Release Notes for XWiki 4.2 Release Candidate 1

Last modified by Thomas Mortagne on 2023/10/13

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

This is the first and hopefully final release candidate of the 4.2 release cycle (Roadmap). Being a release candidate, this release contains bugfixes and polishing, most of them focused on the new distribution wizard.

If you're upgrading from an older version and you use the new Distribution Wizard to upgrade your wiki pages you'll notice that it'll ask you to merge all pages that have been modified between your version and XWiki 4.2. This is because currently the Distribution Wizard doesn't know which version you have and thus asks you to perform the merge manually. This operation may take a long time (up to 20 minutes or so). Thus at the moment if you're upgrading from a previous version we recommend that you Cancel the Distribution Wizard and instead Import the new XAR. This problem is reported in this issue and should be fixed in the next release.

New and Noteworthy (since XWiki 4.2 Milestone 3)

Improved Distribution Wizard

The look&feel of the Distribution Wizard has been greatly improved. We added an overview step to explain the goal of the wizard and list its steps.

DistributionWizard-WelcomeStep.png

The wizard is not yet production ready. It has a couple of issues we hope to fix very soon:

  • information about core extensions is collected lazily and thus if you check distribution details just after starting XWiki you get incomplete information
  • installing or checking the details of the user interface extension takes a couple of minutes depending on your internet bandwidth and the load of the remote extension repository
  • some merge conflicts are reported even when the database is empty

DistributionWizard-UIStep.png

Invalid extensions are now marked differently in the last step.

DistributionWizard-ExtensionsStep.png

Miscellaneous

  • The Repository Application now registers an entry in the Application Panel:

    repository.png

  • Better internationalization support for the Workspace Application.

For Developers

Upgrades

The following dependencies have been upgraded:

  • Apache commons-codec 1.7

Translations

The following translations have been updated: 

Bug fixes and improvements

See the full list of JIRA issues fixed in this release.

Tested Browsers

Here's the list of browsers tested with this version (i.e. browsers that we've tested as working - Check the list of supported browsers):

Firefox
15.0.1

Known issues

Backward Compatibility and Migration Notes

General Notes

You may also want to import the default wiki XAR in order to benefit from all the improvements listed above.

Always make sure you compare your xwiki.cfg and xwiki.properties files with the newest version since some configuration parameters were 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

The following APIs were modified since XWiki 4.1.4:

