zulip/templates/zerver/api/changelog.md

Changelog

This page documents changes to the Zulip Server API over time.

The recommended way for a client like the Zulip mobile or desktop apps that needs to support interaction with a wide range of different Zulip server versions is to check the zulip_feature_level parameter in the /register and /server_settings responses to determine which of the below features are supported.

Changes in Zulip 4.0

Feature level 48

• POST /users/me/muted_users/{muted_user_id}, DELETE /users/me/muted_users/{muted_user_id}: New endpoints added to mute/unmute users.
• GET /events: Added new event type muted_users which will be sent to a user when the set of users muted by them has changed.

Feature level 47

• POST /register: Added a new giphy_api_key field, which is required to fetch GIFs using the GIPHY API.

Feature level 46

• GET /messages and GET /events: The topic_links field now contains a list of dictionaries, rather than a list of strings.

Feature level 45

• GET /events: Removed useless op field from custom_profile_fields events. These events contain the full set of configured custom_profile_fields for the organization regardless of what triggered the change.

Feature level 44

• POST /register: extended the unread_msgs object to include old_unreads_missing, which indicates whether the server truncated the unread_msgs due to excessive total unread messages.

Feature level 43

• [GET /users/{user_id_or_email}/presence]: Added support for passing the user_id to identify the target user.

Feature level 42

• PATCH /settings/display: Added a new default_view setting allowing the user to set the default view.

Feature level 41

• GET /events: Removed name field from update subscription events.

Feature level 40

• GET /events: Removed email field from update subscription events.

Feature level 39

• Added new GET /users/{email} endpoint.

Feature level 38

• POST /register: Increased realm_community_topic_editing_limit_seconds time limit value to 259200s (3 days).

Feature level 37

• Consistently provide subscribers in stream data when clients register for subscriptions with include_subscribers, even if the user can't access subscribers.

Feature level 36

• POST /users: Restricted access to organization administrators with the can_create_users permission.

Feature level 35

• The peer_add and peer_remove subscription events now have plural versions of user_ids and stream_ids.

Feature level 34

• POST /register: Added a new wildcard_mention_policy setting for controlling who can use wildcard mentions in large streams.

Feature level 33

• Markdown code blocks now have a data-code-language attribute attached to the outer div element, recording the programming language that was selecting for syntax highlighting. This field supports the upcoming "view in playground" feature for code blocks.

Feature level 32

• GET /events: Added op field to update_message_flags events, deprecating the operation field (which has the same value). This removes an unintentional anomaly in the format of this event type.

Feature level 31

• GET users/me/subscriptions: Added a role field to Subscription objects representing whether the user is a stream administrator.

• GET /events: Added role field to Subscription objects sent in subscriptions events.

Note that as of this feature level, stream administrators are a partially completed feature. In particular, it is impossible for a user to be a stream administrator at this feature level.

Feature level 30

• GET users/me/subscriptions, GET /streams: Added date_created to Stream objects.
• POST /users, POST /bots: The ID of the newly created user is now returned in the response.

Feature levels 28 and 29 are reserved for future use in 3.x bug fix releases.

Changes in Zulip 3.1

Feature level 27

• The short_name field is removed from display_recipients in POST /users.

Feature level 26

• The sender_short_name field is no longer included in GET /messages.
• The short_name field is removed from display_recipients in GET /messages.

Changes in Zulip 3.0

Feature level 25

No changes; feature level used for Zulip 3.0 release.

Feature level 24

• The !avatar() and !gravatar() Markdown syntax, which was never documented, had inconsistent syntax, and was rarely used, was removed.

Feature level 23

• GET/PUT/POST /users/me/pointer: Removed. Zulip 3.0 removes the pointer concept from Zulip; this legacy data structure was replaced by tracking unread messages and loading views centered on the first unread message.

Feature level 22

• GET /attachments: The date when a message using the attachment was sent is now correctly encoded as date_sent, replacing the confusingly named name field. The date_sent and create_time fields of attachment objects are now encoded as integers; (previously the implementation could send floats incorrectly suggesting that microsecond precision is relevant).
• GET /invites: Now encodes the user ID of the person who created the invitation as invited_by_user_id, replacing the previous ref field (which had that user's Zulip display email address).

