Simple Machines is pleased to announce the release of SMF 2.1 RC2. This second release candidate includes a number of bug fixes and improvements to security, stability, and performance. Notable improvements since RC1 include:
- A fix for a bug that prevented background tasks, including sending notifications and alerts, from completing.
- Improvements to the theme templates.
- Database query improvements and optimizations.
- Improvements to the upgrader, including more graceful recovery if corrupted data is encountered.
- Efficiency improvements to the image proxy.
- Security improvements for PHP 5.x.
- 4-byte Unicode characters are handled correctly even on databases that do not support them.
- SMF's Like button will not be hidden by ad blockers.
- The obsolete Yahoo Messenger profile field has been dropped.
- The default list of holidays now extends until 2030.
- Sizes of uploaded files are calculated correctly.
- Implements permissions system for BBCodes. (Mostly useful for custom BBCodes.)
- Some bugs in the editor have been fixed.
- Ampersands no longer break the post preview function.
- Desktop alert counter always reports the correct number.
You can read about these and many other improvements in the
list of changes on GitHub.
The term "Release Candidate" means that the developers believe this version of the software is reliable enough to be installed and used on production websites. Nevertheless, you should still expect to encounter some bugs in SMF 2.1 RC2. We encourage you to report any bugs you find.
You can install SMF 2.1 RC2 as a brand new forum, or upgrade to it from SMF 2.1 RC1, SMF 2.0.15, or any prior version. You can obtain an install or upgrade package from the
download page. You can read
Installing and Upgrading SMF in the Online Manual to learn more.
Modification and theme authors are encouraged to check the roadmap for our upcoming
development milestones when deciding how to update their modifications and themes for SMF 2.1.
Finally, as always, this announcement topic is not for support. Discussion and support for SMF 2.1 can be found in the
SMF 2.1 support board.
Special thanks are due to all of the
team members and
code contributors whose fantastic work has made this possible. We greatly appreciate the time, energy, and contributions that they have given to the SMF project.
Thank you for using SMF!
Kind regards,
Simple Machines
