Release Notes for XWiki 8.4-rc-1

Last modified by Thomas Mortagne on 2017/03/24

This is the release notes for XWiki Commons, XWiki Rendering, XWiki Platform and XWiki Enterprise. They share the same release notes as they are released together and have the same version.

The highlights of this release are the new page type filter from the Create Page form and the new configuration section for the CKEditor. Changing the supported languages from the administration has been made easier with the new language picker. Ordering the Application panel items is now possible with simple drag & drop. Sub-wiki initialization is now asynchronous. As usual the release also includes many bug fixes and smaller improvements.

New and Noteworthy (since XWiki 8.3)

Full list of issues fixed and Dashboard for 8.4.

For Users

CKEditor Integration Improvements

 
The CKEditor Integration extension has been upgraded to version 1.9 which brings a couple of improvements and bug fixes:

  • The "WYSIWYG Editor" section from the Wiki Administration has been extended to support CKEditor configuration
  • The link dialog has a new text input to specify the link label
  • The form action buttons are now available in full-screen mode
  • CKEditor has been upgraded to the latest stable version 4.5.11

Ability to filter the page types

 
When you create a new page, you have to chose the type in a lot of them. To help you to pick the one you want, you can now filter them thanks to a text input.

Miscellaneous

  • Editing a Flamingo Theme loads a bit faster now.

  • The Message Stream Application is now disabled by default and needs to be enabled to activate the feature. This was chosen in order to not clutter the UI by default, considering that not all users would need this feature. In the future, it should be moved as an optional extension to install.

For Admins

Language Picker

 
It's now easier to select a language in the administration for your wiki.

Wiki initialization

 
Like the main wiki, sub wikis now have asynchronous initialization. This reduce a lot the chance that one or several initializing wikis end up eating all the farm input threads.

Ability to re-order items in the Applications Panel

 
It's now possible to re-order the items displayed in the Application Panel, in the administration.

Extension Search Button

 
Added a search button on the Extension Manager pages in the Administration, to make it more user-friendly (users had to press the "return" key before).

Miscellaneous

  • Embedded core extension descriptors: All the jars packaged in the standard JAR comes with their complete Extension descriptor so XWiki won't try to find them in the repositories to get more information anymore. It will still be the case for any jar which does not provide a complete descriptor or jars that comes from the application server (but only the first time, then it's cached).

  • Extension sorted by rating: The Repository REST search API now sort extensions by Ratings when the search query is empty. This means that extensions will end up sorted by Ratings (per repository) in Extension Manager when accessing the Add Extension administration section. 

    Note that xwiki.org needs to run XWiki 8.4RC1+ to see this feature for the extensions.xwiki.org extension repository (which is the one used by default in XWiki).

For Developers

XWiki Select Widget can be filtered

 
When you use an XWiki Select Widget, you can now let the user filter the proposed options dynamically.

Miscellaneous

  • The Dashboard Macro now only displays a Gadget if that gadget's content is not empty when rendered. This allows Gadgets to control whether they should be displayed or not. For example, if you wish to display a Gadget only if the user has some permissions such as Admin rights, you can do that with an if in the Gadget's content.

Upgrades

The following runtime dependencies have been upgraded (they have a different release cycle than XWiki Commons, XWiki Rendering, XWiki Platform and XWiki Enterprise):

Translations

The following translations have been updated: 

Tested Browsers & Databases

Here is the list of browsers we support and how they have been tested for this release:

BrowserTest Result
Chrome30.pngGoogle ChromeNot Tested
Firefox30.pngMozilla FirefoxNot Tested
IE30.pngInternet Explorer 10Not Tested
IE30.pngInternet Explorer 11Jira Tickets Marked as Fixed in the Release Notes + New and Noteworthy Features

Here is the list of databases we support and how they have been tested for this release:

DatabaseTest Result
hypersql.pngHyperSQLJira Tickets Marked as Fixed in the Release Notes + New and Noteworthy Features
mysql.pngMySQLNot Tested
oracle.pngOracleNot Tested
postgresql.pngPostgreSQLNot Tested

Known issues

Backward Compatibility and Migration Notes

General Notes

When upgrading make sure you compare your xwiki.cfg, xwiki.properties and web.xml files with the newest version since some configuration parameters may have been modified or added. Note that you should add xwiki.store.migration=1 so that XWiki will attempt to automatically migrate your current database to the new schema. Make sure you backup your Database before doing anything.

API Breakages

No API has been broken since XWiki 8.3!

Credits

The following people have contributed code to this release (sorted alphabetically):

Alexandru Cotiuga
Clemens Robbenhaar
Denis Gervalle
Ecaterina Moraru (Valica)
Eduard Moraru
Guillaume Delhumeau
Manuel Smeria
Marius Dumitru Florea
Michiel Hobbelman
Pascal B
Pbast
Thomas Mortagne
Vincent Massol

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