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=General=


=Background=
This page lists current Limesurvey releases, future development, and release goals.


Two years ago the development of completely new version of LimeSurvey, namely LimeSurvey 2 (short:LS2) was started. LS2 was developed in chunks during the last two years but until this day it remains far behind the current version of LimeSurvey 1.x. This has several reasons:
Goals cannot be fulfilled by itself so if you want to [https://manual.limesurvey.org/How_to_join_the_LimeSurvey_project_team give a helping hand] or [https://manual.limesurvey.org/How_to_contribute_new_features contribute new features] yourself please get in touch!
*CakePHP as PHP framework proved to be not dynamic enough. To be detailed CakepHP can bent all the way to your liking but the effort you have to put in there does not match the expectations when we started with it. This became more obvious when work progressed and things became more complicated to install. Also optimizations take alot of effort - in general CakePHP was way slower than the current LimeSurvey 1-
*Except for incidental efforts like Google Summer of Code the development stalled because we had no persistent LS2 contributors in the team
*The current LS1 development team is all focused on LimeSurvey 1 which is used by several thousand users and so the feedback of the community and any support is focused on LimeSurvey 1. CakePHP has some learning curve and currently none of the existing LS1 developers is able to put their mind on that with little perspective that this might change in the future.
*Even if we put lots of development resources into LS2 right now it would still take another year until at least basic functionality in all common areas will be achieved - and even that will only represent a small fraction of the current LS1 feature set.


=What now?=
= Version Support Time Frames=  
For several reasons, we dropped the Long-term-support (LTS) definition for selected versions.
Instead, each version will have support periods as defined here.


Considered the type of past development activities on LimeSurvey 2 and the underlying problems with the non-existent development resources it was agreed in the development team that the future of LimeSurvey will take a new turn. This new way will circumvent most of the problems above by taking a slow and evolving approach. The following basic steps will be taken:
Definition:
*Instead of trying to rewrite such a huge application from scratch we will slowly rewrite LimeSurvey 1. That way we will still have full community and developers support - LimeSurvey 1 will keep evolving and even during the rewrite phase we will be able to have new releases
* '''Normal support''': Receives security fixes and non-breaking changes & updates at last two years from first release
*Instead of CakePHP we will use the CodeIgniter PHP framwork. CodeIgniter has been proved to be very stable, fast, flexible, actively developed and in many things it is very close to existing libraries already used in LimeSurvey 1 (like AdoDB). That minimizes the learning curve for existing LS1 developers and we can still run the old and new architecture side by side in the same application.
* '''Extended support''': Receives only security fixes - at least one year on top of normal support. Updates may only be available if ComfortUpdate is used. In some cases, we may extend this period at our discretion if needed.
*Concepts that have been elaborated for LS2 aren't automatically obsolete - on the contrary they can be implemented while LimeSurvey is evolving.
*Last but not least: Baby steps - we will get to our goals eventually but if we go slow we won't stumble.


This new develpment approach will allow us to reach our goal of a modular application which separates content from logic accoroding to MVC standards.
==Versions older than LimeSurvey 3.0 ==
* These versions will not receive new features or updates


=Timeline=
== Limesurvey 3.x - First release: Dec 2017 ==
Support time frame:
* Community Edition: Extended support available until end of July 2023
* Cloud: Supported until end of November 2023


We are currently working out a detailed timeline. Please bear with us - however the first step is pretty clear:
== LimeSurvey 4.x - First release: Jan 2020==
*Summer 2011: Google Summer of Code students will be working on rewriting big parts of the LimeSurvey 1 code to CodeIgniter, starting with the front-end (survey taking) and parts of the administration. Detailed steps can be found in the worked out GSOC tasks, once these are prepared.
Discontinued. Version 4.x will not receive any updates.
 
== Limesurvey 5.x - First release: May 2021==
 
Support time frame:
* Community Edition:
** Normal support until May 2023
** Extended support until May 2024
* Cloud:
** Supported until May 2024
 
== Limesurvey 6.x - First release: Apr 2023==
Support time frame:
* Community Edition:
** Normal support until April 2025
** Extended support until April 2026
* Cloud:
** Supported until April 2026
 
= Release details =
 
== Limesurvey 3.x ==
Major changes:
* Using Twig as template engine.
* Possible for templates (now called themes) to inherit options and files from each other.
* Question templates (still work-in-progress).
* New side-menu and enhanced admin interface.
 
