September 2023 status


After two "summer statuses" we resume our monthly updates.

CryptPad 5.5 coming soon

The team is preparing the latest version of CryptPad. At the time of writing we are planning to deploy 5.5 to CryptPad.fr this week and make it available on GitHub shortly after if all goes well. Highlights for this release will include:

Moderation and deletion features

Instance administrators will now have the option to archive a whole account, including all documents where the account is the only owner. This enables admins to take stronger action in moderation cases where more than a single document is in breach of the instance's terms of service.

We also took this opportunity to better communicate why a document is not accessible. Previously, CryptPad would display confusing messages such as this one if a document had been deleted or if its password was changed:

The document you are trying to open no longer exists or is protected with a new password. Enter the correct password to access the content.

With 5.5.0 CryptPad will give more information in cases where the document or account was:

  • Deleted by an owner
  • Deleted by an admin (user account or document)
  • Deleted for inactivity (documents not stored in a user drive and inactive)
  • Protected with a new password (user account or document)

OnlyOffice upgrade

CryptPad 5.5.0 includes an upgraded version of OnlyOffice applications (7.3.3.60) and fixes some import/export bugs for office documents.

End-to-end testing

For this release we are making use of the end-to-end testing suite that Zuzanna has been developing for the last few months. It has been a lot of work to program all of the test cases using Playwright but these efforts are finally starting to pay off as the tests have already identified a few bugs. We'll continue these efforts to improve the quality assurance of CryptPad in future releases.

Acessibility and mobile fixes

With Daria and Diana's internships coming to an end, we are releasing their contributions. They mostly have to do with improvements related to accessibility and using CryptPad on mobile.

‍ ‍ Daria and Diana are joining the team

Speaking of Daria and Diana, we are happy to announce that they will remain on the team after their internships finish. They will each take a part time role while also completing the last year of their studies. Their work will continue to focus on improving the CryptPad front-end for better accessibility and mobile usability, two areas that need a lot of continued improvement.

‍ Fabrice joins the team

We have another addition to the team this month: Fabrice Mouhartem. Fabrice is a cryptography researcher who completed his PhD at École Nationale Supérieure (ENS) in Lyon, France (2018). His recent post-docs at ENS and PQShield focused on building provable cryptographic protocols based on both classical and post-quantum assumptions. His role on the CryptPad team will be split between research on how to get CryptPad post-quantum ready, and contributing features and bug fixes to the code. We look forward to having Fabrice's expertise on the team!

What's next

  • Continuing work on our document API and authentication features
  • Wrapping up the Blueprints project with a website that details all outcomes and provides a place for future research and prototypes