Beta #3 is now available a few days earlier than expected. At this point, this should be the completed version of the plugin, and in about a week or so, there will be a Release Candidate version before the Stable version is released.
Check out the information from the previous posts about the first two Beta versions related to upcoming features, system requirements, and more: Beta #1 Release Post & Beta #2 Release Post.
This is a Beta release, and it might contain bugs or unfinished features! Do not use it on live websites! This version is made for testing purposes on staging or development websites only. This version requires PHP 7.3 or newer, WordPress 5.5 or newer, and bbPress 2.6.2 or newer.
Beta #3 focuses on polishing the new features: Booster and Markdown support. Booster now covers even more queries and fixes many things I noticed during testing. Many bugs are fixed, many core-related things are improved and enhanced, some old functions are deprecated, and more.
I will have a detailed write-up next week about the Booster feature, but I like to share some performance improvements. So far, Booster covers some 12 to 15 queries (bbPress core and GD bbPress Toolbox Pro), and the boosted queries are much faster. For some types of queries, we have boosted queries 3-4 times faster; for some types, we have boosted queries 20-30 times faster. Now, this is on the database with some 15000 posts. If you go to larger forums, having 300000 to 500000 posts, some boosted queries are 40-50 times faster! Depending on the forums, the size, and the use of hidden and private forums, some boosted queries can get even faster. Yeah, I know it all sounds crazy, and I would like to see if anyone would also make some speed tests and post it, but so far, queries that were a problem before are now all crazy fast.
The plugin should be ready now, and the next 10 days will be dedicated to more testing and fixing things if anything gets reported or is found as broken.
The plugin’s changelog is updated with the changes included, and other information pages will be updated in the coming weeks for the stable release (currently planned for January 16, 2023). Release Candidate should be released before January 13, 2023.
If you notice any problems, find issues with the missing settings, or have errors displayed or logged, please open a new topic in the support forum, describe the issue, and include, if possible, screenshots or error log files. Also, if you notice any issues related to PHP 8.x versions, make sure to include exactly which PHP version you are using.