Forum version 4.5.3 is now available for download. This release is huge, so please make sure you really check this out (ie. test) before diving into production updates as the interface has changed somewhat and there are many more options available than in previous versions. Overall, this release is a great step forward and fixes many (if not all) the previously verified issues. This release will work with DNN core versions 4.8.1 or greater.
Beyond the bug fixes, areas that were found to hinder performance in larger installations have been refactored in order to enhance performance. Another primary area of focus was the end user experience, including moderators. In order to accomodate users a move to Ajax has been implemented across the entire module. For those sites that still do not use Ajax, the module will run as expected and the user interface will look almost identical as those sites using Ajax. To accomodate feature requests, several new features have been added such as: Role Avatar support, User Banning, Post Reporting Details, Direct Post Links w/ Anchors, Admin/Moderator/User Control Panels, Per Forum RSS Enable/Disable, Support for Multiple Attachments, Support for Inline Post Image Attachments, Per Forum FROM Notification Email Addresses,
More Control Over Email Queue, Subforum Support, Thread Bookmarking, Simpler Notification Management (from a single spot), Support for Limiting Post Edit Period, My Posts Support, Search Keyword Highlighting, New Private Messaging Outbox, Jump to Last Unread Post Support, Ability to view latest threads by time frame and more.
Although the module is not used in production here, it is not because it hasn't been tested. It has successfully been upgraded against a stage dnn.com multiple times. The primary reason it has not been done yet is because of the setup of a dedicated load testing environment and the timing of this release. I have been successfully running the module without issues in several production sites for a couple months.
If you use the Extensions for the module (Latest Posts, any previous themes, etc.), you may want to hold off until Monday as I won't have this available until late Sunday for you and as per usual will then be available on www.dnnforums.com, which is also where you can preview the module using a custom theme.
I am going to keep a list of 'known' issues in a pinned thread over in the forums. I will update this when I have verified issues. You can see this here: http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Community/Forums/tabid/795/forumid/7/postid/320518/scope/posts/Default.aspx
Official Changes/Enhancements/Bugs List:
FOR-5358 - Forum Does Not Use Correct Mode When Editing Post
FOR-6488 - Search - Invalid Date Bug
FOR-6489 - Thread Move: Email Not Sending - Bug
FOR-6490 - Uninstall - Remove Remaining Items
FOR-6491 - Thread Split: Email Not Sending - Bug
FOR-6492 - Default Cache Time = -1 -
FOR-6518 - Notification not working for Single Thread Subscriptions
FOR-6537 - CSS Issue - Case Sensitive Naming
FOR-6557 - Need "My Settings" Profile Option - Disable My Post Notifications
FOR-6559 - Trusted Users See Moderation Screen, Email Sends to Mods
FOR-6561 - Enable/Disable Website Address in Forum Profile/Posts
FOR-6569 - Forum: User can post to locked thread
FOR-6571 - Forum: Mark Threads Read Issue
FOR-6572 - Forum: Manage Forum Users Issue
FOR-6573 - Forum: Manage Forums Issue
FOR-6583 - Member List: Private Messaging Issue
FOR-6585 - Corrected "Unmoderated" localization issue in forum permissions grid.
FOR-6586 - New Thread After Subscribing to Thread in Single Forum View
FOR-6598 - Unmoderated Users/Roles Not Respected
FOR-6606 - Threads View - Various Thread Filtering
FOR-6607 - Last Activity Thread Filter Option Shown to Unauthenticated Users
FOR-6611 - Post View - Unauthenticated PageSize Error
FOR-6613 - Re-Work Forum/Group Manager & Add Ajax Support
FOR-6614 - Remove Group Edit, Replace In ForumManage Page - via Ajax
FOR-6615 - Create Re-usable Admin Control Panel
FOR-6616 - Remove BadWord Edit, Replace in Manage Words
FOR-6617 - Filter Words Management - Add Ajax Support
FOR-6618 - Email Template Manager - Add Ajax Support (Disabled due to FCK Editor issues)
FOR-6619 - Forum Admin Areas - Replace Section Head w/ Tabstrip Type Interface
FOR-6620 - Admin User Manager - Ajax Support
FOR-6621 - Threadpage in URL & User Posts Per Page Clash
FOR-6622 - Threads Per Page & Various Links
FOR-6623 - User Settings - Add Ajax Support
FOR-6624 - Member List - Add Ajax Support
FOR-6628 - Threas View - Threads Per Page #'s Off Per Item
FOR-6629 - Thread View - Post Pages Count
FOR-6632 - User Settings: Ability to Enable Per Post Notify Default
FOR-6633 - Added ability to disable Self Post Notifications
FOR-6640 - Forum Module - Adjust Localized Moderation Message
FOR-6690 - Inbox - Add Ajax Handling
FOR-6691 - Added Ajax Paging Control
FOR-6692 - Added PM Post view Ajax paging support.
