Release Notes for XWiki 16.3.0

Last modified by Ilie Andriuta on 2024/05/09

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

It is now possible to allow users to write a summary when uploading attachments from the attachments pane (this feature is not enabled by default). Notifications custom filters can now be filtered and sorted. Finally, the user and group administration tables have been migrated to Live Data. This release also comes with many smaller usability and performance improvements, in addition to the usual bug fixes.

The following regressions were introduced in this release (and found after it was released). Please check them out and if they impact you we recommend waiting to upgrade to a version where they are fixed.

New and Noteworthy (since XWiki 16.2.0)

Full list of issues fixed and Dashboard for 16.3.0.

For Users

Notifications custom filters livedata can be filtered and sorted

 
The notifications settings have been improved to allow filtering and sorting the custom filters livedata: this allows a better handling of the watching pages filters.

Updated link underlining preference

 
The extra accessibility preference is removed, in favor of a more precise Link underlining preference. The link underlining can be set to three values:

  • Yes: all links are underlined
  • Only inline links: Only links in text blocks are underlined. This is the new default value. This is a compromise that allows to easily spot links in blocks of text without highlighting them in places where they are easy to see.
  • No: No links are underlined. This is equivalent to the previous default value.

Note that on hover, links are always underlined, independently of the underline setting.

The screenshots display a page with the different preferences selected, in the same order as the one described above.

Upload summary

 
When upload summaries are enabled by the administrator, descriptions can be added to attachment uploads and will be displayed on the revision history of the attachment.

Miscellaneous

  • Improved caching of pages content and title: The title of pages title and content is now cached, this should lead to performance improvement after the first rendering of pages. No performance measurements are currently available.

  • The macro parameter modal now behaves like a regular form. It now accepts implicit form submission: it can be submitted by pressing enter after filling up a parameter. More information in the documentation.

  • In notification emails the breadcrumb displaying a page position do not contain an ellipsis anymore, the whole breadcrumb is shown.

  • Extended the image selection interactivity to allow faster selection: When adding an image to content in the WYSIWYG edit mode, it's now possible to double click the attachment to select in the gallery and validate the choice directly. Pressing Enter when focusing an attachment in this picker used to only select it, but it now also validates the choice. More information in the documentation.

For Admins

Users and Groups migrated to Live Data

 
The tables used for the administation of users and groups and now migrated to Live Data.

Miscellaneous

  • Upload summary: A new configuration property, attachment.upload.enableComment, was added to xwiki.properties to enable upload summaries.

    #-# [Since 16.3.0RC1]
    #-# Indicate whether or not comments for attachment uploads should be settable from UI, and displayed whenever the
    #-# attachment revisions are listed. The default is false.
    # attachment.upload.enableComments=false

For Developers

  • New helper for required right analyzers: A new component named BlockSupplierProvider is provided as part of the Required Rights API. It makes it easier to write custom required rights analyzers in extensions that trigger warnings when editing a document either grants rights that the content was missing or removes rights that the content previously had. For details, please refer to the documentation.

  • Live Data action icons can have custom css classes: Live data action icons can new have custom css classes. For instance, this can be useful to give a specific color to an icon.

Upgrades

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

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:

 BrowserTested on:
Firefox30.pngMozilla Firefox 125Not Tested
Chrome30.pngGoogle Chrome 124Jira Tickets Marked as Fixed in the Release Notes
Edge30.pngMicrosoft Edge 124Tests run and results
Safari30.pngSafari 17Not Tested

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

 DatabaseTested on:
hypersql.pngHyperSQL 2.7.2Not Tested
mariadb.pngMariaDB 11.3Not Tested
mysql.pngMySQL 8.4Jira Tickets Marked as Fixed in the Release Notes
postgresql.pngPostgreSQL 16Tests run and results
oracle.pngOracle 19cNot Tested

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

 Servlet ContainerTested on:
tomcat-icon.pngTomcat 9.0.89
jetty-icon.pngJetty 10.0.20 (XWiki Standalone packaging)Not Tested
jetty-icon.pngJetty 10.0.20Not Tested

Security Issues

Security issues are not listed in issue lists or dashboards to avoid disclosing ways to use them, but they will appear automatically in them once they're disclosed. See the XWiki Security Policy for more details.

Known issues

Backward Compatibility and Migration Notes

General Notes

  • When upgrading make sure you compare and merge the following XWiki configuration files since some parameters may have been modified, removed or added:
    • xwiki.cfg
    • xwiki.properties
    • web.xml
    • hibernate.cfg.xml
  • Add xwiki.store.migration=1 in xwiki.cfg so that XWiki will attempt to automatically migrate your current database to any new schema. Make sure you backup your Database before doing anything.

Issues specific to XWiki 16.3.0

  • The Following pages have been removed as they had been deprecated for a very long time:
    • Panels.SpaceDocs (was deprecated in XWiki 7.3M2). It was recommended to use the Children or Siblings Panels instead.
    • Panels.Spaces (was deprecated in XWiki 7.4.2/8.0M2). It was recommended to use the Navigation Panel instead.
    • Main.Spaces (was deprecated since the introduction of Nested Spaces). The Page Index provides a similar view.
    • Main.SpaceIndex (was deprecated since the introduction of Nested Spaces). The Page Index provides a similar view.
  • The security.authentication.resetPasswordTokenLifetime property default value has been changed in xwiki.properties: it used to be set to 0 meaning that the reset password link could be accessible only once and was then immediately discarded. It's now set to 60 minutes: the link can be accessed multiple times during 1 hours after the reset have been requested, however the link is immediately invalidated if someones tries to use a wrong code to perform password reset, for security reason.

API Breakages

The following APIs were modified since XWiki 16.2.0:

No breakage!

Credits

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

  • Clemens Robbenhaar 
  • Dorian OUAKLI 
  • Gankov Andrey 
  • LucasC 
  • Manuel Leduc 
  • Marius Dumitru Florea 
  • Michael Hamann 
  • MichaelFriedrich 
  • Nikita Petrenko 
  • Oana-Lavinia Florean 
  • Pierre Jeanjean 
  • Simon Urli 
  • Simpel 
  • Thomas Mortagne 
  • Vincent Massol 

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