Nova 2.7 Changelog

2.7.4

Changed

• Updated all fields marked as nullable in the install process as nullable in the update process.
• Better support for PHP 8.2.
• Analytics will properly report initial install date during the update process.
• Version checking uses an API endpoint on the Anodyne servers instead of parsing a YAML file.

Fixed

• Could not delete any site messages.

2.7.3

Added

• update_read_guide language key.

Changed

• Updated Nova license to include 2023.
• Install and update processes will now report analytics back to Anodyne.
• In the production environment, Nova will only log errors and follow best practices for displaying errors and what it reports for logging.
• In the development environment, Nova will be more verbose in its logging.
• Update notifications have a better UI.
• Future update notifications will link to the update guide on the documentation site.

Removed

• Testing environment code. (This mirrored what is used for the production environment and was unnecessary.)

Fixed

• Some games running the BLANK genre were not able to get to their site after successfully updating.

2.7.2

Changed

• Minimum PHP version requirement has been raised from 7.0 to 7.4.
• Upgraded Swiftmailer to version 6.3.
• PHP's built-in mail() function can no longer be used with Swiftmailer. When using the mail protocol, Sendmail will be used instead.
• Moved the errors directory from application/views into the Nova core.
• Made the 2.4.10 update file idempotent to avoid duplicate data issues.
• When uploading images, if the target directory doesn't exist, it will attempt to create the directory.

Fixed

• Missing background image from jQuery UI library on the admin control panel in the Pulsar skin.
• Missing background image from jQuery UI library on the admin control panel in the Titan skin.
• Footer appears twice in the main section of Titan skin.
• Missing folders in the zip files (this only impacts fresh installs).
• Running the updater multiple times results in the version number being set to 2.5.
• Upload Image page didn't display information from the upload config file correctly.

2.7.1

Fixed

• Misconfigured base URL would redirect users to an external domain during the update process.

2.7.0

Added

• Word counts for mission posts and personal logs.
• Word count display below mission post and personal log content text areas. (Note: due the differences between how Javascript calculates words and how PHP calculates words, there may be slight differences between the count displayed and what is stored in the database.)
• Word count display and reading time shown when viewing a mission post or personal log.
• Contact page "honeypot" for attempting to limit spam.
• actions_cancel language key.
• misc_rss_feed language key.
• word_count_with_read_time language key.
• New versions of the include_head files (all suffixed with _next). This allowed us to fix some significant issues with jQuery bugs by removing some code. Existing skins will continue to work as expected, but the Pulsar and Titan skins now use the newer versions.

Changed

• Upgraded CodeIgniter from version 2.2.3 to version 3.1.13 for better PHP 8 compatibility.
• Minimum PHP version requirement has been raised from 5.3 to 7.0.
• Minimum Internet Explorer requirement has been raised from version 7 to version 11.
• The System Information and Version History page now displays the server's version of PHP.
• Reorganized the Sim Statistics report to include word count stats in most categories.
• Updated the Sim Statistics report to include lifetime totals for word counts.
• Renamed the departments database table from departments_{genre} to departments.
• Renamed the positions database table from positions_{genre} to positions.
• Renamed the ranks database table from ranks_{genre} to ranks.
• Redesigned the special messages page for maintenance mode, PHP version issues, ban notice, and browser updates.
• Logging in and logging out will no longer force users to sit on a waiting screen for 5 seconds before redirecting.
• HTML markup around several field labels in Site Settings have been updated. This mainly involves wrapping several labels in span tags and should not impact any existing skins.
• A span tag has been added around the label and page name on the Manage Wiki Pages screen.
• A span tag has been added around the text inside the Show Filters link in the wiki screens.
• A span tag has been added around the text inside the sub navigation links in the wiki screens.
• The Edit Categories link on the wiki/categories page has been given the edit class to be consistent with other similar edit links.
• The versions_redirect language item now links to the Nova 2 source code repository changelog instead of Anodyne Help.
• Provided a link to manage uploads directly from the upload screen.
• The ui-datepicker-trigger styling has been moved out of the Javascript files and into the stylesheets. If you are overriding the mange_missions_js.php file, your changes will remain intact. If you're using the Pulsar or Titan skins, you will get the new styling. If you are using a custom skin, you will need to copy the styling from application/views/default/dist/css/app.css for .ui-datepicker-trigger and move it into your own skin.
• For the word counter used when writing different types of posts, we've added a new counter class. Everything will display correctly without this class, but you can use it in your own skins to control the distance from the content textarea.
• New classes pill-container, pill-inline-container, and pill have been added to the HTML in several places. Everything will display correctly without these classes in your skin stylesheets, but you can use them in your own skins to control the look of "pill" elements. This is in use in the follow pages now: main/news, main/viewnews, personnel/index, manage/positions.
• New class large targeting inputs and selects has been added. Everything will display correct without this class in your skin stylesheets, but you can use it to control the size of text inputs and select menus that should be wider.
• The RSS feed links when viewing a post, log, or news item now have a text label to make them more visible.
• Added some autocomplete attributes to email and password fields on the login, reset password, and join forms.
• The wiki page content wrapping element has been changed from a p tag to a div and given a class of prose (this applies to both published and draft pages). This allows for the removal of overly greedy CSS selectors in the include_head_wiki_next file and moving those styles into the wiki.css file in the Pulsar and Titan skins. Existing skins will continue to work as expected.
• The manage positions departments wrapping element has been changed from a p tag to a div and given an additional class of pill-container (see above for pill changes).
• Updated some casings of different labels throughout the system.

Removed

• The ability to install a separate genre from the Installation Center.
• The System Components section of the System Information & Version History page. There was in fact no such information in Anodyne Help.

Fixed

• Wrong character name was displayed in email clients when sending the email to players after a pending post is approved (#295)
• Creating a mission without a start or end date does not give good error messages (#296)
• Missing email field placeholder on the reset password page.
• The blank genre will now use blank for the genre code instead of previous uses of bln and blk (impacts fresh installs only).
• Tags were displaying on the view news page even when there weren't any tags specified.
• The search field in the Active Users tab of the Posting Levels report was above the header. It's been moved to be below the header to be consistent with the other tabs on the page.
• Removed extra closing div tag on the site/simtypes page that resulted in broken layouts.
• Date fields cut off the text when managing missions.
• Mission field cut off the text when managing mission posts.