I'm happy to announce RC1 (that's Release Candidate 1!!) of NodeBB v4. Since the last v4 pre-release (beta 4), we've made additional bug fixes and stability improvements.

Here is the list of new features and fixes since the first beta:

• Emoji!
• Ability to search for a user by their handle directly from the search bar
• When encountering links to websites that advertise an ActivityPub alternate, NodeBB will try to load that site in NodeBB first
• Categories now have their own avatars instead of serving the generic site brand icon
• NodeBB will attempt to backfill an entire topic when encountering a new object, reducing the need to visit the original site to get the entire conversation. (This is contingent on the other server supporting resolvable context collections)
• Chats are now federating out as limited-visibility posts on the fediverse
• Improvements to the title generator
• Custom Fields now two-way federating (custom fields are a feature new to the 3.x branch as well!)
• Better compatibility with nodebb-plugin-feed

Timeline-wise this brings us close to the end of our funding from @nlnet@social.nlnet.nl for the 2024 calendar year. We've exceeded our own expectations of what we could do this year, and we've already applied for funding from NLNet again to really let NodeBB push the boundaries of what the ActivityPub protocol can do!

The RC signifies that the software has reached a (self-proclaimed) stable state, and broader usage is encouraged. If you have any questions, concerns, or trouble upgrading your existing NodeBB to v4, please call that out here for support.

There is now a soft feature freeze in place while we sort out the last remaining (hopefully none ) bugs, and we'll aim to launch v4 after that.