Feature level 21

• PATCH /settings/display: Replaced the night_mode boolean with color_scheme as part of supporting automatic night theme detection.

Feature level 20

• Added support for inviting users as organization owners to the invitation endpoints.

Feature level 19

• GET /events: subscriptions event with op="peer_add" and op="peer_remove" now identify the modified stream by a stream_id field, replacing the old name field.

Feature level 18

• POST /register: Added user_avatar_url_field_optional to supported client_capabilities.

Feature level 17

• GET users/me/subscriptions, GET /streams: Added message_retention_days to Stream objects.
• POST users/me/subscriptions, PATCH streams/{stream_id}: Added message_retention_days parameter.

Feature level 16

• [GET /users/me]: Removed pointer from the response, as the "pointer" concept is being removed in Zulip.
• Changed the rendered HTML markup for mentioning a time to use the <time> HTML tag. It is OK for clients to ignore the previous time mention markup, as the feature was not advertised before this change.

Feature level 15

• Added spoilers to supported Markdown features.

Feature level 14

• GET users/me/subscriptions: Removed the is_old_stream field from Stream objects. This field was always equivalent to stream_weekly_traffic != null on the same object.

Feature level 13

• POST /register: Added bulk_message_deletion to supported client_capabilities.
• GET /events: message_deleted events have new behavior. The sender and sender_id fields were removed, and the message_id field was replaced by a message_ids list for clients with the bulk_message_deletion client capability. All clients should upgrade; we expect bulk_message_deletion to be required in the future.

Feature level 12

• GET users/{user_id}/subscriptions/{stream_id}: New endpoint added for checking if another user is subscribed to a stream.

Feature level 11

• POST /register: Added realm_community_topic_editing_limit_seconds to the response, the time limit before community topic editing is forbidden. A null value means no limit. This was previously hard-coded in the server as 86400 seconds (1 day).
• POST /register: The response now contains a is_owner, similar to the existing is_admin and is_guest fields.
• POST /set-typing-status: Removed legacy support for sending email addresses, rather than user IDs, to encode private message recipients.

Feature level 10

• GET users/me: Added avatar_version, is_guest, is_active, timezone, and date_joined fields to the User objects.
• GET users/me: Removed client_id and short_name from the response to this endpoint. These fields had no purpose and were inconsistent with other API responses describing users.

Feature level 9

• POST users/me/subscriptions, DELETE /users/me/subscriptions: Other users to subscribe/unsubscribe, declared in the principals parameter, can now be referenced by user_id, rather than Zulip display email address.
• PATCH /messages/{message_id}: Added send_notification_to_old_thread and send_notification_to_new_thread optional parameters.

Feature level 8

• GET /users, GET /users/{user_id} and GET /users/me: User objects now contain the is_owner field as well.
• Added time mentions to supported Markdown features.

Feature level 7

• GET /events: realm_user and realm_bot events no longer contain an email field to identify the user; use the user_id field instead. Previously, some (but not all) events of these types contained an email key in addition to to user_id) for identifying the modified user.
• PATCH /users/{user_id}: The is_admin and is_guest parameters were removed in favor of the more general role parameter for specifying a change in user role.
• GET /events: realm_user events sent when a user's role changes now include role property, instead of the previous is_guest or is_admin booleans.
• GET /realm/emoji: The user who uploaded a given custom emoji is now indicated by an author_id field, replacing a previous author object with unnecessary additional data.

Feature level 6

• GET /events: realm_user events to update a user's avatar now include the avatar_version field, which is important for correctly refetching medium-size avatar images when the user's avatar changes.
• GET /users and GET /users/{user_id}: User objects now contain the avatar_version field as well.

Feature level 5

• GET /events: realm_bot events, sent when changes are made to bot users, now contain an integer-format owner_id field, replacing the owner field (which was an email address).

Feature level 4

• jitsi_server_url, development_environment, server_generation, password_min_length, password_min_guesses, max_file_upload_size_mib, max_avatar_file_size_mib, server_inline_image_preview, server_inline_url_embed_preview, server_avatar_changes_disabled and server_name_changes_disabled fields are now available via POST /register to make them accessible to all the clients; they were only internally available to Zulip's web app prior to this.

