We've released a new development version, 2.11.8.

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This version is a further stabilisation of the 2.11 branch of phpList. We are working hard to be able to call this out new stable version.

As usual development versions are for those of you who are a bit more technically advanced. However, this one is getting close to stable, so if you want to give it a try, make a copy of your existing system, and see if it works for you. Make sure to do it in such a way that you can roll back. If you encounter any issues, please report them to the issue tracker so that we can fix it.

Upgrading is easy and quick. Copy your config file in a save place, FTP the files in the "lists" folder up to your site and copy the config file back. Then click the link "Upgrade" that you will see when you login to your phpList admin pages.

You can view a list of mantis issues that have been dealt with in the roadmap of the issue tracker .

The changes in version 2.11.7 have been improved and stabilised.

The graphical editor (fckeditor) is now a plugin, and it is included in the download files. But you may need to check that your config option of PLUGIN_ROOTDIR is set to be 'plugins' for it to show up.

Other changes are:

1. Subscriber passwords will always be encrypted (if you use this option)
   
2. ENCRYPTION_ALGO is a new setting that you can use to detemine the encryption method to use for passwords
3. phpMailer was updated to the latest version from Github
4. SILENT_RESUBSCRIBE can be set to 'false' to flag up if a subscriber who already exists subscribes again. Defaults to 'true' as that is the current phpList functionality.
5. TLDs (top-level-domains) are automatically updated every so often from the internet. Just to make sure that phpList validates email addresses correctly, even when new domains are added.
6. You can use fallback placeholders for attributes. For example if you use 'Dear [FIRST NAME%%Friend]' as a placeholder and the subscriber does not have a value for First Name it will say Dear Friend in the message.
7. The option PREFERENCEPAGE_SHOW_PRIVATE_LISTS can be set to true, to allow subscribers to see private lists on the preferences page.
8. ALWAYS_ADD_USERTRACK can be set to make sure the image to track opens is always there, even if you forget it in the footer. It will default to true.
9. The List-Unsubscribe header of the emails will contain a link that will immediately remove the subscriber, even if the JUMPOFF setting is false. This is becoming a common method to fight spam, and will improve your ratings. Many anti-spam services will try this automatically ( when the recipient clicks the spam-button) and if it works they will not block you for future mailings.
10. BLACKLIST_EMAIL_ON_BOUNCE can be set to a value that is quite high, and higher than the bounce_unsubscribe_threshold. If a subscriber reaches this amount of bounces, they will be blacklisted.

There have been some questions on the version of PHP. The minimum version is PHP 5.1.2. My own local system is Ubuntu 12.10 and I have PHP 5.4.6.