Staff Diary: v2.0 Cycle

Blind

Also, I believe that the most important thing for version 2.0 is to immediately design a mascot for Flarum! 😘
It should be simple and cute enough. As far as I know, many people who don't use GO and Rust have bought merchandise featuring their somewhat strange but very cute blue hamster and red crab mascots. This has become a sort of meme.

tankerkiller125

Zeokat Pretty much everyone I know ends up adding https://launchpad.net/~ondrej/+archive/ubuntu/php to their sources and using it for PHP including on LTS.

It updates faster, always has the latest versions of PHP (and the older ones), and has all the important PHP extensions too.

SychO

Hey there!

Over the past two weeks (weeks 7 & 8), I've been making steady progress on code splitting, which has turned out to be quite a complex task - probably one of the most intricate assignments I've encountered while working on Flarum. The good news is that I'm anticipating its completion by next week, and then it will be ready for review.

With code splitting, we'll be able to defer loading certain components, such as multiple modals and user pages, until they are actually needed by the end user. This optimization will reduce the bundle size, and improve loading times. The more extensions someone installs, the larger the JS bundle size becomes. So, code splitting will have the best effect when used wisely by extension developers.

If you're interested in diving into the nitty-gritty details, you can check out the technical changes on GitHub here: flarum/framework3857. Don't worry though, the official documentation on this topic will be much more user-friendly, especially tailored for extension developers.

🏃

dragsugur

do we have any eta?

tankerkiller125

dragsugur More than likely 2.0 is a 2024 at the earliest kind of thing. No precise ETA.

luceos

A PR to packagist was merged which reduces the number of mails we get from them to protect our trademark, this feature was introduced over a year ago and has been very efficient in tracing abuse of the Flarum name in the php world.

Reference composer/packagist1388

SychO

Hello 👋,

In the last two weeks (9 & 10) the work on code splitting was finalized and merged into the 2.x branch (for those interested here is the documentation on it: flarum/docs461), we will likely come back to it again as we get to test things more in the future. But that's one less task on the roadmap.

Ian is gonna be picking up on the work on the GDPR extension and email unsubscribe links.
While I am looking into some issues that have been popping up with every minor/patch Laravel update. We have decided to make some architectural changes to the software to be more compatible with Laravel and therefore reduce the likelihood for similar issues in the future, but also to take more advantage of what Laravel has to offer.

Till next update!

luceos

The progress on 2.0 is very consistent, thanks to the NLnet and ngi zero entrust fund, which is guaranteeing the time invested by both @IanM and @SychO is paid for.

2.0 will bring many improvements to Flarum, the code splitting feature for instance will guarantee a reduced hit to performance the more extensions you install. I am more than excited that this feature has finally made it into Flarum.

Another thing we're trying to tackle is to have Flarum adopt more of the internals of Laravel. Reducing our distance from this amazing framework is not easy, as Flarum was initially designed to be lean and simple, using the smallest libraries and packages possible. But closing this gap will definitely boost adoption, as Laravel developers will find it easier to start developing for Flarum.

All these improvements are massive changes to how Flarum behaved in 1.x. And as a consequence it is more than likely that a majority - if not all - extensions compatible with 1.x are going to break for 2.0. I am sure you understand we aren't too happy about this either, but to innovate and to improve, we have to make sacrifices. In the past, during the 1.0 release, we raised a fund to pay developers who assisted in upgrading the most used extensions under the Friends of Flarum (see https://opencollective.com/flarum/projects/fof-v1). Rest assured that a similar fundraiser will be held for the 2.0 release.

Wlork

luceos And as a consequence it is more than likely that a majority - if not all - extensions compatible with 1.x are going to break for 2.0.

Thank you for alerting us. I'll probably wait until all the extensions are compatible before migrating to 2.0.

meihuak

when will v2.0 be ready? I look forward to update it soon

luceos

meihuak v2.0 will definitely be something for 2024, not 2023.

meihuak

luceos before v2.0 there will be no new version, right?

tolgaaaltas

luceos Apologies if it's been shared before, how percentage complete is Flarum 2.0? It is not possible to understand the process with Github Milestones. We're almost halfway through this year, and I'm curious not because I'm impatient, but because I want to see what great work the team has accomplished.

luceos

meihuak no planned releases. Maybe a security patch if we have to.

Prcek

Zeokat Not the issue, sir. Use PHP in docker.

SychO

A security issue was reported a few months back, the issue had been fixed in version 1.8.0, and an advisory was meant to be published to the dependency where the issue lies, but as the package seems to not be maintained anymore, we have now published an advisory on our end: https://github.com/flarum/framework/security/advisories/GHSA-67c6-q4j4-hccg.

So if you are still on Flarum 1.7 and less, please update to 1.8 where the vulnerability was patched.

Prcek

Any thoughts on the possibility of running Flarum 1x and upcoming 2x from the same data store/API/backend please?

clarkwinkelmann

Prcek what's your use case? Flarum 1.x will go out of support once 2.x releases so you will need to update. You'll have plenty of time to plan the update once the release date and upgrade guides are anounced

EDIT: just to be clear, the exact support policy has not been confirmed yet by the Flarum team. I expect there will be a short overlap period where we continue supporting 1.x with security updates while developers get their extensions working with 2.x

Lumeinshin

clarkwinkelmann That is going to be the largest concern for sites. There are some extensions I think most sites would consider themselves unable to do without and would not move until those are ported over.

Prcek

clarkwinkelmann … while developers get their extensions working with 2.x

That's exactly the case. Don't freeze on the previous version because some developers won't rush to upgrade the extension. No one wants to experience phpBB-upgrading hell again 😄

maged_qwani

Lumeinshin i totally agree with you that the best thing about using flarum software is the extensions that take off the heavy load and add power to the forum , i suggest at least a tool to use the extensions without breaking the code on flarum upgrades in the future.

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