Feature level 3:

• zulip_version and zulip_feature_level are always returned in POST /register; previously they were only returned if event_types included zulip_version.
• Added new presence_enabled user notification setting; previously presence was always enabled.

Feature level 2:

• POST /messages/{message_id}/reactions: The reaction_type parameter is optional; the server will guess the reaction_type if it is not specified (checking custom emoji, then Unicode emoji for any with the provided name).
• reactions objects returned by the API (both in GET /messages and in GET /events) now include the user who reacted in a top-level user_id field. The legacy user dictionary (which had inconsistent format between those two endpoints) is deprecated.

Feature level 1:

• GET /server_settings: Added zulip_feature_level, which can be used by clients to detect which of the features described in this changelog are supported.
• POST /register: Added zulip_feature_level to the response if zulip_version is among the requested event_types.
• GET /users: User objects for bots now contain a bot_owner_id, replacing the previous bot_owner field (which had the email address of the bot owner).
• GET /users/{user_id}: Endpoint added.
• GET /messages: Add support for string-format values for the anchor parameter, deprecating and replacing the use_first_unread_anchor parameter.
• GET /messages and GET /events: Message objects now use topic_links rather than subject_links to indicate links either present in the topic or generated by linkifiers applied to the topic.
• POST /users/me/subscriptions: Replaced is_announcement_only boolean with stream_post_policy enum for specifying who can post to a stream.
• PATCH /streams/{stream_id}: Replaced is_announcement_only boolean with stream_post_policy enum for specifying who can post to a stream.
• GET /streams: Replaced is_announcement_only boolean with stream_post_policy enum for specifying who can post to a stream.
• GET /api/v1/user_uploads: Added new endpoint for requesting a temporary URL for an uploaded file that does not require authentication to access (e.g. for passing from a Zulip desktop, mobile, or terminal app to the user's default browser).
• Added EMAIL_ADDRESS_VISIBILITY_NOBODY possible value for email_address_visibility.
• Added private_message_policy realm setting.
• muted_topic objects now are a 3-item tuple: (stream_id, topic, date_muted). Previously, they were a 2-item tuple.
• GitLab authentication is now available.
• Added None as a video call provider option.

Changes in Zulip 2.1

• GET /users: Added include_custom_profile_fields to request custom profile field data.
• GET /users/me: Added avatar_url field, containing the user's avatar URL, to the response.
• GET /users/me/subscriptions: Added include_subscribers parameter controlling whether data on the other subscribers is included. Previous behavior was to always send subscriber data.
• GET /users/me/subscriptions: Stream-level notification settings like push_notifications were changed to be nullable boolean fields (true/false/null), with null meaning that the stream inherits the organization-level default. Previously, the only values were true/false. A client communicates support for this feature using client_capabilities.
• GET /users/me/subscriptions: Added wildcard_mentions_notify notification setting, with the same global-plus-stream-level-override model as other notification settings.
• GET /server_settings: Added external_authentication_methods structure, used to display login buttons nicely in the mobile apps.
• Added first_message_id field to Stream objects. This is helpful for determining whether the stream has any messages older than a window cached in a client.
• Added is_web_public field to Stream objects. This field is intended to support web-public streams.
• Added /export/realm endpoints for triggering a data export.
• PATCH /realm: Added invite_to_stream_policy, create_stream_policy, digest_emails_enabled, digest_weekday, user_group_edit_policy, and avatar_changes_disabled organization settings.
• Added fluid_layout_width, desktop_icon_count_display, and demote_inactive_streams display settings.
• enable_stream_sounds was renamed to enable_stream_audible_notifications.
• Deprecated in_home_view, replacing it with the more readable is_muted (with the opposite meaning).
• Custom profile fields: Added EXTERNAL_ACCOUNT field type.

Changes in Zulip 2.0

• POST /messages: Added support for using user IDs and stream IDs for specifying the recipients of a message.
• POST /messages, POST /messages/{message_id}: Added support for encoding topics using the topic parameter name. The previous subject parameter name was deprecated but is still supported for backwards-compatibility.
• POST /set-typing-status: Added support for specifying the recipients with user IDs, deprecating the original API of specifying them using email addresses.

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Changes not yet stabilized

• POST /register: Added slim_presence parameter. Changes the format of presence events, but is still being changed and should not be used by clients.