TWiki-5.1.2 Released: Rock Solid. Usable. Fun.

We just released TWiki-5.1.2, it can be downloaded immediately from TWiki.org and SourceForge.net. The TWiki-VM will be updated as well in the next few days. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who contributed to this release, especially to our release manager George Trubisky. In all, 50 people are listed in the Istanbul Hall of Fame. Thank you!

This release supersedes earlier TWiki-5.1 releases, which introduced many usability enhancements, such as point and click user data management, more visual user profile pages with picture selector, and a backup feature to help upgrade TWiki sites. TWiki-5.1 also strengthens TWiki as an application platform to more easily build custom wiki applications.

What's New?

The latest TWiki-5.1.2 release fixes a number of bugs and has many incremental enhancements, which are highlighted in this TWiki-5.1 Community Release feature highlights:

• For Users: Better Usability
  • More visual user profile pages with in-place editing of form fields and picture selector
  • In-place editing of TWiki group settings using PreferencesPlugin
  • Point and click bookmarks
  • The TopMenuSkin has an option for auto-hidden or fixed top menu-bar. In auto-hidden mode, the menu is always accessible with a stub on the upper left, as seen here on TWiki.org. - added in TWiki-5.1.2
  • New ColorPickerPlugin to pick a color in form fields

• For Administrators: More Control
  • API and GUI for point and click user data management
  • Improved statistics showing overall site usage over time, such as total number of webs, topics, users, etc
  • New BackupRestorePlugin to easily backup, restore and upgrade TWiki installations
  • BackupRestorePlugin: Add restore from backup feature - added in TWiki-5.1.1
    Stub of TopMenu-bar
    
  • Security: Set a flag to force password change on next login
  • Security: Support disabled users in password manager
  • S/Mime support for notification e-mails

• For Power Users: More Power
  • New SetGetPlugin that can store variables persistently
  • SpreadSheetPlugin: New functions BITXOR(), HEXENCODE(), HEXDECODE(), XOR()
  • SpreadSheetPlugin: New functions FLOOR() and CEILING() - added in TWiki-5.1.1
  • SpreadSheetPlugin: New functions $ISDIGIT(), $ISLOWER(), $ISUPPER(), $ISWIKIWORD() and $FILTER() - added in TWiki-5.1.2

• For Programmers: TWiki Application Platform Enhancements
  • The SetGetPlugin adds a REST interface to set and query variables - useful for TWiki applications that need to store variables persistently via Ajax calls. - added in TWiki-5.1.2
  • Macro language with parameterized variables
  • The SpreadSheetPlugin has a new CALCULATE variable that gets evaluated in the proper inside-out, left-to-right order among other TWikiVariables. In contrast, the older CALC variable gets evaluated with some delay, which can result in some surprises. - added in TWiki-5.1.2
  • Ability to auto-create page on view if it does not exist
  • Relative heading levels for INCLUDE
  • Relative heading levels for SEARCH

See more details on the TWiki-5.1 release. Curious how the latest TWiki looks like? See some TWikiScreenshots.

What's Happening with the Community?

We have lots of activity lately on TWiki.org, developers are working hard on the next major TWiki release. A few highlights of the last few weeks are worth mentioning:

• Enhanced TWiki with ReadOnlyAndMirrorWebs for multi-site install with data replication - thanks Hideyo Imazu!
• New TasksFramework for background processing and to execute tasks - thanks Timothe Litt!
• SmimeUpgrade for secure e-mail notification - thanks Timothe Litt!
• New TWikiDashboardAddOn to create sexy looking dashboards for teams. This will go into the next TWiki release - Peter Thoeny
• New IpPlugin to obtain information about IP addresses - thanks Timothe Litt!
• New JiraPlugin to embed Jira bug data in TWiki pages - thanks Mahiro Ando!
• New IncludeXMLPlugin to transform and embed XML data in TWiki pages - thanks Mahiro Ando!
• ExternalLinkTrackerPlugin to track user clicks to external links - Peter Thoeny
• Many extension updates, such as ChartPlugin, CommentPlugin, DateTimePlugin, GaugePlugin, GlobalReplacePlugin, ModalBoxAddOn, PreferencesPlugin, RatingContrib, RedirectPlugin, ScrollBoxAddOn, SetGetPlugin, SlideShowPlugin, SpreadSheetPlugin, StopWikiWordLinkPlugin, TreeBrowserPlugin, TWikiUserMappingContrib, VarCachePlugin

We invite you to get involved with our community! As a contributor you can help steer the ship.

How You Can Help: Spread the Word!

Word of mouth is an effective way to spread TWiki - we appreciate your help tremendously! More exposure means more contributions, and a better system! Please spread the word in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs etc. You can point your connections to this blog post (at http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Blog/BlogEntry201201x1) - short link is http://bit.ly/twRel512.

Sample tweet you could use:

New TWiki-5.1.2 release available: Enterprise Collaboration. Rock Solid. Usable. Easy. Fun: http://bit.ly/twRel512 #e20 #enterprise #wiki

Let us know what you think of this new release!

-- PeterThoeny - founder of TWiki.org

Comments

The TWiki-VM-5.1.2-1 VMware Virtual Machine is now also available for download. Enjoy!

-- Peter Thoeny - 2012-10-23

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