 
== Limesurvey 5.0 ==
* Updated interface
* Possible to install plugins and question themes via ZIP-file
* Update checks for plugins available in LimeStore
* Encrypted fields
* New plugin events : [[ExpressionManagerStart]] and [[SetVariableExpressionEnd]] allowing to manage expression by plugin.
* [[Survey Group Permissions]]
* More...
 
== LimeSurvey 5.1 ==
 
* Add RPC function to delete a response using its ID (#1928) (arnaudbore)
* Ability to export to SPSS .sav format (#1877) (Adam Zammit)
* Multiple UX fixes
 
== LimeSurvey 5.2 ==
 
* No new major features, mostly GUI fixes.
 
== LimeSurvey 5.3 ==
 
* No big new features, mostly internal improvements, e.g. database updates split into multiple classes and more PSR-12 fixes.
 
== LimeSurvey 5.4 ==
 
* New feature to deal with email notifications that failed to send out
 
== LimeSurvey 5.5 ==
 
*New feature #8436: Enable / disable users and fields to manage users (#2636) (Gabriel Jenik)
*New feature #8239: Allow for user friendly survey URLS (#2218) (Gabriel Jenik)
*New feature #18375: [security] Some plugin settings need encryption (#2645) (Gabriel Jenik)
*New feature #18204: Extend form via plugin (Olle Haerstedt)
 
== LimeSurvey 5.6 ==
 
*New feature #07641: Options to use Y/N conversion in RemoteControl API export
 
== LimeSurvey 6.0 ==
 
Breaking changes:
 
* The event afterSurveyCompleted is now fired in preview mode as well, with responseId = null
* Due to the conversion of LimeSurvey to Bootstrap 5, custom survey themes will have to be revised
* We only provide one admin theme at the moment, the previous variations have been removed
 
*New feature: Converted the application to the Bootstrap 5 framework
*New feature: Implemented a new administration theme
*New feature: Upgraded Twig from 1.0 to 3.0
*New feature #18453: PHP 8.1 compatibility (#2878) (Gabriel Jenik)
*New feature: Add get_available_site_settings RPC method (#2579) (Edgar R. M)
*New feature #18382: Fire afterSurveyCompleted event in preview mode (Olle Haerstedt)
*New feature #16619: Allow calling get_uploaded_files() remote control function by response ID (#2363) (Gabriel Jenik)
*New feature #18178: Add Quota CRUD RPC methods (#2458) (Edgar R. M)
 
== LimeSurvey 6.1 ==
 
Released May 22nd 2023.
 
New features:
 
* Allow to move question inside group and group order with activated survey
 
== LimeSurvey 6.2 ==
 
Released 1st of August 2023.
 
New features:
 
* New survey theme
 
== LimeSurvey 6.3 ==
 
Released 16th of October 2023.
 
New features:
 
* Google OAuth plugin for emails
 
== LimeSurvey 6.4 ==
 
Released 18th December 2023.
 
New features:
 
* Add column "active" to users, to be able to activate or deactivate users
* Preview survey in modal
 
== LimeSurvey 6.5 ==
Released March 19th, 2024
 
New features:
 
* Updated internal REST API with more functions
 
== LimeSurvey 6.6 ==
 
Scheduled for May 2024.
 
= Current release schedule =
 
A patch (bug fix) release is released every Monday, for all supported versions.
 
A minor release (new features without breaking backward compatibility) is released every 8 weeks, approximately.
 
A major release (new features that will break backward compatibility, e.g. dropping support for PHP versions or browsers) will be a major release if it breaks backwards compatibility in some way.
 
Please also see the manual about the [[How_to_contribute_new_features#Release_process|release process]].

Latest revision as of 16:24, 10 April 2024

General

This page lists current Limesurvey releases, future development, and release goals.

Goals cannot be fulfilled by itself so if you want to give a helping hand or contribute new features yourself please get in touch!

Version Support Time Frames

For several reasons, we dropped the Long-term-support (LTS) definition for selected versions. Instead, each version will have support periods as defined here.

