Tiki Wiki 9.0 arrives with updated template engine

The Tiki developers have released Tiki Wiki 9.0 which includes improved batch actions, an update to the wiki's template engine and many other enhancements. Tiki 9.0 is a long term support (LTS) release and will be supported until November 2015 – it is also the last version of the software to support PHP 5.2.x, with users expected to move to PHP 5.3 with the next release.

Tiki 9.0 includes version 3.1 of the Smarty template engine, a change that should not be noticeable to end users but is important for developers. The new version has full UTF-8 compatibility and improved performance. A full list of features is available in the Smarty 3.1 release notes.

Batch actions in Tiki can now be run based on token access to a particular URL. This allows users to run these actions from external services. Similarly, cron jobs can be executed from external servers which helps administrators who cannot run cron jobs locally because of limitations enforced by their web host. Users can also ban visitors by IP directly from Tiki's action log interface, reducing the number of clicks needed to ban spammers.

The Maps, Slideshow, Calendar, File Gallery and Drawings components have also been improved. The BigBlueButton video conferencing plugin now has a separate permission setting to allow users to see recorded video from the conference, even if they are not allowed to join conferences themselves.

Further information on Tiki 9.0 LTS can be found in the release notes. Tiki is available for download from the project's web site and is licensed under the LGPL 2.1.

(fab)