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.

This release contains a new way to insert links for page not yet existing from the WYSIWYG editor, complying with the configured name strategy in the wiki. It also brings various UI improvements such as a better icon picker, better contrast in paragraph edition buttons, and updated icons for attachment uploads. Last but not least this release contains a first implementation of the "Supported By" extension concept for administrators.
This release also contains security fixes, with the highest severity being 9.0 - 10.0.

New and Noteworthy (since XWiki 16.7.1)

Full list of issues fixed and Dashboard for 16.8.0.

For Users

Respect name strategy from WYSIWYG Editor inserted links

 
It is now possible to create more easily links to page not yet existing from the link modal of the WYSIWYG editor. One option is by typing a link name: the suggester will propose to create a link in current space, or for advanced user it's possible to specify the exact reference and to select the option to create the link with that specific reference. The other option is to create the needed hierarchy from the tree. The links that are created that way will always follow the configured name strategy of the wiki.

Improved the icon picker default selection

 
Instead of proposing an arbitrary set of icons somewhat close to the whole set, the updated icon picker displays only icons that match with the input typed so far, and sorts those icons alphabetically.

Paragraph edition contrast

 
Improved the contrast of the paragraph edition button.

Updated icons for attachment upload status

 
The new icons use the current icon set. This means that it will use font awesome icons instead of Silk with the default configuration.

Show subwiki on mention notifications

 
The mention subwiki is now shown in the mention notification message if the mention comes from a subwiki different from the one the user is currently in.

Miscellaneous

• Automatic focus on comment input: The comment button now moves the cursor automatically in the comment input field when clicked. It used to only show the new input, that should be then navigated to manually.

• Removed the log-in button when guest users comment.

• The breadcrumb dropdowns can now be used with a keyboard.

For Admins

Extension Supported By

 
Extensions now have the concept of supporters and support plans. The goal is to replace the very vague concept of Recommended we currently have for a very explicit pledge of organizations and individuals (Supporters) to support an extension, and to which extent (Support Plans).

See Extension Manager Application and https://extensions:Extension.Repository Application for more details.

Miscellaneous

• Presentation import updated: The importing of presentations has been rewritten to work with LibreOffice 24.2 and more recent versions. As part of this work, we increased the default image width to 1920 pixel and increased the image quality to 95. Previously set configuration options still apply and take precedence over these new defaults. Additionally, new options have been added to directly configure presentation import in xwiki.properties, including the ability to change the image format to PNG for even higher image quality. Refer to the documentation for details.

For Developers

• The displayUser velocity macro has a new structure. It now includes the user avatar inside of the username element instead of them being siblings. It's especially useful for anchor usernames.

Upgrades

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

• CSS4J 4.4
• Ukrainian Morfologik dictionaries to 6.5.1
• Log4J API 2.24.0
• Liquibase 4.29.2
• Netty 4.1.113.Final
• Checker Qual 3.47.0
• commons-lang3 3.17.0
• Jetty Client 10.0.24
• Snakeyaml 2.3
• bytebuddy 1.15.1
• Error Prone annotations 2.31.0
• Templates Application v1.0.11
• org.webjars:jquery-ui to v1.13.3
• Maven Resolver to 1.9.22
• Maven to 3.9.9
• Guava 33.3.0-jre
• RssReader 3.8.2
• PostgresSQL connector 42.7.4
• Jython 2.7.4
• commons-compress 1.27.1
• Jodconverter 4.4.8
• Protobuf Java 3.25.5

Translations

The following translations have been updated: 

• German
• Portuguese
• Russian

Tested Browsers & Databases

Automated testing

XWiki executes a lot of automated tests during its build, testing all supported configurations. In addition, some manual QA is also executed to try to discover additional problems (see below):

Manual testing

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

	Browser	Tested on:
	Mozilla Firefox 130	Jira Tickets Marked as Fixed in the Release Notes
	Google Chrome 129	Not Tested
	Microsoft Edge 129	Not Tested
	Safari 17	Not Tested

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

	Database	Tested on:
	HyperSQL 2.7.3	Not Tested
	MariaDB 11.4	Not Tested
	MySQL 9.0	Not Tested
	PostgreSQL 16	Jira Tickets Marked as Fixed in the Release Notes
	Oracle 19c	Not Tested

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

	Servlet Container	Tested on:
	Tomcat 9.0.96	Jira Tickets Marked as Fixed in the Release Notes
	Jetty 12.0.12 (XWiki Standalone packaging)	Not Tested
	Jetty 12.0.12	Not 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

• Bugs we know about

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 16.8.0

• The MessageStream Application is now officially deprecated (it was disabled by default since a long time) and should be removed from XWiki Standard in next cycle (XWiki 17.0.0).
• The bootstrap dependency is no longer coming from the official bootstrap repository since 3.4.x branch is not maintained anymore: we now provide our own fork of bootstrap based on Bootstrap 3.4.1.

API Breakages

No API breakage since XWiki 16.7.1

Credits

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

• Alex Cotiugă
• Clemens Robbenhaar
• LucasC
• Manuel Leduc
• Marius Dumitru Florea
• Michael Hamann
• Oana-Lavinia Florean
• Rogério Penna
• Simon Urli
• Simpel
• Thiago Krieck
• Thomas Mortagne
• Tom Laermans
• Vincent Massol
• slauriere