FOR-6694 - Post Delete - Add Ajax Support
FOR-6695 - Report Post - Add Ajax Support
FOR-6698 - Added validation for image avatar size inputs to only accept integers.
FOR-6699 - Only perform avatar resizing if the uploaded image is larger than either w or h limits.
FOR-6705 - Localized word "Page" in threads.vb.
FOR-6706 - Refactored ForumConfig class. Also did more null checks to avoid object reference issues.
FOR-6707 - Reviewed and corrected all admin input data to ensure data is valid.
FOR-6759 - Added proper support to handle deleted/unregistered users.
FOR-6796 - Corrected issue with user lookup in search area to avoid errors.
FOR-6852 - Fixed duplicate columns in Forum_GetAll sproc.
FOR-6910 - Corrected Add/Edit post not first checking to make sure user is logged in properly (logic ordering bug).
FOR-6911 - Corrected problem in RenderThread where attempting to retrieve a post colleciton item without first checking if the colleciton is empty.
FOR-6912 - Corrected caching errors (not paying attention to host settings).
FOR-7018 - User Admin - Search by Role
FOR-7053 - Added ModuleID as param for group deletion.
FOR-7054 - Hide polls row when forum type is Link. (Edit Forum)
FOR-7055 - Correct Sort Order - Forums & Groups
FOR-7060 - Added role avatar support. (Thus assigning avatars based on roles users are in)
FOR-7061 - Aggregated to Support Private Forums & Pinned Threads
FOR-7062 - Integrated support for multiple attachments.
FOR-7063 - Added per forum email support (the from address and display names). This is also handled via a new email configuration setting.
FOR-7095 - Tested and corrected thread split logic as it wasn't following all logic properly.
FOR-7096 - Added missing localization key for "Add Forum" image in Manage Forums.
FOR-7097 - Fixed missing localization items in Thread Split.
FOR-7103 - Fixed potential issue w/ PostURL used in email tokens, which alias is a child portal without "/".
FOR-7160 - Fixed problem where email address was only being displayed to moderators in profile view when user has it enabled.
FOR-7189 - Removed "[" and "]" in code in reference to columns for Oracle Data Provider support.
FOR-7697 - Fixed problem where delete email has no subject or body text.
FOR-7719 - Localized "Show No Replies" and "Show All" in thread views.
FOR-7770 - Count moderation issues were corrected by reworking view and double checking stored procedures.
FOR-7914 - Fixed layout issues in Post and Thread views (removed extra tr and added missing /table).
FOR-8009 - Fixed cancel click in User Settings when user used module action to navigate to page. (Now users NavigateURL() if referrer is nothing)
FOR-8010 - Centralized CheckFolder function for avatars. This fixed problem where avatar settings never updated and user/system avatar paths were not created in dnn file system.
FOR-8011 - Fixed "User Settings" to not show row "Enable Online Status" when users online not active.
FOR-8012 - Corrected user alias in post view horizontally aligned properly when users online in use or not.
FOR-8013 - Cached User PM New Message count to reduce db calls.
FOR-8014 - Added caching for forum and thread reads.
FOR-8015 - Corrected issue in Manage Forum Users, now it doesn't show offline image for users in grid if users online is disabled/not installed.
FOR-8016 - Passed last post tooltip through word filter, if enabled.
FOR-8017 - Cleaned up disabled HTML posting of some HTML that was sneaking through.
FOR-8018 - Applied HTML stripping for post preview in add/edit post.
FOR-8019 - Disabled Previous/Next buttons in post view if thread is pinned. (to avoid confusion).
FOR-8020 - Cloaked email in profile view to avoid SPAM bots pulling from page.
FOR-8021 - Removed file size limits for system avatars.
FOR-8022 - Made it so when avatar max upload file size is 0, any file size can be uploaded.
FOR-8284 - Removed leading/trailing spaces for searches (to avoid errors).
