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RAVEN LMSWordPress AI LMS Plugin
Product Updates

Raven LMS Release Notes

Raven LMS continues to evolve as a secure learning and certification platform for professional training providers, certification organizations, schools, consultants, agencies, and enterprise learning teams.

The latest release series strengthens certificate integrity, protected course materials, payment workflows, credential security, privacy controls, learner communication, WordPress compatibility, and day-to-day administration while preserving existing courses, learner records, progress, exams, certificates, payments, and licensed add-ons.

Raven LMS Core v1.20.0
Raven LMS Theme v1.1.84
AI Course Publisher v1.5.13
Certificate Builder v1.0.33
Messaging Add-on v1.0.15

Latest Commercial Release

Raven LMS 1.20.0 is the current commercial-launch release. It brings together the security, certificate, privacy, payment, protected-file, licensing, learner-experience, and release-management work completed across the recent development cycle.

Commercial Release v1.20.0 Current production release

Certificate Lifecycle, Enrolment Type, and WordPress 7 Readiness

Certificate records are now created from authoritative course-completion events rather than public viewing or verification requests. Public HTML and REST verification remain strictly read-only, while administrators receive controlled tools for issuing or repairing eligible certificate records. Each course also includes a new Enrolment Type setting with Self-Paced and Instructor-Led options, displayed clearly on the frontend Course Information Card.

  • Read-only public certificate verification
  • Controlled certificate issue and repair tools
  • Self-Paced and Instructor-Led course types
  • Enrolment Type shown on course information cards
  • WordPress 7 compatibility and interface hardening
  • Improved keyboard focus and accessible status handling

Recent Security and Platform Releases

The releases leading to version 1.20.0 focused on strengthening Raven LMS without replacing established workflows or disrupting existing customer installations.

Core + AI Publisher v1.19.292 Independent secret-key architecture

Independent Credential Encryption and PHP Mail Correction

Raven credential encryption was separated from WordPress authentication salts so security plugins can rotate WordPress salts without invalidating Raven credentials. Raven now creates and manages its own protected master key unless a managed key is defined in wp-config.php. The release also corrected the PHP mail workflow so sites using standard WordPress mail are not incorrectly warned about missing or unreadable SMTP credentials.

  • Independent Raven encryption key
  • Sucuri and salt-rotation independence
  • Secure migration of readable legacy credentials
  • PHP mail shown as requiring no SMTP password
  • AI Course Publisher updated to v1.5.13
  • Real active-provider failures remain visible
Core + AI Publisher v1.19.291 Licensing and health correction

Clearer Licensing and Provider Health Reporting

The Raven licensing documentation was rewritten to separate Raven copyright ownership, WordPress-compatible software licensing, commercial subscriptions, activation limits, updates, support, hosted services, private infrastructure, and protected branding. System Health also gained provider-by-provider credential reporting so administrators can distinguish configured, inactive, externally managed, readable, and unreadable credentials.

  • Human-written licensing documentation
  • Commercial license services clearly explained
  • Provider-specific secret-storage status
  • Safe cleanup for inactive unreadable values
  • AI Course Publisher updated to v1.5.12
  • Raven License Manager remains fully supported
Core + Add-ons v1.19.290 Privacy and retention

Personal Data Tools and Retention Controls

Raven LMS added native integration with the WordPress personal-data exporter, eraser, and Privacy Policy Guide. Administrators can now configure retention periods for operational records, review suggested privacy disclosures, run controlled cleanup, and preserve certificate, payment, or audit evidence when required by organizational policy.

  • WordPress personal-data export support
  • WordPress personal-data erasure support
  • Configurable retention periods
  • Privacy-policy disclosure guidance
  • Messaging updated to v1.0.15
  • AI Course Publisher updated to v1.5.11
Core + AI Publisher v1.19.289 Announcements and secret storage

Cleaner Learner Dashboard and Authenticated Secret Storage

The large announcement block was removed from the learner Overview screen and replaced with a dedicated Announcements dashboard section with an unread-count badge. Raven also introduced shared authenticated encryption for saved SMTP, Stripe, PayPal, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Gemini credentials, including automatic migration, masking, redaction, tamper detection, and key-rotation support.

  • Dedicated learner Announcements section
  • Quieter dashboard Overview
  • Sodium Secretbox encryption
  • AES-256-GCM controlled fallback
  • Masked credentials and log redaction
  • AI Course Publisher updated to v1.5.10
Core v1.19.288 Protected file delivery

Authorized Course Material Delivery

Local course materials and lesson files can now be copied into guarded Raven private storage and delivered through temporary, signed, session-bound URLs. Access is checked again before every download, and local WordPress media URLs are no longer exposed as the learner-facing delivery method for protected materials.

  • Guarded private course-file storage
  • Temporary signed download links
  • User, session, course, and purpose binding
  • Course assignment and lesson-rule validation
  • Protected PDF viewing and PPTX download
  • Byte-range support for larger files
Core + Packages v1.19.287 Branding and release cleanup

Raven-Only Branding and Professional Release Packaging

All obsolete branding references, URLs, labels, migration identifiers, historical patch-note files, and internal manifests were removed from the customer package. Core and add-on documentation was rewritten, and the release package gained clear changelog, security, licensing, and supported-version documentation.

