News

Today the second development version of WebIssues 1.1 was released. It introduces two entirely new features which allow better integration between WebIssues and email:

• Email inbox receives emails from selected email account and automatically creates issues based on these emails, and creates comments and attachments for existing issues.
• Subscriptions make it possible to watch individual, selected issues for change. An email notification is sent to subscribers when someone modifies the issue in any way, for example by editing its attributes, modifying its description, adding a comment or attachment.

The email inbox and subscriptions can be used together, which makes it possible to set up two way email communication with the WebIssues system. It's even possible for external users, who don't have a WebIssues account, to communicate with the WebIssues system in this way.

You can download the newest server and client packages for testing from the Development version page.

The first development version of WebIssues 1.1 is available. The most imporant feature introduced in this version is the support for issue descriptions. They are similar to comments, but they are displayed in a distinctive way in the issue details and they can be entered directly when creating an issue. When updating from version 1.0, the first comment is automatically converted to a description. Also projects can now have a description, which can be edited by the administrators and viewed by all users when the project is selected in the tree.

Both comments and descriptions can now use a new format of text with simple markup. It allows changing the font style, for example bold or italic, and creating simple formatting, for example bullet lists, quotations and code blocks with optional syntax highlighting. A toolbar above the text fields can assist in entering the correct markup.

You can download the new server and client packages from the Development version page. This beta version should not be used for production purposes, but I encourage everyone to test it and report any potential problems and suggestions for improvements.

Version 1.0.5 of WebIssues Server and Client is a bug fix release which fixes the following issues:

• A crash in the Desktop Client when a view or report has more than 16 columns. It occurred most often when exporting a list of issues to CSV file with all system and user columns, and the issue type had more than 10 attributes.
• Some issues with truncating text and recognizing links were fixed. URLs starting with file:// and \\ (UNC paths) are now also recognized by the Web Client (though many browsers block access to such URLs, so you may need to user copy & paste).
• A workaround was added to the Desktop Client to prevent problems caused by incorrectly configured mod_security module on the server. Note that using mod_security with WebIssues is not recommended as it may block legitimate requests.

By the way, work on version 1.1 has recently started. The first beta version will be released in April or May. One of the main features introduced in this version will be issue descriptions. It will also be possible to use simple text formatting in both comments and description. You can read more about it in this blog post.

Version 1.0.4 of WebIssues Server and Client contains the following bug fixes and new features:

• Uploading and downloading attachments stored in a PostgreSQL database was fixed. Because of that this patch is highly recommended if you are using PostgreSQL.
• Issue history is presented in a more compact format. In addition, it is possible to select the order in which history is displayed and the default filter (all changes or only comments and attachments), both globally in server settings, and individually in user preferences. Finally, attributes with empty values can be removed from the issue details view.
• It is now possible to define the initial view for each type of issues. This view is selected by default when opening a folder instead of the All Issues view. The initial view can be defined in the View Settings of the selected issue type.
• The drop-down calendar when editing date attributes now contains a Today button which sets the current date (and time, if present).

Also note that the official binary packages for Windows are now digitally signed with a certificate. This should prevent security warnings from both Windows and anti-virus software.

Updated on 2012-12-14: Version 1.0.4-1 of the WebIssues Server was released. It fixes a bug in the installer which caused server settings to be incorrectly initialized after installing the server. If you already have version 1.0.4, you don't have to update, unless you're planning to install a new instance of the server. If you installed the server using version 1.0.4 and an error occurs when opening an issue, simply go to Administration Panel, open Server Settings and click OK to update the settings.

The third patch for WebIssues 1.0 was released with the following improvements, additions and bug fixes:

• Thanks to the ongoing effort of the WebIssues community, two more translations are available - Dutch and Spanish.
• A new user self-registration module is available which allows users to register themselves with approval of the administrator. To use it, make sure that sending e-mails is correctly configured and enable user registration in Server Settings. Refer to the manual for more information about this feature.
• It is possible to manage projects for the selected user in the User Accounts area of the Administration Panel. This make it much easier to add a new user, check permissions of a user, and manage a server with many users and projects.
• A bug related to filtering issues was fixed. Filtering worked incorrectly when an empty operand was used with numeric and date attributes; also there were problems creating such filter using the Desktop Client.

Note: Development of the user registration module was kindly sponsored by Tecnoarea. Thanks a lot!