v22.0.00

Welcome to Gibbon v22.0.00 (Faai Di Laa). This is one of our largest releases in the past few years, including numerous front and back-end changes. Following our last release, v21 Ee Gaa (Cantonese for ‘right now’), v22 Faai Di Laa builds on the momentum with the encouragement to “Hurry up!”. The most noticeable change in this version is a new theme, updating Gibbon’s look and feel, which includes eight built-in theme colours. This version also includes new custom field options for many areas of the system, personal document settings, a dashboard enrolment tab, staff data updates, and more than 100 other enhancements.

On the technical side, v22 includes PHP 8 support, increases the minimum PHP version to 7.3, and includes a number of structural changes to the database. Be sure to backup before updating and read the Changes With Important Notices in the changelog.

It has been a pleasure to note a distinct strengthening of our community through the last 2 releases. Our forums now regularly feature peer-to-peer advice, new names and faces abound, the Gibbon map is growing and we’ve certified our first Official Partners. Despite this growth, the tone of our interactions remain positive, polite, friendly and true to the spirit of Gibbon. We are proud to be part of this growing movement of educators!

Our appreciation goes out to everyone who continues to work hard to translate Gibbon into their language. Thanks to your ongoing efforts Gibbon is available in 22 languages! We did not add any new languages this release, however there were lots of improvements to translation strings in the interface.

If you would like to volunteer to translate Gibbon into your language, please email support@gibbonedu.org.

Important Notes for v22.0.00

• As of v22, Gibbon now requires a minimum PHP version of 7.3. Please check to ensure your server supports this requirement before upgrading. Gibbon v22 now supports PHP 8.0 and MySQL 8.0, which are the highest recommended versions.
• Always backup your files and database before upgrading. This is especially important this release, as there are a number of structural changes to the database.
• If you are upgrading, please read the Changes With Important Notices section of CHANGELOG.txt before you install, to see if your upgrade requires any manual intervention.
• If you encounter a “MySQL Server has gone away” message during update or installation, please check the following forum thread: https://ask.gibbonedu.org/discussion/3308/
• See the Updating Gibbon guide for detailed steps.

Developer Notes

• Our Gibbon Development Road Map includes our GitHub branch, project board for v23 and future release dates. Take a look at https://docs.gibbonedu.org/developers/getting-started/gibbon-road-map.

Expert Support

The Gibbon community continues to offer a high level of friendly, timely and knowledgeable support via our forums. For schools requiring support beyond what the community provides, we offer a range of Expert Support options via gibbonedu.com.