Work Well Underway for V5.2

Or is that version 5.1.2? Actually, we are not sure at this point what the version will be called. In our development environments, its called 5.2.0, but the jury is still out. Why? Well, since the release of 5.0, we want to focus on smaller, more frequent, focused releases instead of very large, complex releases that take a long time to bring new functionality to users. We have not set a release date for the next version yet, but it will certainly be this Summer.

So what will be in the next version?

Authorizations/Permissions updates for one. Over the years, we have had requests for some new authorizations and at least some of them will make an appearance. These include new authorizations for editing topic tags, allowing only the topic starter to reply to topics (and mods/admins of course), and allowing only users and admins/mods to see a users post. Additionally, the display of authorizations within a permission set in the admin and profile is getting an overhaul. As authorizations have been added to core and via plugins, the ability to find or see the various authorizations in the display has gotten confusing. We are introducing authorization categories which will allow us to group like authorizations together so make viewing and understanding them easier.

A few other nuggets that will be in the next version include ability to restrict RSS feeds to new topics in a group/forum, a blacklist of user account names, display name and guest names, trying to preserver a user’s new post list across sessions to improve performance, improved nofollow options on some links, and further search enhancements. These items are on our current list for the next version (along with a bunch others) but things may change before release so don’t hold us to it! 😉

Another item planned for the next version that we have been talking about for some time and really hope to knock out is improved mobile support. This item is still in the discussion and planning stage so not exactly sure what form it will take, but it will certainly include a mobile enhanced SP theme. This is long overdue and highest item on our list so I would be surprised if something doesn’t make it into this version.

Additionally, we are planning some updates to plugins like the file uploader, private messaging, captcha, blog linking and the admin bar. We know what we want to do, just need the time to make the improvements. Again, the list is subject to change as the next version progresses.

I can say for sure that we will be releasing two new plugins as part of the next version. We have talked about these before and had hoped to release them shortly after 5.1.1 but in testing and making some improvements, they have become tied to the hip with the next version. These two new plugins will be Post By Email and Polls. Both are running live on our support site and helping us collect data on them. So far so good. We need to do some more testing on creating new topics with the Post by Email plugin as well as uploading attachments with it. A third new plugin we hope to release is one that was started by a user way back in the 5.0 alpha testing period. Its integration of the WP Cubepoints plugin with Simple Press. The user got it started, but has since abandoned it so we have picked up and will be finishing/improving it and hope to release it with the next version.

And of course, there will be a few bug fixes in the the next version too. This includes an issue with adding moderators, searching tags and topic status and some functionality that wasn’t working quite right in the iForum theme (captcha, profile css, syntax highlighting, and post preview).

As always, you can follow along with our development on our bug tracker page. See ya on the next update!