  • Raven-only customer-facing branding
  • Obsolete migration code removed safely
  • Historical patch files removed
  • Internal manifests removed
  • Security and support policy documents added
  • Clean customer-ready package structure
Core v1.19.286 Client-owned payment connectors

Stripe, PayPal, and External Payment Workflows

Raven was updated so each customer connects their own eligible Stripe or PayPal account. Hosted checkout, return verification, provider-side verification, sandbox and live modes, manual external-payment confirmation, transaction references, administrative notes, and duplicate-safe access activation were strengthened without routing customer funds through Raven.

  • Client-owned Stripe credentials
  • Client-owned PayPal credentials
  • Sandbox and live modes
  • Hosted provider checkout
  • Manual and external payment approval
  • Order, amount, currency, and environment validation

Earlier Product Milestones

Earlier Raven LMS releases established the course, lesson, exam, certificate, registration, reporting, dashboard, theme, review, and learner-experience capabilities that support the current commercial release.

v1.19.281

Registration Human Check

Added a required server-validated human-check field to the popup and standalone registration workflows to reduce simple automated learner registrations without adding a heavy registration process.

v1.19.280

Unified Registration Experience

Synchronized popup and shortcode registration so both use the same fields, validation, account-creation handler, approval behavior, nonce protection, and user-facing messages.

v1.19.279

Review Moderation and Learner Reporting

Added stronger review moderation states, filtered review management, CSV export, progress reporting, exam activity summaries, completion visibility, and learner risk-watch tools.

v1.19.278

Certificate Administration Tools

Introduced administrative tools for checking certificate assignment, learner eligibility, certificate identity, verification links, previews, and learner certificate actions.

v1.19.277

System Health and Support Snapshot

Added a dedicated Raven System Health screen with environment checks, license visibility, add-on versions, frontend page checks, theme compatibility, package status, and support information.

v1.19.276

Exam Timer and Certificate Identity Security

Strengthened server-side exam timer enforcement, standardized new Raven certificate IDs, refined LinkedIn certificate sharing, and expanded audit coverage for sensitive actions.

v1.19.275–1.19.274

Completed-Course and Certificate Experience

Improved completed-course pages, certificate-earned visibility, lesson completion styling, certificate actions, verification links, and LinkedIn organization support.

v1.19.273–1.19.267

Course Administration and Theme Refinement

Introduced cleaner course settings tabs, improved overview panels, refined associated-exam presentation, added button-width controls, and expanded hero and page-spacing options.

v1.19.266–1.19.264

Access Rules and Shortcode Stability

Simplified lesson requirements, added exam drip rules, prerequisites, enrollment limits, course dates, point requirements, legacy shortcode aliases, and public certificate verification support.

v1.19.263–1.19.261

Theme-Independent Course Presentation

Moved the course-grid shortcode into Raven Core, improved course-card controls, and allowed public visitors to see the modern lesson-list presentation while preserving protected access.

v1.19.249–1.19.242

Lesson Players and Knowledge Checks

Added lesson knowledge checks, PDF and PPTX lesson delivery, Full View presentation, media validation, upload guidance, safer file handling, and clearer learner badges and actions.

v1.19.239–1.19.233

Learner Dashboard, Login, and Email Improvements

Improved full-width dashboard layouts, distraction-free lessons, assignment emails, login protection, failed-login lockouts, and professional HTML notification templates.

v1.19.230–1.19.229

Payment Interface and Demonstration Workflows

Refreshed checkout presentation, improved gateway states, added payment demonstrations for administrators, and introduced no-cache handling for dynamic learner and checkout pages.

v1.19.210

Modular LMS Architecture

Established cleaner internal modules for courses, lessons, exams, certificates, reports, dashboards, payments, notifications, security, groups, gamification, and administrative tools.

Current Bundled Add-ons

The commercial Raven LMS package includes four licensed add-ons that extend the core platform while remaining managed through Raven’s add-on and license-delivery system.

Raven LMS Theme v1.1.84

Professional LMS Presentation

Provides Raven-focused layouts, Customizer controls, course presentation, dashboard styling, responsive interface refinements, button controls, hero spacing, and visual enhancements for Raven LMS pages.

AI Course Publisher v1.5.13

AI-Assisted Course Authoring

Supports structured course drafting, lesson planning, learning-content preparation, question generation, secure provider credentials, activity-log retention, and external AI provider configuration.

Certificate Builder v1.0.33

Professional Certificate Design

Supports editable certificate layouts, real-learner previews, certificate output, print-friendly presentation, verification links, LinkedIn sharing, and Raven certificate identity workflows.

Messaging Add-on v1.0.15

Private Learner Communication

Provides private learner and instructor messaging, course-related communication, WordPress privacy export and erasure support, and configurable retention for stored conversations.

Current product direction

Raven LMS is being developed as a secure, commercially supported learning and certification platform for organizations that need structured courses, learner management, controlled exams, verified certificates, professional reporting, protected learning materials, privacy tools, licensed add-ons, and customer-managed payment connections inside WordPress.

Future releases will continue to focus on enterprise update security, operational resilience, performance, accessibility, deployment controls, release verification, and practical improvements requested by Raven customers.

Requires WordPress 6.0 or later
Tested up to WordPress 7.0
Current Core Raven LMS 1.20.0