CMSms what happens next? Development? PHP Problems? What does the future look like?

[DPC]

Hello to all,
I have been using cmsms for many years, but meanwhile the PHP versions are updated annually by the relevant hosters, which is good, but currently the development of the CMSms core and the plugins/modules seems to be at a standstill. Is there anyone here who can predict when CMSms and the relevant modules will be PHP8.3 capable and what the future holds for CMSms?

Best regards and many thanks for all your work.
You are great!

[Jo Morg]

CMSMS has been going through some rough times but has been resisting. The next release will be PHP 8.3+ compatible and is imminent. We have been taking some steps to open the code to the community, namely moving the versioning from self-hosted SVN to Github and are starting a campaign to recruit more:

• developers;
• code contributors;
• module developers;

At the moment the current team is a bit overloaded with work both on their livelihood and on all aspects of the CMS Made Simple project, so all the contributions are welcome and we are actively on the lookout for people interested in contributing.
The more popular modules either have been forked or have the CMSMS Foundation as a project manager so that these can be maintained by developers that are partnering with the Foundation.
The thing we have been fighting is time. The life cycle of PHP is a bit faster than we have been able to keep up with, but we are more or less there and we plan to speed up the process in the near future.
I'm not a futurologist, so I'm not going to try to predict what is in store for the future but, speaking for myself, CMSMS is what is in the base of my livelihood too, and I think that most, if not all, of the current Dev Team members are somehow on a similar situation. There is no way I'm going to let the project die if it depends on me.
But that is all I can say.

Hope you stick with us and contribute to the community in any way you can.

Thanks

[jce76350]

Is there a possible release date planned?

[pierrepercee]

Hello Jo,

No one questions the team's goodwill. The development delay is obvious, whether it concerns the core or the main modules. This question will therefore come as no surprise.
I am the first to support a fairly conservative approach to avoid breaking everything and promote good backward compatibility. I wrote about it here.
But this shouldn't practically freeze development, as has been the case since Calguy's departure.
Between digging in my heels and closing up shop...

[creopard]

Do you need beta testers for 2.2.22?
I'm eager for the change "upgraded Smarty to 4.5.5 (should raise the PHP compatibility to version 8.4+)"

[jce76350]

about Support WEBP, avif .. in FileManager

https://github.com/cmsmadesimple/cmsmadesimple/pull/9

the better version for CMSMS is the TinyMCE 5.10.9 (Long Term Support (LTS))
-> Beta Tester from all versions

[pierrepercee]

Hello Jo,

Upgrading to a recent version of Smarty will pose some compatibility issues for CMSMS, but with proper guidance, there are solutions.

You might know already, there is a CMSMS-core version progressed by former devteam member (tomphantoo) and tested extensively by me. That version that works very well, is compatible with Smarty 4.x and also 3.x (so PHP functions remain usable without notice/warning), and compatible with PHP's to 8.4 (and also with WampServer, but further testing is required).
Perhaps it would be sensible to devote a little time to wider review and evaluation of that CMSMS version, some more testing etc, and free up devteam time to work on updating the most-used modules to PHP 8.4 standard.

I think (this is very personal) that the general public, CMSMS users, that is, webmasters who are not originally developers, would like to see that CMSMS is progressing along with the evolving PHP.

Even a ready-made new version doesn't change the fact that more developers are absolutely essential.