How’s it going? We are super delighted to announce phpFox 4.8 version is now officially released. Our team has been working really hard on this major release. Many interesting and significant enhancements related to scalability, performance and core features which you would expect to see have been implemented. Let’s go through what’s new in phpFox 4.8.0 now.
Latest PHP and MySQL compatibility & Performance revise
As per our commitment, phpFox should always work with the latest version of our technology stack. As soon as PHP 7.4 and MySQL 8.0 were officially released, we started to work on compatibility and now these latest versions are supported on our 4.8 release.
Along with the tech stack compatibility, we also did a performance revise this time to be sure that the software is still working perfectly while we continue adding more features. We did perform the load test on our simulated community of 10k members and 30k+ entries for each content types (for blogs, polls, forum threads, pages, etc.) on a single standard E3 server. Excitedly, we can still achieve 600 concurrent active users with average response time less than 3 seconds. The result is better than the stress test for the previous version.
Enhancement for scalability
When a social network grows, the need for scaling out the system infrastructure is a Must-Have feature. In the previous phpFox versions, even we can do scaling out but it needs lots of effort for tweaking the software as there’re some features that did not support running in a distributed system. In this major release, we have done a review of the software architecture and implemented needful features that support scaling much easier and more effectively.
Unified Storage System management and File API
In previous versions, remote storage for user uploaded content can be done via lots of apps and admin needs to manage it in many places. It is rather difficult for all apps to know that the storage is up and running. In phpFox 4.8, we allow managing storage system for one place. Admin now can choose to host user-uploaded content via local system, FPT/SFTP, or at Amazon S3, at Digital Ocean space, or at any other S3-compatible storage systems. Administrators can also transfer data from the current storage system to a newly set-up storage system easily by one click.
A new File API document will also be released upcoming weeks so that any other third-party apps can just simply call the API to handle user-uploaded content inside their apps.
Asset Handling
Asset / static files (JS, CSS) now will be able to host at the remote storage system. By adding this asset handling method, we can help reduce the load of the application server. Moreover, it will utilize the power of remote static file system to load static assets faster.
Session Handling
Session manipulation now is more flexible in phpFox 4.8. Besides using a database connection, the system administrator can choose many other options for handling session data such as MemCache, Redis, MongoDB. These new options significantly reduce the database queries and help improve the overall system performance.
Message Queue
phpFox 4.8 now supports various Message Queue backends, such as Beanstalk, Amazon SQS, Redis, MongoDB, and a relational database. Queues allow you to decouple heavyweight processing tasks, such as sending emails and encoding a video, until a later time so that the application works smoothly in heavy workload.
Log Handling
phpFox 4.8 also supports various log handling options so that log information does not rely on a physical server any more. Administrators now can choose to store logs on local files (as previously), database, or MongoDB. Admin users can also configure log levels and be able to view logs directly in the AdminCP.
For 3rd-party experts or whom that would like to integrate your products with above functionalities, you can see our guide to work with Storage systems and Assets.
Core Features and Apps Improvements
Instant Messaging app now has a new modern layout which is similar to the ChatPlus look and feel. And if you intend to migrate to ChatPlus, you can transfer all data of Instant Messaging app and Messages app to ChatPlus easily. Your users still have all chat histories on the new chat solution.
Theme Editing is now more convenient in phpFox 4.8.0 with version control. Admin can revert to the last saving option while making lots of changes to adjust the site look and feel.
phpFox 4.8.0 also allows to edit/delete check-in information in feeds so that your users can control better their check-in data.
Also, we have updated many stand-alone Core apps along with this major phpFox release such as Material template, Messages, Pages, Groups, Shoutbox, Mobile API, Restful API, etc.
For more details, please check the Release Notes and Changelog
Upgrade to phpFox 4.8.0 today
The package of phpFox 4.8.0 is available for you to download in our Client Area. To upgrade your phpFox site to version 4.8.0, you have to run the full upgrade routine as our Upgrade Instructions. We highly recommend you to back up your site and database before proceeding the upgrade. And, don’t forget to check with 3rd-party experts about the compatibility of all the apps/templates you are using.
If your phpFox site is using 3rd-party apps or has customizations, please see our recommendations.
For new phpFox installation, the following articles will be helpful to you:
– Download
– Installation Guide
Face issues with this version? Please don’t hesitate to submit tickets or report immediately to our GitHub Tracker or Client Area. We always appreciate any feedback to make phpFox better, so please feel free to share with us your ideas.