Highlights of JIRA 4.4 EAP 3:

Thank you for your interest in JIRA 4.4 EAP 3
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Visual Workflow Designer For Administrators

JIRA 4.4 provides a visual representation of your workflow, making it easy to map out your business processes.

Simply go to "Workflows" in JIRA administration as usual, and click the "Design" link for the workflow you wish to edit. If you hover your mouse over an individual Step or Transition, a 'cog' icon appears, which you can click to access more functions.

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Workflow Viewer on the "View Issue" Screen

You can also see a read-only view of the workflow from the "View Issue" page — just select "View Workflow" from the "More Actions" menu. We've made it simple for everyone to use, without requiring Flash to be installed.

The workflow viewer also highlights the current status of your issue in the workflow.

A new permission called 'View Read-Only Workflow' is required to access the workflow viewer feature from a view issue page.

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User Time Zones (new in EAP 3)

We are very pleased to announce progress on JRA-9, one of the most highly-voted requests for JIRA: dates will be displayed to a user in their local time zone, rather than the server's time zone.

In EAP 3, you have the ability to set a default user time zone at an administration level, and individual users have the ability to choose their own time zone. We are in the process of implementing this for the date/time formats used by all relevant fields and features in JIRA. For example, time zone support has not yet been implemented for searching.

In order to see which fields honour an individual's time zone you must first configure JIRA to use a Date Format that includes the time zone. To do this, go to "Administration" => "Look and Feel" and edit the "Date/Time Formats", adding the letter "z" or "Z" in JIRA's Date and Time pattern format. For example, the format "yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' HH:mm:ss z" includes the abbreviated time zone as indicated in http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html. You will now see some dates in JIRA display the individual's time zone while other dates still display the default time zone set at the administrative level.

JIRA Administrators can change the default time zone by going to "Administration" => "General Configuration" (under "Global Settings"), and editing the "Default user time zone".

Users can also change their individual time zone setting via their user profile:

Note to developers: If you develop JIRA plugins that handle dates and times, please be aware of the Formatting and Parsing Dates Using the Appropriate Time Zone section of the Plugin Developer Notes for JIRA 4.4.

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Editable Options for Custom Fields (new in EAP 3)

We are also pleased to announce progress on JRA-2983. You can now edit the options for custom fields of the following field types:

• Select List
• Multi Select
• Cascading Select
• Radio Buttons
• Multi Checkboxes

Because your custom fields may change over time, JIRA now gives you the ability to:

• edit a field's options — that is, change the text of an option.
• disable an option — that is, hide an option so that it is no longer available for selection. Options that have been used cannot be removed (to preserve data integrity), but due to changing business requirements, they may become invalid over time and so you may wish to make them unavailable for new issues.

Note to developers: If you develop JIRA plugins that handle single- and multi-select custom fields, please be aware of the Single- and Multi-Select Custom Field Changes section of the Plugin Developer Notes for JIRA 4.4.

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Improved Setup Wizard (new in EAP 3)

Our trusty wizard has had a makeover:

The new Setup Wizard

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Database Connection Now Included In Setup

In JIRA 4.4, connecting to a database is now part of the standard setup wizard. It will change before the final 4.4 release, but here is how it looks in M3:

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Improved Linux Installer + Uninstaller (New in EAP 3)

A simple command line/console installer wizard is now available for Linux operating systems.

To install JIRA, simply download the Linux .bin installer file and at a shell prompt, execute this file and follow the remaining prompts!

You can install JIRA as either the 'root' user or a non-root user under Linux. Currently, however, JIRA will be run as the same Linux user account which is used to install JIRA via this wizard. We intend to change this behaviour in a future EAP.

If you use the console installer wizard to install JIRA as the root user on your Linux operating system, then for security reasons, you should not use this JIRA installation in a public-facing environment.

Uninstaller for Linux (New in EAP 3)

After installing JIRA on Linux using the .bin installer file above, an executable file called uninstall (located in <JIRA Installation Directory>) is available to conveniently uninstall JIRA.

To uninstall JIRA:

1. Log in as the user who installed JIRA.
2. At the shell prompt, change directory (cd) into your <JIRA Installation Directory>.
3. Execute the uninstall command.
   No additional flags or parameters are required.

Please note:

• The uninstaller will not delete the JIRA Home Directory.
• All log files that were generated while JIRA was running will not be deleted.
• All files within the JIRA Installation Directory will be deleted (with the exception of the Tomcat log folder located in <JIRA Installation Directory>/logs).

Silent Installations (New in EAP 3)

After installing JIRA on Linux using the .bin installer file above, a configuration file called response.varfile is generated in the .install4j subdirectory of your <JIRA Installation Directory>. This file contains all the settings you specified manually while installing JIRA at the shell prompt, such as the Tomcat port numbers for JIRA and the location of your JIRA Installation and Home directories.

You can use this response.varfile file to re-install JIRA again 'silently' (without the need for any user input) by doing the following:

1. Before deleting your original JIRA installation, copy (cp) the <JIRA Installation Directory>/.install4j/response.varfile to the same directory containing the Linux .bin installer file.
2. Enter the following command at the shell prompt:
   ./atlassian-jira-4.4-m3.bin -q -varfile response.varfile

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Improved Windows Installer

The installer wizard for Windows now works smoothly for Windows 7 and Vista.

The process for installing JIRA as a Windows service has also improved and the wizard now allows you to specify the port numbers used to run and access JIRA.

Silent Installations (New in EAP 3)

When you execute the installer file at a shell prompt and complete your installation of JIRA, a file called response.varfile is generated in the .install4j subdirectory of your <JIRA Installation Directory>.

This file contains all the settings you specified manually while installing JIRA at the command prompt, such as the Tomcat port numbers for JIRA and the location of your JIRA Installation and Home directories. You can use response.varfile to re-install JIRA again 'silently' (without the need for any user input) by doing the following:

1. Before deleting your original JIRA installation, copy the <JIRA Installation Directory>\.install4j\response.varfile to the same directory containing the Windows .exe installer file.
2. Open a command prompt and enter the following command:
   atlassian-jira-4.4-m2.exe /q /varfile response.varfile

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REST API improvements (new in EAP 3)

There are new REST APIs for

• Listing and managing Project Components.
• Listing and managing Project Versions.

Have a look at the reference documentation.

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