JIRA 4.2 EAP 4 Release Notes


4 August 2010

JIRA 4.2 EAP 4 (a.k.a 4.2 milestone 9) is a public development release leading up to JIRA 4.2. For all production use and testing of JIRA, please use the latest official release.

Do not use in production

EAP releases should not be used in production environments as they are not officially supported.

Please also take note of the following information:

  • EAP Releases are Not Safe— EAP releases are snapshots of the ongoing JIRA development process. As such:
    • While we try to keep these releases stable, they have not undergone the same degree of testing as a full release.
    • Features in development releases may be incomplete, or may change or be removed before the next full release.
  • No Upgrade Path — Because EAP releases represent work in progress, we can not provide a supported upgrade path between EAP releases, or from any EAP to the eventual final release. Thus, any data you store in a JIRA EAP release may not be able to be migrated to a future JIRA release.

GreenHopper Support

Please be aware that GreenHopper 5.0.1 is not compatible with the JIRA 4.2 EAP 4 release.

The Atlassian team is proud to bring you the JIRA 4.2 EAP 4 release. We are getting closer to the final release of JIRA 4.2, but we want your feedback.

Time-tracking is now much more flexible: you can edit the Original Estimate, and set the Remaining Estimate to zero on resolving an issue. You can also log work via workflow 'transition' screens — which are now provided as in-place dialogs rather than separate screens. For the mouse-averse, the new 'Operations Dialog' provides access to all menu options via the keyboard. The 'Labels' plugin is now a permanent part of JIRA, simplifying system management for GreenHopper users — and everyone else who likes to label their JIRA issues. Dashboard Publish/Subscribe with Confluence is also included.

Note to developers: JIRA 4.2 includes Atlassian Plugin Framework version 2.5.

Note to partners and translators: The preliminary translation diff files will be made available when we release JIRA 4.2 beta in the coming weeks.

Highlights of JIRA 4.2 :

Thank you for your interest in JIRA 4.2 EAP 4
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Upgrading to JIRA 4.2 EAP 4

JIRA EAP releases are available here. To upgrade from JIRA 4.1.x to this release, please follow the normal JIRA Upgrade Guide.

Highlights of JIRA 4.2

 

Dialogs for Common Actions and Workflow Operations

For faster edits to an issue, pop-up dialogs have replaced screen changes:

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Dialogs in the Issue Navigator

You can now perform an action on an issue, via a dialog, directly from the Issue Navigator — without opening the issue first. The issue marker shows which issue you have selected (via your keyboard) in the result list.

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'Operations Dialog' Replaces the Mouse

The new 'Operations Dialog' lets you perform actions via the keyboard (instead of the mouse), using the full-stop ('dot') key to access the 'Actions' and 'Workflow' menus. The Operations Dialog works from the Issue Navigator and also when viewing an individual issue.

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Improvements to the 'View Issue' Screen

We have improved the look and feel of the view issue screen even more. Some improvements include:

  • A tighter spacing between lines to reduce space between elements
  • Stronger section headings
  • The description field separated into its own section
  • Horizontal division lines between each custom field
  • Votes and Watchers fields on the same line
  • Labels represented as bubbles

Individual blocks can now be collapsed to streamline your issue view. The view state (i.e. which blocks are expanded/collapsed) will also be remembered across issues. After much feedback on the 4.1 updates to the 'View Issue' screen, you can now also add a comment at the bottom of the commenting section.


We've also updated the look and feel of the Components and Affects/Fix Versions lists in Edit mode. Upon typing into one of these fields, a dropdown menu appears with a list of options matching the first few characters you typed.
(info) For convenience, the version lists are divided into Released and Unreleased categories.

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Attachment Sorting by Date or Name

Attachments can now be sorted by date or by name, in ascending or descending order.

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Viewable Files in Zipped Attachments

You can expand an attached zip file to see its contents. The first 30 files will be shown for larger zip files.

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'Log Work' Improvements

You can now log work when you resolve an issue, saving you a step. You can also set the Remaining Estimate to 0 upon resolving an issue.

You now have the ability to edit the Original Estimate, even if work has been logged on an issue (not shown here).

We've also included the ability to add work log descriptions in wiki-markup (not shown here).

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Improvements to the Issue Navigator

The Issue Navigator has been updated to match the look and feel of an issue.

We've also added: an issue marker and colour highlight for keyboard navigation (blue); colour highlight for mouse selection (grey); toggle to collapse the search form.

When a change is made via a dialog, JIRA will give you feedback on that change as confirmation.

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New JQL Functions

Additional JQL functions for projectLeadBy and componentsLeadBy — useful for finding all issues where a particular user is the lead of a component, or a project.


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'Filter' Gadget creation via the Issue Navigator

When viewing search results, you can quickly add a 'Filter Results' gadget to your dashboard via the 'Views' menu.

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More Keyboard Shortcuts

JIRA users can now do more without a mouse --- perfect for those power users.

Hints also appear at the bottom of a dialog, helping you to learn keyboard shortcuts on the fly.

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User Avatars and User Hover

JIRA users can now add an avatar to their profile. You can then mouse-hover over a user's name to show information about that user — this is available when viewing an issue, using the Issue Navigator, browsing a project, viewing activity, viewing a user profile and performing some administration tasks.

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Labels Now Included

The functionality from the Labels plugin is now included in JIRA out-of-the-box. The labels dialog has a great new UI, and issue notifications are now optional when updating labels for an issue.

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Other Enhancements and Fixes

Click here for the full list of issues resolved in 4.2.

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Last modified on Aug 4, 2010

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