TAMAN

Welcome to our September developer's update!
I can say with some confidence that both the Invision Community team and our marketplace developers have had a busy September as we prepare for PHP8. Thank you for your patience with this necessary step. As I've mentioned elsewhere, PHP8 is a pretty big jump and is much more strict about many things, and now throws fatal errors when before it would have been a harmless notice.
PHP7 is now end of life, and security updates will no longer be available from November.

Preparing for PHP8
I've talked about this on the forums a lot over the last few weeks, but I'll summarise the timeline here so you can prepare your plugins and apps to be PHP8-ready.
September release (4.7.2): The PHP8 scanner will disable any plugins and applications that would cause issues with PHP8, but Invision Community owners can re-enable them if they choose to do so.
October release (4.7.3): A warning shows in the AdminCP if Invision Community is installed with PHP7. As of October, the PHP8 scanner will disable plugins, but they can be re-enabled.
November release (4.7.4): The PHP8 scanner will disable plugins and applications found not to be PHP8-ready. They cannot be re-enabled via the AdminCP. The only way to re-enable them is to upload a new version.
Code changes to be aware of
October hasn't been the biggest of releases, but it does come with the new Events front-end for Calendar, and this changed the parameter signature for getItemsWithPermission(), which is probably the most overloaded method we have.
The new parameter signature is as follows:
public static function getItemsWithPermission( $where=array(), $order=NULL, $limit=10, $permissionKey='read', $includeHiddenItems=\IPS\Content\Hideable::FILTER_AUTOMATIC, $queryFlags=0, \IPS\Member $member=NULL, $joinContainer=FALSE, $joinComments=FALSE, $joinReviews=FALSE, $countOnly=FALSE, $joins=NULL, $skipPermission=FALSE, $joinTags=TRUE, $joinAuthor=TRUE, $joinLastCommenter=TRUE, $showMovedLinks=FALSE, $location=NULL ) Note, $location has now been added to the list. If you overload getItemsWithPermission then you will need to update any hooks with his new parameter, or it will be flagged via the PHP8 scanner. The reason for this addition is to allow an easier way to get items via a latitude and longitude lookup. If you manage this elsewhere, you might find using getItemsWithPermission a much simpler way.
@Daniel F has also been working on improving the GraphQL API, and the GraphQL library has been updated to 14.11.6. We'll cover the upcoming GraphQL changes in a future blog.
Deprecations
Invision Community is a mature product, and some features and code that we added in the past no longer make sense, work correctly or are no longer appropriate for a modern platform running on well-maintained servers.
You can see the upcoming deprecations in this topic. I suspect the biggest change will be removing the option to allow Display Names to form part of the authentication credentials when logging in, which is coming out in November.
The other to watch for is the removal of the sockets fallback for when curl is not installed on the server or using a version older than 7.36. It's worth noting that curl 7.36 was released in March 2014 and now has hundreds of CVEs (known vulnerabilities) however, our techs still come across the odd server still using an older version. We will likely run AdminCP notifications to warn those affected of the upcoming socket fallback deprecation nearer the time, as it has no version attached. Just be mindful of this in your own apps if you use sockets directly for anything.
You may also note that we've started adding deprecations to the release notes.
As a reminder, we do not approve Marketplace submissions that restore functionality we've removed.
That's it for September! Hopefully, it won't take too long to run through your apps and plugins. As always, comment here, or reach out via the forums if you need anything clarifying.
Happy developing!

Welcome to our August (and June and July) developer's Update!
We've had a busy summer so far, with our team working on the final touches to 4.7 which introduced range of new Cloud specific features. In our August release we also added a way to schedule topics.
@Jordan Miller announced the new solutions improvements here, this will be included in our September release (4.7.2)
PHP8 Compatibility Scanner
We are excited to announce that as a platform we (finally) are starting the process of migrating from PHP7 to PHP8 in order to keep the software secure, modern, and performant.
Since PHP8 includes some breaking changes from PHP7, we've built a Method Scanner that will iterate through third party apps and plugins to find fatal issues, disabling any such customizations on upgrade. The apps and plugins disabled in this manner will not be able to be re-enabled until they are updated with the fixes. Developers, please make sure that your resources are fully tested with PHP 8+ and the method signatures match.
For developers, the main issue the scanner looks for is instances in which a method's signature is altered when extending a class; this can cause fatal errors that make even the AdminCP inaccessible. Violating code can be found both in your hooks as well as other PHP classes your app/plugin uses. See the PHP8 Incompatible Apps and Plugins in the AdminCP Support Page to see exactly the issues identified and how to resolve:

 
Pre-Upgrade Resource Checker
We're also introducing a new AdminCP upgrade step to check installed resources for whether compatibility updates are available for version they're upgrading to.

