Vanilla 2.6, featuring Category Following, slated for April 3-5
Vanilla 2.6 is planned for release to cloud between April 3-5, with an open source official release ~April 6. I've added it to the Vanilla calendar.
Here are the highlights:
Adding a new Category Following feature. This allows users to customize what categories are displayed on the Recent Discussions page. This replaces the 'Hide' feature for categories, which is being removed, along with the "Show/Hide" sidebar module for categories (few sites are currently using this).
New addon: Vanilla Connect. This new custom Single Sign-On addon replaces the jsConnect addon for sites that need a simple SSO system. It has been rearchitected to use the latest standards, addresses a security issue inherent in jsConnect's protocol, and is more resilient to future patches. The security issue addressed is Medium-severity; the attacker must be on the same IP address as the victim (e.g. behind the same router) and pass multiple hurdles to exploit the issue. We recommend customers update existing jsConnect systems to use the new Vanilla Connect system at their earliest convenience or at the pace suggested by their security advisors.
Ideation's filter tools are being modified to use the same UI as the new Category Following feature. This may require minor theme updates, which we are proactively addressing with customers.
Adding a new permission to our Advanced Analytics, separating it from admin (Settings.Manage) permissions so that others may be granted view access without getting admin access. By default, users with the Settings.Manage permission will be granted the new permission.
Adding to APIv2:
- Search
- Authenticate
- Polls support
- Ideation support
- Badges support
- Q&A support
- Ranks support
- Add 'Score' on GET for posts
Other changes:
- OAuth2 connections are being updated to use API v2. This is a seamless change.
- Multiple bug fixes and minor enhancements to be spelled out in the final release notes.
- Translation improvements.