Tiki 27.0 LTS: A Leap Forward for Collaborative Software

Gary Cunningham-Lee - 12 Jul 2024 15:00 GMT-0000

The Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware community is excited to announce the release of Tiki 27.0 LTS. This Long-Term Support (LTS) version, which promises to be a game-changer for those anticipating the feature enhancements, will be supported until June 2029.

Tiki 27.0 LTS is not a typical LTS release, which usually focuses on refining features rather than introducing major changes. This time, the Tiki developers have implemented significant updates, including Smarty 5 and a new build system. These enhancements are steps in a continuum, with more major changes coming in Tiki 28. The effort from Tiki 24 LTS to Tiki 27 LTS represents, by far, the most development work (quantity, complexity, and repayment of technical debt) that has gone into Tiki between any two LTS releases, including thousands of code commits and the most challenging PHP upgrade in Tiki's 20+ year history. Thanks to EvoluData and all the Tiki developers who made this possible.

This version supports PHP 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3, along with MariaDB 10.5+ and MySQL 8+, ensuring compatibility with the latest server technologies.

Major enhancements

These are some of the features receiving major enhancements: Tiki's API functionality was expanded to support data and system management for Internet of Things (IoT) networks. Major changes were made in calendar event handling, recurring events, and the ability to specify periods of user availability when creating events and to specify appointment slots. And the Markdown editing experience was made more user-friendly while retaining compatibility with traditional Tiki syntax, via the TOAST UI editor. Webmail has also been enhanced as Cypht was upgraded from version 1.4x to 2.0x.

Continuous improvement

Along with the move forward in PHP version support, the Smarty template engine was updated from version 4 to 5. In other areas, the search feature, including semantic search, have been enhanced, and the onsite user-mentions feature has been improved with new features . . . .

In the realm of Internet of Things (IoT), Tiki 27 has made strides in API functionality to support IoT network deployments. Additionally, the calendar event handling has undergone a major overhaul, with CRUD operations now processed through the built-in caldav server, streamlining event scheduling and iTIP message generation.

Privacy-conscious users will appreciate the introduction of private calendars, accessible only to the creator and calendar admins. The new permission system offers granular control over features like PDF generation.

The user experience has been enhanced with a more user-friendly Markdown editing interface via TOAST UI, improved user mentions feature, and upgraded Cypht to version 2.0.x, bringing a host of enhancements to the webmail functionality.

Wiki plugins (native code to simplify or extend wiki editing) always get attention for new releases. For Tiki 27, functionality has been expanded in PluginSurvey, and PluginTour has been updated as Bootstrap Tour is replaced with driver.js. And now PluginList supports sublists.

One of the notable improvements is the stricter reporting of errors and warnings, a move that will pave the way for performance enhancements. The upgrade to PHPUnit 10 marks a milestone for PHP-based software testing, requiring multiple code commits to accommodate updates from various dependencies.

Modernized development and maintenance environment

Tiki 27 was produced by a new build system that requires node.js to run setup.sh for new installations or upgrades done via git. (Installations via package downloads or web hosting control panels are done as before.) This build system is detailed on the Tiki development site. The new system follows through on a plan to reorganize Tiki's file structure to store custom files, such as for custom themes, separately from project files for simplified site maintenance, relocation, and so on. And several new commands have been added to the console.

Looking forward

With Tiki 27.0 LTS now released, the community looks forward to sharing the benefits of these advancements with current and future Tiki users. With a focus on performance, usability, security, and cutting-edge features, Tiki continues to solidify its position as "the Open Source no-code/low-code web application framework for when a standard CMS isn't enough".

For more information. please visit https://doc.tiki.org/Tiki 27. Developers and users can track the progress and contribute to the development at https://dev.tiki.org/Tiki 27. Please report any issues at https://dev.tiki.org/Make a Wish and, to ask questions or give feedback, please come to Tiki's Matrix chatroom. To look into paid assistance, please visit the consultants page. For enterprise-level support, please contact EvoluData, whom we would like to thank again for their continuing support of the Tiki project.

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Major enhancements

Continuous improvement

Modernized development and maintenance environment

Looking forward