 
Here is the full changelog for our upcoming September release.
Core - Added ACP Tool to scan all hooks to identify PHP8 fatal errors related to method overloading. - Added AdminCP new search terms to guide admins to the new areas. - Added a pre-upgrade Marketplace compatibility check. - Fixed an issue where a large number of profile field options can break the page layout on the member stats overview page. - Fixed an issue where members following an item may not be following the remaining item after a merge. - Fixed an issue where word filters could cause an item to be held for approval even if the author had more than the required number of posts to bypass. - Fixed an issue with hCaptcha where an incorrect language override could be requested. - Fixed an issue where it was possible to create an alert with forced reply from a moderator/admin account with a disabled messenger. - Fixed an issue where editing the ACP => System => Postings page with disabled registrations would throw an exception while the submission. - Fixed an issue where some alerts were not shown if they had an end date. - Fixed an issue where post to Twitter could potentially result in an uncaught exception - Fixed an issue where the oauth configuration page was missing the required css files. - Fixed an issue where a report title may appear in trending content (does not expose any sensitive data). - Fixed an issue where removing a manually added badge would not remove the badge - Fixed an issue where the rank progression chart may not work when non-default ranks are used. - Fixed an issue where the achievements rebuild may fail. - Fixed an issue where content tags from content created by the RSS Import feature could be associated with a guest account. - Fixed an issue where alerts could not be dismissed if they had long titles. - Fixed an issue where search options may break on profiles when status updates were disabled. Pages - Fixed an issue where orphaned categories could break syncing from topics. - Fixed an issue when using the REST API to fetch records where fields may not have the image lazyload removed. Forums - Added multiple improvements to "Mark as solution" including a re-engagement email, new UI to prompt authors to mark a reply as the solution and new stats. - Fixed an issue where the default forum views may not be used for guests. - Fixed an issue where soft deleted items may be archived and then subsequently deleted leaving orphaned reports. - Fixed an issue where a malformed findComment link caused a 404 error instead of loading the topic from the start. Commerce - Fixed a typo on the invoice settings page. - Fixed an issue on the credits page - Fixed an issue where deleting a subscription package would leave some orphaned data in the database. Changes affecting third-party developers and designers - Fixed an issue where plugin index.html files may get included as CSS causing a browser rendering issue.  

Webhooks allow other services and applications to stay in sync with your community data or to perform an action after a specific event occurs in your community.
Webhooks are a performant alternative to continuously polling for changes to the IPS REST API.

For example, a webhook can notify your service when a new topic is created so that your app can perform then any further actions.
Webhooks can also be used to connect your community with Zapier, IFTTT or Integromat, so that any event which is covered by webhooks can trigger any further actions.
Common webhook use cases
Sync your member base with 3rd party newsletter lists Sync your Event RSVP with your Online Ticketing System Update your inventory after a purchase was made You can find the webhook functionality in the AdminCP, under the API section. There is also a useful webhook reference built in.


Setting up a webhook
Setting up a webhook is straightforward. Log into your AdminCP, then navigate to System > API.
The target URL would be defined by the application you wish to fire events to. For example, in Zapier, you can set up a trigger to listen for a webhook event via a custom URL.

Once you have entered the URL, simply check which events you'd like to fire to that URL. Zapier will ask you to test the URL, so to do this simply invoke the action which fires the webhook event, such as creating a test topic.
Documentation
If you are looking to add webhook events into your own custom code and applications, please see our documentation here.
Webhooks will be implemented in 4.6.10 and will be enhanced frequently.