miniBB version 3.4 Release Candidate 1 is being released to public today. There's a major change in the number, 'cause we need to make it notable to end users: all add-ons which will be updated for this version,
will be compliant only with this version in the future. So far there is only a majestic core release, which we strongly encourage as a new installation for every starter. Existing forum owners may wait for all add-ons update, which should be completed within 2 weeks, and upgrade to the final version, when it will be removed from a Release Candidate status. Note that this release
is stable disregarding its RC status. Whatever change may be applied, will be related only to the functions listed below.
In this version miniBB makes another big step forward, related to the
pure Unicode/UTF-8 forums, i.e. those having content written heavily using 2-bytes char languages. New functions for UTF-8 text parsing introduced, all add-ons will be updated for these functions. The new functions are about
substr_unicode, strlen_unicode, strtolower_unicode and they will replace the standard
substr, strtolower and
strlen, which were used in the core and the add-ons of the previous versions. We already extended the
Requirements page and now it's important to check for Multibyte String Functions available in your PHP configuration. MiniBB will either use those functions if they are available (that's the best and the fastest method); or if they are not, miniBB then will use its own built-in functions.
Accordingly to these functions, In the miniBB Manual, there's added a standalone chapter of
How to set up your forums properly in Unicode/UTF-8, which explains how to check and test your database and miniBB installation for the full UTF-8 compatibility. If you start the forums in UTF-8, it's important to set up everything initially so it doesn't need a change in the future, which is painful.
In this version, optional Logins via email-address were implemented; Password restoration now includes just a common message (keeping email addresses not disclosured); also there are updates related to the default and Mobile layouts, and some other fixes.
Like usually, every change comparing to the previous version, is listed in the bottom part of the
Updates History.
The
Mobile/Responsive Layout add-on has been updated immediately among this version as well. It includes some minor interface improvements, which are mostly fixes of the previous release; but also it is now compatible only with miniBB 3.4 because of the major change of the string functions in the code of
bb_plugins.php.
In the next few days or possibly couple of weeks (hopefully it won't take longer time), in this thread I will post the notes on the progress of updates of the add-ons, which will include compatibility with this release and probably some other improvements collected by the time of the previous miniBB release 3.3.
Stay tuned, and enjoy using miniBB :)
