards a bit and the text that was selected previously
	  to adding the tag will be reselected after adding the tag.

   2008-06-03 09:41  mmakaay
	* Fixed a bug in handling stale close tags that directly follow
	  another open or close tag. Thanks to CBiLL for the problem report.
	  The related error message was: Unsupported operand types in
	  [..]/bbcode/api.php

   2008-06-02 08:09  mmakaay
	* Fix for #762: moved pm_sent hook to always trigger the hook after
	  a sent PM. Before, it would not trigger if the PM mail
	  notification was disabled.

   2008-05-27 20:34  mmakaay
	* Improved handling of stale close tags in the text and fixed a PHP
	  undefined index warning along with it. Thanks to CBiLL for the
	  problem report.

   2008-05-25 22:58  mmakaay
	* MFT: # Undefined indexes fixed.

   2008-05-25 11:57  mmakaay
	* Added the conference 2008 rewrite release of the BBcode module to
	  the tree.

   2008-05-25 09:35  mmakaay
	* Added javascript_filter hook (for things like javascript
	  compression). Added a refresh=1 parameter for javascript.php to
	  let it ignore the cache.

   2008-05-19 15:51  mmakaay
	* The javascript.php script automatically loads the Ajax client
	  code, so modules can be sure that they can make use of it and
	  don't have to load it specifically. Templates can now contain a
	  "javascript.tpl", which is loaded in by the javascript.php code
	  automatically. This corresponds to the way that the CSS code works
	  (where you can create a "css.tpl").

   2008-05-13 03:51  ataylor
	* Added File Path block

   2008-05-08 15:00  mmakaay
	* Added a new API layer for handling JSON data (final goal: Ajax
	  layer)

   2008-05-08 14:56  mmakaay
	* Added a new API layer for newflags handling.

   2008-05-03 13:53  mmakaay
	* Backported the phorum_switch_template() function from trunk to
	  5.2. This new function makes it possible to switch the active
	  Phorum template to a template that is stored in any directory.
	  This is for example useful if a module includes a full Phorum
	  template, where the template is packaged with the module code.
	  With this new function, the Phorum can activate the module's
	  template without the need for the admin to copy the template to
	  the main templates directory.

   2008-04-29 16:41  mmakaay
	* Fixed #740: Mark read in folder (classic index) goes back to root
	  (thanks Oliver!)

   2008-04-29 16:03  mmakaay
	* Fixed #754: Display name filter was not included in pagination
	  (thanks Oliver!)

   2008-04-29 16:01  mmakaay
	* Fixed #738: problems with German help file for smileys module
	  (thanks Oliver!)

   2008-04-29 15:54  mmakaay
	* Fixed #757: Fixed typo in hook call for "posting_permissions"
	  (thanks Alexey)

   2008-04-17 15:24  ts77
	* use the correct default language for announcement conversion
	  (fixing #734)

   2008-04-03 08:42  mmakaay
	* Fixed #735: Added missing backslash in JavaScript code (thanks to
	  Oliver Riesen)

   2008-03-23 00:24  mmakaay
	* Fixed spam flagging by SpamAssassin for rule
	  SUBJECT_NEEDS_ENCODING. This prevents spam flagging of mail in
	  case the admin uses a name that contains special characters in the
	  "System Emails From Name" field. Encoding was implemented using
	  the Quoted-Printable description from RFC 2045.

   2008-03-21 11:25  mmakaay
	* Fixed spam flagging by SpamAssassin for rule FROM_BLANK_NAME
	  (From: contains empty name). This prevents spam flagging of mail
	  in case the admin did not fill in the "System Emails From Name"
	  field. This resulted in a header like: From: ""
	  <admin@example.com>

   2008-03-21 11:16  mmakaay
	* Fixed spam flagging by SpamAssassin for rule MSGID_FROM_MTA_HEADER
	  (Message-Id was added by a relay). This prevents spam flagging of
	  mail messages that are not sent for new message notification (for
	  those we already generated a Message-Id header).

---

Thomas Seifert
Phorum Development Team / Phorum-Support.de
Custom Phorum DevelopmentPersonal Blog

Thomas,

The .tar.gz and .tar.bz2 are acting weird in Firefox, instead of downloading it, the browser is displaying funky characters. I right clicked and downloaded the .tar.gz but there's nothing in it. The .zip looks fine.

Thanks for the new release.