FOR-8627 - Optimized Search & single forum view stored procedures.
FOR-8628 - Added Comments Link in RSS if thread replies > 0
FOR-8629 - Altered Aggregated forum RSS feed link to go to new Aggregated Forum URL.
FOR-8630 - Altered RSS feed author to show the last approved post author as the author in the RSS feed.
FOR-8631 - Altered RSS feed so that last approved post posted date is used as the date for the feed.
FOR-8876 - Add "Reply" button in post view next to "New Thread" - for usability. (Made reply to initial post to keep threaded structure)
FOR-8918 - Added Sub-Forum support. (NOTE: Parent forum cannot contain any posts, can only contain sub-forums)
FOR-8919 - Altered search to return posts, includes total results and highlighting of words used (as well as hits in search)
FOR-8920 - Added "View Unread Threads" functionality (in groups view).
FOR-8921 - Added "Edit Window" time frame setting. (To limit window for editing a post)
FOR-8922 - Added thread bookmarking in post view and management area for user to view/remove bookmarked threads.
FOR-8923 - Removed treeview and went to grid for viewing subscriptions (email notifications)
FOR-8924 - Added Outbox for Private Messaging.
FOR-8925 - Added TextSuggest lookup in Add PM (so users can create a "New Message" for any valid PM user w/out looking that user up via memberlist or locating their profile).
FOR-8926 - Made user control panel, PM items available via "My Settings".
FOR-8927 - Added functionality in Forum/Thread list to navigate to the first unread post for the logged in user. (includes anchor for direct scroll in landing page)
FOR-9082 - Possible bug in private messaging post 4.9 core is corrected.
FOR-9518 - Updated module uninstall script.
FOR-9662 - Added "Delete Thread" option in posts view (next to new thread button).
FOR-9662 - Fixed deleted post issue where some replies could become orphaned posts.
FOR-9663 - Changed My Posts to list post search results, Add My Threads that returns all posts the user started.
FOR-9664 - Added links (in group view and post view) to see latest posts for last 6,12,24,48 hours (uses search results interface).
FOR-9665 - Added PM Outbox functionality.
FOR-9666 - Made admin control panel (menu) for using ajax to load various forum admin controls.
FOR-9667 - Removed user profile fields (ie. msn/interests/aol, etc. except biography) and integrated module with core profile properties.
FOR-9668 - Removed all default constraints that were not properly named and re-added them with a proper name.
FOR-9669 - Removed admin template control since we only ever integrated management for email templates.
FOR-9670 - Cleaned up module controls attached to the module definition that are now legacy (because removed/replaced).
FOR-9671 - Updated Alt_Header cap classes (left/right) to allow background image placement for proper styling.
FOR-9672 - Turned post subject into direct link to post including anchor and excluding page of thread. This allows direct link to a specific post via the UI.
FOR-9673 - Updated module for proper metaPost support.
FOR-9674 - Removed user skin selection for module, it has been disabled and hidden for some time now.
FOR-9675 - Properly integrated Email Queue Management control (in acp) so cleanup task settings can be controlled from module (no place in core to handle).
FOR-9676 - Integrated User Banning in user profile (for admin), added check each time user is retrieved from db (when applicable) and added check in postedit. Also included ability to enable/disable moderator user banning (in public profile) if enabled as module setting.
FOR-9677 - Abstracted PostToDatabase method into a new class that is the basis for an API (For usage in things like metaPost).
FOR-9678 - Created Banned Users Control.
FOR-9679 - Updated avatar pool to have 'gallery' like display for choosing from pool of avatars.
FOR-9680 - Created a moderator control panel (mcp), functions similar to ucp/acp.
FOR-9681 - Created Reported Users Control.
FOR-9682 - Created "Reported Posts" control, to list posts that have been reported (number of reports displayed, link to new control for display whom/reason)
FOR-9683 - Ensured site admin are trusted user's and their trust is locked in profile area (so site admin/forum admin cannot alter this).
FOR-9684 - Refactored post 'quote', to make more efficient.
FOR-9686 - Refactored post parsing, partially for emoticon, inline image attachment support as well as performance.
FOR-9687 - Changed themes to use Forum_Header classes instead of Forum_AltHeader classes throughout the module.
FOR-9688 - Added attachment file size restriction (per attachment).
FOR-9714 - Added the ability to enable/disable RSS Feeds per forum (so long as the forum isn't private and RSS feeds are configured at the module level).