Elgg 7.1 has arrived!

Just a few months after the release of Elgg 7.0, we are happy to announce Elgg 7.1.0.

While Elgg 7.0 was a major step forward in modernizing the platform, Elgg 7.1 focuses on building on that foundation. This release brings new capabilities for developers and administrators, improved accessibility, better performance, and a number of small but meaningful improvements to the user experience.

Better building blocks for developers

Elgg 7.1 introduces several new building blocks that make it easier to develop plugins and custom functionality.

The new generic entity controller provides a reusable way to build entity-based content pages. Generic entity forms can now also support header images, making it easier for plugins to offer a consistent experience when creating and editing content.

Widgets also receive new JavaScript triggers for widget manipulation, giving developers more opportunities to respond to changes in the widget interface.

These additions continue Elgg's move towards reusable, consistent APIs that make plugin development easier.

More flexible groups

Group administrators get a new option with invitation-only group membership.

This makes it possible to create groups where users cannot simply join themselves, but instead need to receive an invitation. This can be particularly useful for private teams, project groups, committees, classrooms and other restricted communities.

Improved menus

Menus receive several improvements in Elgg 7.1.

Filter menu items no longer unintentionally appear on pages belonging to other users. Entity menus also support an optional administration parent item, making it easier for plugins to organize administrative actions.

These changes give plugin developers more control over how functionality is presented to users and administrators.

A more accessible Elgg

Accessibility continues to be an important part of Elgg's development.

In Elgg 7.1, selected menu items now use the appropriate aria-current attribute. This provides assistive technologies with better information about the user's current location within the interface.

It's a small change, but an important one for making Elgg-powered communities more accessible.

Small improvements that make a difference

Elgg 7.1 also contains a number of user-facing improvements.

The comment count badge now updates automatically after a comment is saved through AJAX, so users immediately see the updated count without having to refresh the page.

We've also added generic translation keys for "URL" and "Website", making it easier for plugins and themes to use consistent terminology across different languages.

MariaDB is now the recommended database server

For new Elgg installations, MariaDB is now the recommended database server.

Elgg continues to support its existing supported database configurations, but MariaDB is now the preferred choice when setting up a new installation.

Performance improvements

Elgg 7.1 also contains an important database performance improvement.

A new index has been added to the metadata table for the combination of entity GUID and metadata name. This helps improve queries involving entity metadata, particularly on larger Elgg installations.

The database query cache has also been improved to ensure cached queries are correctly invalidated when data is inserted, updated or deleted.

Bug fixes

As with every Elgg release, 7.1 also includes bug fixes.

Among them is a fix preventing the reported-content menu item from appearing in an administrative context, as well as improvements to database query-cache invalidation.

Building on Elgg 7

Elgg 7.1 may not be as dramatic as the 7.0 release, but that's exactly what makes it valuable.

With the major modernization work of Elgg 7 behind us, releases such as 7.1 allow us to refine the platform, improve the developer experience and add capabilities that make Elgg easier to use and extend.

Whether you're running an internal social network, an online community, a collaboration platform or a custom social application, Elgg 7.1 provides a stronger foundation for what comes next.

Upgrade to Elgg 7.1

If you're already running Elgg 7, we recommend upgrading to Elgg 7.1 to benefit from the latest improvements and fixes.

As always, make sure to test your site and plugins before upgrading a production installation.

Elgg 7.1.0 is available now!

Download Elgg: https://elgg.org/about/download/

View the Elgg 7.1.0 release on GitHub: https://github.com/Elgg/Elgg/releases/tag/7.1.0

A big thank you to everyone who contributed to Elgg 7.1.0 — and to the entire Elgg community for continuing to build, test and improve the platform with us.