  • The logging module is new and is still considered a "young API". Added new methods to manipulate loggers levels.
    org.xwiki.logging.LoggerManager: Method 'public org.xwiki.logging.LogLevel getLoggerLevel(java.lang.String)' has been added to an interface
    org.xwiki.logging.LoggerManager: Method 'public java.util.Collection getLoggers()' has been added to an interface
    org.xwiki.logging.LoggerManager: Method 'public void setLoggerLevel(java.lang.String, org.xwiki.logging.LogLevel)' has been added to an interface
  • The Job module is new and is still considered a "young API". Added two new methods to check and remove custom properties.
    org.xwiki.job.Request: Method 'public boolean containsProperty(java.lang.String)' has been added to an interface
    org.xwiki.job.Request: Method 'public java.lang.Object removeProperty(java.lang.String)' has been added to an interface
  • New InstalledExtension#isValid() method.
    org.xwiki.extension.InstalledExtension: Method 'public boolean isValid(java.lang.String)' has been added to an interface
  • The Extension module is relatively new and is still undergoing some API tuning. New method to access environment extension. Also added new methods to execute custom checking before installing/uninstalling an extension and new methods to access local:installed extensions.
    org.xwiki.extension.repository.CoreExtensionRepository: Method 'public org.xwiki.extension.CoreExtension getEnvironmentExtension()' has been added to an interface
    org.xwiki.extension.handler.ExtensionHandler: Method 'public void checkInstall(org.xwiki.extension.Extension, java.lang.String, org.xwiki.job.Request)' has been added to an interface
    org.xwiki.extension.handler.ExtensionHandler: Method 'public void checkUninstall(org.xwiki.extension.InstalledExtension, java.lang.String, org.xwiki.job.Request)' has been added to an interface
    org.xwiki.extension.repository.InstalledExtensionRepository: Method 'public org.xwiki.extension.InstalledExtension getInstalledExtension(org.xwiki.extension.ExtensionId)' has been added to an interface
    org.xwiki.extension.repository.LocalExtensionRepository: Method 'public org.xwiki.extension.LocalExtension getLocalExtension(org.xwiki.extension.ExtensionId)' has been added to an interface
  • Fix method name typo (adding new method). This interface is not really supposed to be implemented except by internal class.
    org.xwiki.properties.PropertyDescriptor: Method 'public java.lang.reflect.Field getField()' has been added to an interface
  • The method getPreviousBlockByType() was moved to Legacy. There's no API breakage for the user.
    org.xwiki.rendering.block.CompatibilityBlock: Method 'public java.util.List getChildrenByType(java.lang.Class, boolean)' has been added to an interface
  • Added method to get the author of the macro.
    org.xwiki.rendering.macro.wikibridge.WikiMacro: Method 'public org.xwiki.model.reference.DocumentReference getAuthorReference()' has been added to an interface
  • Add a method to the oldcore/wikimacro bridge.
    org.xwiki.rendering.macro.wikibridge.WikiMacroFactory: Method 'public boolean isAllowed(org.xwiki.model.reference.DocumentReference, org.xwiki.rendering.macro.wikibridge.WikiMacroVisibility)' has been added to an interface
  • These classes below have never been used. It was supposed to be the start of the removal of Struts but since it hasn't progressed so far we're removing stray code from master. Experiments should be done on feature branches.
    org.xwiki.container.servlet.XWikiServlet: Class org.xwiki.container.servlet.XWikiServlet removed
  • Removed protected method (registerWikiMacros) that was not supposed to be used from outside (was protected for unit tests hacks).
    com.xpn.xwiki.XWiki: Method 'protected void registerWikiMacros()' has been removed
  • Chart plugin has been moved from oldcore to its own module. There's no API breakage for the user.
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.Chart: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.Chart removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.ChartCustomizer: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.ChartCustomizer removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.ChartImpl: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.ChartImpl removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.ChartingMacro: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.ChartingMacro removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.ChartingPlugin: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.ChartingPlugin removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.ChartingPluginApi: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.ChartingPluginApi removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.CustomXWikiRenderingEngine: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.CustomXWikiRenderingEngine removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.RadeoxHelper: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.RadeoxHelper removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.actions.ChartingAction: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.actions.ChartingAction removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.ChartingException: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.ChartingException removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.ColumnIndexOutOfBoundsException: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.ColumnIndexOutOfBoundsException removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.DataSourceException: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.DataSourceException removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.EmptyDataSourceException: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.EmptyDataSourceException removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.GenerateException: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.GenerateException removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.InvalidArgumentException: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.InvalidArgumentException removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.InvalidParamException: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.InvalidParamException removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.MissingArgumentException: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.MissingArgumentException removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.MissingDataSourceException: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.MissingDataSourceException removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.MissingMandatoryParamException: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.MissingMandatoryParamException removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.NoHeaderColumnException: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.NoHeaderColumnException removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.NoHeaderRowException: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.NoHeaderRowException removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.ParamException: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.ParamException removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.RowIndexOutOfBoundsException: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.exceptions.RowIndexOutOfBoundsException removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.AbstractChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.AbstractChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.BooleanChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.BooleanChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.CategoryLabelPositionsChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.CategoryLabelPositionsChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.ChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.ChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.ChartParams: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.ChartParams removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.ChoiceChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.ChoiceChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.ColorChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.ColorChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.DateChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.DateChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.DateFormatChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.DateFormatChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.DateTickMarkPositionChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.DateTickMarkPositionChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.DateTickUnitChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.DateTickUnitChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.DefaultChartParams: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.DefaultChartParams removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.DefaultChartParams2: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.DefaultChartParams2 removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.DoubleChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.DoubleChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.FloatChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.FloatChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.FontChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.FontChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.HorizontalAlignmentChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.HorizontalAlignmentChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.IntegerChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.IntegerChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.ListChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.ListChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.LocaleChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.LocaleChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.MapChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.MapChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.NumberFormatChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.NumberFormatChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.NumberTickUnitChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.NumberTickUnitChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.PlotOrientationChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.PlotOrientationChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.Point2DChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.Point2DChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.RangeTypeChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.RangeTypeChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.RectangleAnchorChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.RectangleAnchorChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.RectangleEdgeChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.RectangleEdgeChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.RectangleInsetsChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.RectangleInsetsChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.RendererClassChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.RendererClassChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.ShapeChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.ShapeChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.StringChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.StringChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.StrokeChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.StrokeChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.TimePeriodClassChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.TimePeriodClassChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.VerticalAlignmentChartParam: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.params.VerticalAlignmentChartParam removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.AreaPlotFactory: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.AreaPlotFactory removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.BarPlotFactory: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.BarPlotFactory removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.CategoryPlotFactory: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.CategoryPlotFactory removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.LinePlotFactory: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.LinePlotFactory removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.PiePlotFactory: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.PiePlotFactory removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.PlotFactory: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.PlotFactory removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.TableXYDatasetFactory: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.TableXYDatasetFactory removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.TimePlotFactory: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.TimePlotFactory removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.TimeSeriesCollectionFactory: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.TimeSeriesCollectionFactory removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.XYPlotFactory: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.plots.XYPlotFactory removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.source.DataSource: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.source.DataSource removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.source.DataSourceFactory: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.source.DataSourceFactory removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.source.DefaultDataSource: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.source.DefaultDataSource removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.source.MainDataSourceFactory: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.source.MainDataSourceFactory removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.source.ObjectDataSourceFactory: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.source.ObjectDataSourceFactory removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.source.ObjectidDataSourceFactory: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.source.ObjectidDataSourceFactory removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.source.TableDataSource: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.source.TableDataSource removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.source.TableDataSourceFactory: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.source.TableDataSourceFactory removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.wizard.DatasourceDefaultsHelper: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.wizard.DatasourceDefaultsHelper removed
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.wizard.FontHelper: Class com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.charts.wizard.FontHelper removed
  • TODOAndreas, please explain why we have to break backward compatibility for the Chart module.
    org.xwiki.chart.model.ChartModel: Method 'public org.jfree.chart.axis.Axis getAxis(int)' has been added to an interface
    org.xwiki.chart.model.ChartModel: Method 'public java.lang.Number getCellValue(int, int)' has been removed
    org.xwiki.chart.model.ChartModel: Method 'public int getColumnCount()' has been removed
    org.xwiki.chart.model.ChartModel: Method 'public java.lang.String getColumnHeader(int)' has been removed
    org.xwiki.chart.model.ChartModel: Method 'public org.jfree.data.general.Dataset getDataset()' has been added to an interface
    org.xwiki.chart.model.ChartModel: Method 'public int getRowCount()' has been removed
    org.xwiki.chart.model.ChartModel: Method 'public java.lang.String getRowHeader(int)' has been removed
    org.xwiki.chart.model.DefaultChartModel: Class org.xwiki.chart.model.DefaultChartModel removed
    org.xwiki.rendering.macro.chart.ChartDataSource: Field PARAMS has been removed, but it was previously a constant
    org.xwiki.rendering.macro.chart.ChartDataSource: Field SOURCE has been removed, but it was previously a constant
  • The getParametersMap() should never have been a public API. I was probably added there just as a way to reduce the Class Fan Out, which is the wrong solution.
    org.xwiki.rendering.macro.chart.ChartMacroParameters: Method 'public java.util.Map getParametersMap()' has been removed
  • Added a new sendMessageFromTemplate() method signature that uses a map of parameters instead of a VelocityContext
    com.xpn.xwiki.plugin.mailsender.MailSender: Method 'public int sendMessageFromTemplate(java.lang.String, java.lang.String, java.lang.String, java.lang.String, java.lang.String, java.lang.String, java.util.Map)' has been added to an interface
Tags:
   

Get Connected