Etherpad

Notable enhancements and fixes

• Windows build:
  • The bundled node.exe was upgraded from v12 to v16.
  • The bundled node.exe is now a 64-bit executable. If you need the 32-bit version you must download and install Node.js yourself.
• Improvements to login session management:
  • express_sid cookies and sessionstorage:* database records are no longer created unless requireAuthentication is true (or a plugin causes them to be created).
  • Login sessions now have a finite lifetime by default (10 days after leaving).
  • sessionstorage:* database records are automatically deleted when the login session expires (with some exceptions that will be fixed in the future).
  • Requests for static content (e.g., /robots.txt) and special pages (e.g., the HTTP API, /stats) no longer create login session state.
• The following settings from settings.json are now applied as expected (they were unintentionally ignored before):
  • padOptions.lang
  • padOptions.showChat
  • padOptions.userColor
  • padOptions.userName
• HTTP API:
  • Fixed the return value of getText when called with a specific revision.
  • Fixed a potential attribute pool corruption bug with copyPadWithoutHistory.
  • Mappings created by createGroupIfNotExistsFor are now removed from the database when the group is deleted.
  • Fixed race conditions in the setText, appendText, and restoreRevision functions.
  • Added an optional authorId parameter to appendText, copyPadWithoutHistory, createGroupPad, createPad, restoreRevision, setHTML, and setText, and bumped the latest API version to 1.3.0.
• Fixed a crash if the database is busy enough to cause a query timeout.
• New /health endpoint for getting information about Etherpad’s health (see draft-inadarei-api-health-check-06).
• Docker now uses the new /health endpoint for health checks, which avoids issues when authentication is enabled. It also avoids the unnecessary creation of database records for managing browser sessions.
• When copying a pad, the pad’s records are copied in batches to avoid database timeouts with large pads.
• Exporting a large pad to .etherpad format should be faster thanks to bulk database record fetches.
• When importing an .etherpad file, records are now saved to the database in batches to avoid database timeouts with large pads.

For plugin authors

• New expressPreSession server-side hook.
• Pad server-side hook changes:
  • padCheck: New hook.
  • padCopy: New srcPad and dstPad context properties.
  • padDefaultContent: New hook.
  • padRemove: New pad context property.
• The db property on Pad objects is now public.
• New getAuthorId server-side hook.
• New APIs for processing attributes: ep_etherpad-lite/static/js/attributes (low-level API) and ep_etherpad-lite/static/js/AttributeMap (high-level API).
• The import server-side hook has a new ImportError context property.
• New exportEtherpad and importEtherpad server-side hooks.
• The handleMessageSecurity and handleMessage server-side hooks have a new sessionInfo context property that includes the user’s author ID, the pad ID, and whether the user only has read-only access.
• The handleMessageSecurity server-side hook can now be used to grant write access for the current message only.
• The init_<pluginName> server-side hooks have a new logger context property that plugins can use to log messages.
• Prevent infinite loop when exiting the server
• Bump dependencies

Compatibility changes

• Node.js v14.15.0 or later is now required.
• The default login session expiration (applicable if requireAuthentication is true) changed from never to 10 days after the user leaves.

For plugin authors

• The client context property for the handleMessageSecurity and handleMessage server-side hooks is deprecated; use the socket context property instead.
• Pad server-side hook changes:
  • padCopy:
    • The originalPad context property is deprecated; use srcPad instead.
    • The destinationID context property is deprecated; use dstPad.id instead.
  • padCreate: The author context property is deprecated; use the new authorId context property instead. Also, the hook now runs asynchronously.
  • padLoad: Now runs when a temporary Pad object is created during import. Also, it now runs asynchronously.
  • padRemove: The padID context property is deprecated; use pad.id instead.
  • padUpdate: The author context property is deprecated; use the new authorId context property instead. Also, the hook now runs asynchronously.
• Returning true from a handleMessageSecurity hook function is deprecated; return 'permitOnce' instead.
• Changes to the src/static/js/Changeset.js library:
  • The following attribute processing functions are deprecated (use the new attribute APIs instead):
    • attribsAttributeValue()
    • eachAttribNumber()
    • makeAttribsString()
    • opAttributeValue()
  • opIterator(): Deprecated in favor of the new deserializeOps() generator function.
  • appendATextToAssembler(): Deprecated in favor of the new opsFromAText() generator function.
  • newOp(): Deprecated in favor of the new Op class.
• The AuthorManager.getAuthor4Token() function is deprecated; use the new AuthorManager.getAuthorId() function instead.
• The exported database records covered by the exportEtherpadAdditionalContent server-side hook now include keys like ${customPrefix}:${padId}:*, not just ${customPrefix}:${padId}.
• Plugin locales should overwrite core’s locales Stale
• Plugin locales overwrite core locales