First beta release of Textpattern 4.8.8 (aka Textpattern 4.8.8-beta.1).

• Maintenance release with support for PHP 8.1, security enhancements, general improvements and bug fixes.
• Security: to be advised (many thanks, Paul Ritchie at Pentest Limited).
• Fixed: More robust numeric searches.
• Fixed: Improved query efficiency of category operations.
• Fixed: Required parameters after optional in tag builder (thanks, phiw13).
• Fixed: Admin-side pagination when sorting by non-unique values.
• Added: Natural search mode.
• Added: Random form selection.
• Added: Support for AVIF image format, on PHP 8.1 or higher.
• Added: Global limit, offset and sort attributes.
• Added: url_title attribute to <txp:article[_custom] />.
• Added: range attribute to <txp:article_image />.
• Added: date and time attributes to <txp:if_expired />.
• Added: calendar attribute to <txp:posted /> and similar tags.
• Added: Substring extraction via escape attribute.
• Added: <txp:items_count /> tag.
• Added: Expanded conditional 'match' attribute with comparison operators.
• Added: UTC is now a permitted time zone.
• Added: Custom date formats.
• Changed: <txp:category_list /> with children >1 attribute behaviour.
• Changed: Global escape attribute operates at the items level in lists.
• Accessibility: Additional aria-label attributes for some internal links.
• Internal: Removed FOUND_ROWS() which is deprecated in MySQL 8.0.17.
• Internal: Prefer is_readable() and is_file() to file_exists().
• Developer: Added plugin lifecycle events upgraded and downgraded.
• Developer: Export new article IDs on duplicate.
• PrismJS 1.24.1.

Final cut of Textpattern 4.8.8 expected 2022 Q1.