From 3.2 to 3.3

PHP Version

PHP 7.1 has reached end of life in December 2019. To ensure that Elgg sites are secure, we now require PHP 7.2 for new installations.

If upgrading from a previous Elgg installation make sure you have the correct PHP version installed.

In order to be able to test Elgg on PHP 7.4 we had to update the PHPUnit testsuite to version 8.5. This may require some rewrites of your own unit/integration tests.

Simpler use of ‚default‘ layout

Currently a common pattern is to do the following:

$title = 'All blogs';

$content = elgg_list_entities([
        'type' => 'object',
        'subtype' => 'blog',
]);

$layout = elgg_view_layout('default', [
        'title' => $title,
        'content' => $content,
]);

echo elgg_view_page($title, $layout);

We made this kind of pattern simpler. You can now pass an array of layout options to the second parameter of elgg_view_page. The elgg_view_page function will use this array to wrap it in the ‚default‘ layout. It also adds the page title to the layout.

The new way to do it is:

echo elgg_view_page('All blogs', [
        'content' => elgg_list_entities([
                'type' => 'object',
                'subtype' => 'blog',
        ]),
]);

Deprecated layout names

For an easy transition from Elgg 2.x to 3.x we kept some old layout names (‚one_sidebar‘, ‚one_column‘, ‚two_sidebar‘ and ‚content‘) intact when used in the elgg_view_layout function. As of Elgg 3.3 these layout names are deprecated and you should update your code to use the new ‚default‘ layout.

When changing the use of the ‚content‘ layout name you should take into consideration that the ‚content‘ generates a filter menu. This menu is slightly different from the regular ‚filter‘ menu generated in the ‚default‘ layout. It uses different hook names. If you already disabled the filter in your layout you can change the layout without any issues.

Plugin Manifest changes

We are working towards the removal of the plugin manifest file. Some features of the manifest will be replaced and some will be dropped. To make this transition a bit easier we have already deprecated the following ElggPluginManifest api functions:

  • getCopyright()

  • getDonationsPageURL()

  • getSuggests() use suggestions in composer

Deprecated APIs

  • elgg_disable_query_cache()

  • elgg_enable_query_cache()

  • elgg_format_attributes() use elgg_format_element()

  • elgg_flush_caches() use elgg_clear_caches()

  • elgg_get_menu_item()

  • elgg_get_ordered_event_handlers() use elgg()->events->getOrderedHandlers()

  • elgg_get_ordered_hook_handlers() use elgg()->hooks->getOrderedHandlers()

  • elgg_invalidate_simplecache() use elgg_clear_caches()

  • elgg_is_menu_item_registered()

  • elgg_view_entity_annotations()

  • execute_delayed_write_query() use elgg()->db->registerDelayedQuery()

  • execute_delayed_read_query() use elgg()->db->registerDelayedQuery()

  • run_sql_script()

  • elgg_unset_all_plugin_settings() use \ElggPlugin::unsetAllSettings()

  • elgg_get_file_simple_type() use elgg()->mimetype->getSimpleType()

  • ElggFile::detectMimeType() use elgg()->mimetype->getMimeType()

  • generate_action_token() use elgg()->csrf->generateActionToken()

  • elgg_split()

Deprecated Config values

  • simplecache_lastupdate use lastcache

Deprecated CLI commands

  • elgg-cli flush use elgg-cli cache:clear

Deprecated Hooks

  • entity:annotate, <entity_type>