Definition:

  • Normal support: Receives security fixes and non-breaking changes & updates at last two years from first release
  • Extended support: Receives only security fixes - at least one year on top of normal support. Updates may only be available if ComfortUpdate is used. In some cases, we may extend this period at our discretion if needed.

Versions older than LimeSurvey 3.0

  • These versions will not receive new features or updates

Limesurvey 3.x - First release: Dec 2017

Support time frame:

  • Community Edition: Extended support available until end of July 2023
  • Cloud: Supported until end of November 2023

LimeSurvey 4.x - First release: Jan 2020

Discontinued. Version 4.x will not receive any updates.

Limesurvey 5.x - First release: May 2021

Support time frame:

  • Community Edition:
    • Normal support until May 2023
    • Extended support until May 2024
  • Cloud:
    • Supported until May 2024

Limesurvey 6.x - First release: Apr 2023

Support time frame:

  • Community Edition:
    • Normal support until April 2025
    • Extended support until April 2026
  • Cloud:
    • Supported until April 2026

Release details

Limesurvey 3.x

Major changes:

  • Using Twig as template engine.
  • Possible for templates (now called themes) to inherit options and files from each other.
  • Question templates (still work-in-progress).
  • New side-menu and enhanced admin interface.


Limesurvey 5.0

LimeSurvey 5.1

  • Add RPC function to delete a response using its ID (#1928) (arnaudbore)
  • Ability to export to SPSS .sav format (#1877) (Adam Zammit)
  • Multiple UX fixes

LimeSurvey 5.2

  • No new major features, mostly GUI fixes.

LimeSurvey 5.3

  • No big new features, mostly internal improvements, e.g. database updates split into multiple classes and more PSR-12 fixes.

LimeSurvey 5.4

  • New feature to deal with email notifications that failed to send out

LimeSurvey 5.5

  • New feature #8436: Enable / disable users and fields to manage users (#2636) (Gabriel Jenik)
  • New feature #8239: Allow for user friendly survey URLS (#2218) (Gabriel Jenik)
  • New feature #18375: [security] Some plugin settings need encryption (#2645) (Gabriel Jenik)
  • New feature #18204: Extend form via plugin (Olle Haerstedt)

LimeSurvey 5.6

  • New feature #07641: Options to use Y/N conversion in RemoteControl API export

LimeSurvey 6.0

Breaking changes:

  • The event afterSurveyCompleted is now fired in preview mode as well, with responseId = null
  • Due to the conversion of LimeSurvey to Bootstrap 5, custom survey themes will have to be revised
  • We only provide one admin theme at the moment, the previous variations have been removed
  • New feature: Converted the application to the Bootstrap 5 framework
  • New feature: Implemented a new administration theme
  • New feature: Upgraded Twig from 1.0 to 3.0
  • New feature #18453: PHP 8.1 compatibility (#2878) (Gabriel Jenik)
  • New feature: Add get_available_site_settings RPC method (#2579) (Edgar R. M)
  • New feature #18382: Fire afterSurveyCompleted event in preview mode (Olle Haerstedt)
  • New feature #16619: Allow calling get_uploaded_files() remote control function by response ID (#2363) (Gabriel Jenik)
  • New feature #18178: Add Quota CRUD RPC methods (#2458) (Edgar R. M)

LimeSurvey 6.1

Released May 22nd 2023.

New features:

  • Allow to move question inside group and group order with activated survey

LimeSurvey 6.2

Released 1st of August 2023.

New features:

  • New survey theme

LimeSurvey 6.3

Released 16th of October 2023.

New features:

  • Google OAuth plugin for emails

LimeSurvey 6.4

Released 18th December 2023.

New features:

  • Add column "active" to users, to be able to activate or deactivate users
  • Preview survey in modal

LimeSurvey 6.5

Released March 19th, 2024

New features:

  • Updated internal REST API with more functions

LimeSurvey 6.6

Scheduled for May 2024.

Current release schedule

A patch (bug fix) release is released every Monday, for all supported versions.

A minor release (new features without breaking backward compatibility) is released every 8 weeks, approximately.

A major release (new features that will break backward compatibility, e.g. dropping support for PHP versions or browsers) will be a major release if it breaks backwards compatibility in some way.

Please also see the manual about the release process.

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