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XOOPS 2.7 Docs

What's New in XOOPS 2.7.0

XOOPS 2.7.0 is a significant update from the 2.5.x series. Before installing or upgrading, review the changes on this page so you know what to expect. The list below is focused on items that affect installation and site administration — for a complete list of changes, see the release notes that ship with the distribution.

PHP 8.2 is the new minimum

Section titled “PHP 8.2 is the new minimum”

XOOPS 2.7.0 requires PHP 8.2 or newer. PHP 7.x and earlier are no longer supported. PHP 8.4 or higher is strongly recommended.

Action: Confirm your host offers PHP 8.2+ before you start. See Requirements.

MySQL 5.7 is the new minimum

Section titled “MySQL 5.7 is the new minimum”

The new minimum is MySQL 5.7 (or a compatible MariaDB). MySQL 8.4 or higher is strongly recommended. MySQL 9.0 is also supported.

The old warnings about PHP/MySQL 8 compatibility problems no longer apply, because the affected PHP versions are no longer supported by XOOPS.

Smarty 4 replaces Smarty 3

Section titled “Smarty 4 replaces Smarty 3”

This is the single biggest change for existing sites. XOOPS 2.7.0 uses Smarty 4 as its templating engine. Smarty 4 is stricter about template syntax than Smarty 3, and some custom themes and module templates may need adjustments before they will render correctly.

To help you identify and repair these issues, XOOPS 2.7.0 ships a preflight scanner in the upgrade/ directory that examines your existing templates for known Smarty 4 incompatibilities and can automatically repair many of them.

Action: If you are upgrading from 2.5.x and have custom themes or older modules, run the Preflight Check before running the main upgrader.

Composer-managed dependencies

Section titled “Composer-managed dependencies”

XOOPS 2.7.0 uses Composer to manage its PHP dependencies. These live in xoops_lib/vendor/. Third-party libraries that were previously bundled into the core or into modules — PHPMailer, HTMLPurifier, Smarty, and others — are now supplied through Composer.

Action: Most site operators do not need to do anything — release tarballs ship with vendor/ already populated. If you are moving or upgrading a site, copy the entire xoops_lib/ tree, including vendor/. Developers cloning the git repository should run composer install inside htdocs/xoops_lib/. See Notes for Developers.

Section titled “New hardened session cookie preferences”

Two new preferences are added during upgrade:

  • session_cookie_samesite — controls the SameSite attribute on session cookies (Lax, Strict, or None).
  • session_cookie_secure — when enabled, session cookies are only sent over HTTPS.

Action: After upgrading, review these under System Options → Preferences → General Settings. See After the Upgrade.

New tokens table

Section titled “New tokens table”

XOOPS 2.7.0 adds a tokens database table for generic scoped token storage. The upgrader creates this table automatically as part of the 2.5.11 → 2.7.0 upgrade.

Modernized password storage

Section titled “Modernized password storage”

The bannerclient.passwd column has been widened to VARCHAR(255) so it can hold modern password hashes (bcrypt, argon2). The upgrader widens the column automatically.

Updated theme and module lineup

Section titled “Updated theme and module lineup”

XOOPS 2.7.0 ships with updated front-end themes:

  • default, xbootstrap (legacy), xbootstrap5, xswatch4, xswatch5, xtailwind, xtailwind2

A new Modern admin theme is included alongside the existing Transition theme.

A new DebugBar module based on Symfony VarDumper ships as one of the optional installable modules. It is useful for development and staging, but is typically not installed on public production sites.

See Select Theme and Modules Installation.

Copying in a new release no longer overwrites configuration

Section titled “Copying in a new release no longer overwrites configuration”

Previously, copying a new XOOPS distribution on top of an existing site required care to avoid overwriting mainfile.php and other configuration files. In 2.7.0, the copy process leaves existing configuration files intact, which makes upgrades noticeably safer.

You should still make a full backup before any upgrade.

Template overload capability in system admin themes

Section titled “Template overload capability in system admin themes”

Admin themes in XOOPS 2.7.0 can now override individual system admin templates, making it easier to customize the administration UI without forking the entire system module.

What has not changed

Section titled “What has not changed”

For reassurance, these parts of XOOPS work the same way in 2.7.0 as they did in 2.5.x:

  • The installer page order and overall flow
  • The mainfile.php plus xoops_data/data/secure.php configuration split
  • The recommended practice of relocating xoops_data and xoops_lib outside the web root
  • The module installation model and xoops_version.php manifest format
  • The site-move workflow (backup, edit mainfile.php/secure.php, use SRDB or similar)

Where to go next

Section titled “Where to go next”