--
Bert Garcia - When all you have is a keyboard

thanks for the pointer, that was a webserver configuration issue which should be solved now.

---

Thomas Seifert
Phorum Development Team / Phorum-Support.de
Custom Phorum DevelopmentPersonal Blog

Here's the PHPXref of Phorum v5.2.8.

Generated: Tue Jul 29 09:36:16 2008 in 40 seconds
Files scanned: 972
Lines scanned: 143701
Variables: 2137 variable names in 6347 definitions and 38797 references
Functions/Methods: 1228 function/method names in 1223 definitions and 10218 references
Classes: 72 class names in 73 definitions and 278 references
Constants: 297 constant names in 318 definitions and 8718 references

--
Bert Garcia - When all you have is a keyboard

So. . . another great release, but . . .

Quote
The Phorum Team
This support forum actually runs Phorum 5.2.8-RC2.

Also, as long as I am playing the squeaky wheel, I'm not sure that "actually runs" is the best phrase to use. I think it would better read "is currently running" or simply "runs". Just a thought from an anal editor from across the pond ;-)

---

Joe Curia (aka Azumandias)
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done, thanks for the heads up.

---

Thomas Seifert
Phorum Development Team / Phorum-Support.de
Custom Phorum DevelopmentPersonal Blog

Quote
Azumandias
across the pond

That is the key I think. This expression is actually common to me.

Brian - Cowboy Ninja Coder - Personal Blog - Twitter

Even as a guy who is actually from across the pond as well, I find it a standard expression. The "is currently running" would be okay too. However, "runs" would be wrong in my opinion, because to me it would mean that it runs that version and that it will be running that version forever.

---

Maurice Makaay
Phorum Development Team
my blog linkedin profile secret sauce

blergh, change it if you want to.

---

Thomas Seifert
Phorum Development Team / Phorum-Support.de
Custom Phorum DevelopmentPersonal Blog

I hate to do this in the announcements forum, but I did say anal. . .

Yes the word is actually used often, but with a slightly different meaning (as demonstrated in this sentence) than the word currently. From the American Heritage Dictionary:
Actually:

1. In fact; in reality: That tree is actually a fir, not a pine.
2. Used to express wonder, surprise, or incredulity: I actually won the lottery!

It is this element of incredulity or contrast that has always stopped me up when reading that the Phorum site is actually running such and such a version. I have often wanted to ask what version you thought we users had claimed it was running.

Now, to be fair, your usage does appear, but as the third definition on WordNet (from Princeton University):

1. in actual fact; "to be nominally but not actually independent"; "no one actually saw the shark"; "large meteorites actually come from the asteroid belt"
2. used to imply that one would expect the fact to be the opposite of that stated; surprisingly; "you may actually be doing the right thing by walking out"; "she actually spoke Latin"; "they thought they made the rules but in reality they were only puppets"; "people who seem stand-offish are in reality often simply nervous"
3. at the present moment; "the transmission screen shows the picture that is actually on the air"

Again, it is the first two uses which cause me to criticize the use of the word here. The word "currently" has none of the misleading connotations that "actually" has.

Anyways, sorry for the rant and keep up the great coding ;-)

---

Joe Curia (aka Azumandias)
Modules: l0Admin Mass Email00000000l000000Check Modules for Upgrades0000External Authentication0000Group Auto-Email00000.00000Private Message Alerts
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The truth is that the expression is a hold over from when the supports forums started running version 5 alpha. It was meant to show that we trusted our alpha code. So, in that context, it did meet your requirements. I guess this means we need to start running 5.3 trunk =)

Brian - Cowboy Ninja Coder - Personal Blog - Twitter

Now we're talking! ;-)

---

Maurice Makaay
Phorum Development Team
my blog linkedin profile secret sauce

I would love to see that. Be prepared for some constant nagging though :)

Quote
Phorum Users
When will 5.3 be ready?

Quote
Phorum Team
When it is.

Quote
Phorum Users
Is it ready yet?

Quote
Phorum Team
Have we said it is ready?

Quote
Phorum Users
How about now?

Quote
Phorum Team
Every minute we spend replying to these questions is a minute we can't spend writing code

Quote
Phorum Users
That wasn't a no, so where is the download link?

. . . ad naseaum . . .

---

Joe Curia (aka Azumandias)
Modules: l0Admin Mass Email00000000l000000Check Modules for Upgrades0000External Authentication0000Group Auto-Email00000.00000Private Message Alerts
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