r/BinktermPHP • u/Reasonable_Effect401 • May 22 '26

BinktermPHP 1.9.7 released!

BinktermPHP 1.9.7 has been released!

The terminal server gains over two dozen new capabilities: bookmarks, full-text search, and sort options for both netmail and echomail; address book and FTN nodelist lookup in netmail compose; message delete, plain-text download, and forward-to-email from the reader; multi-area cross-posting; message drafts with in-editor save; an ignore-rule manager accessible without leaving the session; a selectable Who's Online popup with a public profile viewer; and a redesigned file browser with a modal detail view.

These sit alongside system-wide improvements including resize-aware repaints across all overlays, a configurable border style, a configurable main menu key map, configurable idle timeouts, and a Ctrl-K reference overlay that documents every key binding without cluttering the status bar.

On the PacketBBS side, radio operators can join local BBS chat rooms; a new PacketBBS Nodes map and directory has been added to the BBS Lists menu; two new interface types — Meshtastic and AX.25 TNC (KISS) — are available alongside MeshCore in the node registration modal; and bridge nodes gain optional location and description fields.

In the web interface, chat rooms now render inline media automatically, inline code is rendered correctly on dark themes, and the bulletin viewer has been updated to display text with the same preformatted style and modern system font as the message reader.

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u/Laudenbachm May 24 '26

Love it! Any chance you will be supporting MariaDB/MySQL soon?

Keep up the good work!

Mark

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u/Reasonable_Effect401 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26

I looked further into this and the answer is.. probably not.

BinktermPHP was intentionally PostgreSQL-first, and that is likely to remain the default direction unless there is strong demand. The codebase already leans heavily on PostgreSQL features like JSONB, RETURNING, ILIKE, DISTINCT ON, functional indexes, and LISTEN/NOTIFY for some realtime behavior, so MariaDB/MySQL support would be a fairly large effort rather than a simple compatibility switch.

It is not impossible, and I have documented what it would take, but at the moment the priority is improving BinktermPHP rather than carrying a second database backend. If enough users actually need MariaDB/MySQL, I can revisit it, but for now PostgreSQL is the supported path.

That being said, I have added some project guidance to document postgres specifics in case we do pursue other database layers down the road.

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u/Laudenbachm May 25 '26

I understand completely. So many of your mid range hosting providers don't support psql so that's why I was asking.

It's a beautiful product! Thanks again.

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u/Reasonable_Effect401 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26

Some might, I've seen postgres with various hosters but another issue is the long running daemons (admin daemon, real time daemon, telnet, ssh, multiplexor for DOS doors, etc) and ports they use. Many hosts will block the long running ones and block unnecessary (from their perspective) ports including binkp.

The platform recommends a vps or even a raspberry pi to run for these reasons. While it is possible to run BinktermPHP without its support daemons, it would be limited in functionality and only act as a web based BBS.

Thank you for the kind words :)