The history of Exponential, December 2023 to today #

This is the story of every change made to Exponential and to the repositories around it since the se7enxweb era began in December 2023, written so that you can learn from it: what a change delivers, how to use it, and what to check when you upgrade. It has two halves. The chronicle tells the story month by month. The ledger is the complete, machine-made record of every commit. Between them nothing is missing, and the coverage page proves it.

In short #

• Read one month page to learn what became possible that month; each starts with a short summary and ends with related pages.
• Every change carries its commit, for example 2ddbc4c624. Open it with git show 2ddbc4c624.
• The ledger lists all changes of a repository with date, kind, size and release tag: ledger.
• The coverage page shows, per repository and month, that every change is explained, listed as small, or marked as without user benefit: coverage.

The story so far #

Read these lines first if you are new; each points to the month that tells it in full.

• December 2023: the code base changes hands. The first outside change was merged on 11 December, the setup wizard was made to work on PHP 8, and update scripts from 5.4 were published. December 2023
• January 2024: 6.0.0 is stable, and SQLite arrives. A database that needs no server, with a driver, a schema handler and a demonstration database. January 2024, first half
• August to November 2024: admin3. A complete, responsive administration design, then tested and corrected on real devices. August 2024, November 2024
• April 2025: PHP 8.4 in, PHP 7 out. Sites on PHP 7.4 stay on 6.0.7. April 2025
• August 2025: the product is called Exponential. Identifiers, paths and tables did not change. August 2025
• December 2025: PHP 8.5 is supported. December 2025
• June 2026: MongoDB 8 as a database, and 6.0.14. June 2026, first half
• July 2026: the command line grows up. ezpm in the console, the Kickstarter, a password reset tool, a trustworthy template editor. July 2026
• August 2026: honest template debugging, six security patches, tests on every change. August 2026
• September 2026: large lists that work, Velocity, a one-command install and a hardening sweep. First half, second half
• October 2026: jQuery 4 and admin4, an audit trail, exp:ini, a debug bar, content jobs and TinyMCE 8. October 2026

How to read the chronicle #

1. Pick a month from the table below. A month page opens with In short: three to five lines you can read in half a minute.
2. The body is grouped by day or by theme. Each paragraph names what changed, why it matters, and what you can do now that you could not do before. Commit hashes are in backticks.
3. Smaller changes lists the changes that do not need a story of their own, each with its commit.
4. Related pages links the feature pages (how to use it), the specifications (every setting and class), the behaviour change notes (what to check when you upgrade) and the changelog of the release.
5. A month with two pages (a and b) was split by day because it was busy.

A change that is not in the chronicle is in the ledger. A change that has no user benefit, such as a funding file, is marked as such, with a reason, on the coverage page.

How to read the ledger #

Open the ledger, choose a repository, then a month. Each line gives:

To see which release contains a change in this installation, list the tags in version order:

git tag -l 'v6.0.*' --sort=version:refname | tail -3

Expected: the newest tags, ending with v6.0.14. The 6.0.15 line is in development and has no tag yet; its notes are in the 6.0.15 changelog.

The chronicle, month by month #

The other chronicles #

Use the history to learn #

• You want to use a feature: follow the link from its month to the feature page, or start from the guides.
• You are upgrading: read the 6.0.15 changelog, then the behaviour change notes it links, newest last.
• You meet a word you do not know: glossary.
• You hunt for one commit: search the ledger of the repository, or run git log --oneline -S"text" in the installation.

Related pages #

• Guides: the learning path
• History of Exponential (1999 - 2026): the whole story of the code since 1999
• Glossary
• Coverage: every change accounted for
• Ledger of all repositories