In September, the GD bbPress Toolbox Pro plugin will get a brand new version, 7.0, which will also mark significant updates to the system requirements for all future updates to all Dev4Press plugins. This will reflect both PHP and WordPress requirements.
GD bbPress Toolbox Pro will be the first plugin to require PHP 7.3, meaning we are dropping the support for PHP 7.2. PHP 7.2 and 7.3 are no longer officially supported by PHP Development Team. In December, that will happen to PHP 7.4, so after December 2022, only PHP 8.0 and newer will be officially supported and received updates and security fixes. For now, we are continuing support for PHP 7, with versions 7.3 and 7.4, and that policy will be revisited in about one year.
Now, when it comes to WordPress, things are a bit more complicated. The Dev4Press plugins have typically supported the last seven major WordPress releases. But, with the adding Block Editor, that type of support is not easy to achieve. Block Editor is developing very fast. The underlying libraries the plugins with blocks have to use are updated monthly; some things tested and worked in the latest WP can likely be broken three versions back. So, from September 2022, any Dev4Press plugin that includes blocks for Block Editor will support the last three major WordPress versions at the time of release, and other plugins will support the last six major WordPress versions at the time of release.
There is no strict date when these changes come into effect; they will be tied to the release of GD bbPress Toolbox Pro 7.0. That plugin will include a new version of the shared Dev4Press Library version 3.9. During October, most other plugins will get major updates with that library version and automatically inherit new system requirements.
