JIRA 5.2 EAP 2 (m4) Release Notes
11 September 2012
Atlassian is proud to present JIRA 5.2 EAP 2 (m4). This public development release is part of our Early Access Program (EAP) leading up to the official JIRA 5.2 release. Development work on JIRA 5.2 commenced relatively recently and we want your involvement from the start!
Please provide us with your feedback here.
Highlights
New issue navigator
Workflow scheme viewer
Getting started
Webhooks
Read before you install/upgrade: Atlassian does not support upgrades both 'from' and 'to' EAP releases. EAP releases should not be used in production environments as they are not officially supported. For all production use and testing of JIRA, please use the latest official release instead.
Key Features
New issue navigator
We made it easier to create and edit issues with inline editing in JIRA 5.1 and the create/edit issue dialog in JIRA 5.0. In this release, we're making it easier for you to find issues with a brand new issue navigator. Here's a summary of the features we've added so far:
- New default filters — Easily filter for the most common views in JIRA: 'My issues', 'Reported by Me', 'Recently Viewed' and 'All Issues'.
- Favourite filters on the navigator — Quickly switch between views. Your favourite filters are now just a click away.
- New search bar — Simply select the criteria you want in your search. Focus on the search criteria you care about and hide the rest.
- Ad-hoc searches — Search and refine on the fly with immediate results.
- Complex searches — Create and execute complex searches with ease. The new search UI makes this simple, regardless of the number of projects, custom fields, or your JIRA configuration.
We'll be adding more features and improvements with each new EAP milestone.
The new issue navigator is a Labs feature in this EAP milestone. We would love to hear your feedback on this early preview. You can provide feedback via the Give Feedback link on the new issue navigator in your JIRA instance. Being a technology preview, the issue navigator is incomplete and will have bugs. For a list of known issues, please see this page: New Issue Search Known Issues.
For more information about Labs features and instructions on how to enable Labs features, see: Enabling Labs Features in JIRA 5.2. The property for this feature is jira.search.kickass
In this release:
Workflow administration improvements
Following on from the improvements to workflow administration in JIRA 4.4 and project administration in JIRA 5.1, we're continuing to make editing workflows easier within your project. You'll still have the power and flexibility of JIRA workflows at your fingertips, but configuration will be much more intuitive.
Workflow scheme viewer
This release provides you with the perfect complement to the existing workflow 'Diagram edit mode' — the workflow scheme viewer. The workflow scheme viewer replaces the existing workflow scheme page for a project. It provides you with a visual representation of the scheme by showing the diagrams for each workflow in a table, as well as the associated issue types. Each workflow can be edited from the workflow schemes page. You can still see the old text-based view of each workflow too, if you prefer.
Getting started
For new installations, JIRA now gives you the option of creating a demonstration project. This demonstration project contains a number of sample issues that explains some JIRA basics: searching for issues, keyboard shortcuts, and editing issues. You can keep this project for future new users, or delete it at a later stage if you no longer need it.
When you create a project (a demonstration project or other project), JIRA will also display a handy message prompting users to create issues.
Webhooks for issues
Webhooks provide you with a lightweight mechanism for letting remote applications receive push notifications from JIRA. For example, you may want any changes for bugs in JIRA to be pushed to a test management system, so that they can be retested.
In this release, we've implemented webhooks for issues. Registering a webhook is as simple as entering the name of a webhook and the URL where the callback should be sent. Any time any issue changes in JIRA, a JSON notification will be sent to the URL. No polling required.
We've released webhooks for issues as a Labs feature, so you can start to experiment with it. We'll be moving it out of Labs in the near future.
Enterprise scale and performance improvements
In JIRA 5.1 we started a dedicated team focused on improving JIRA's core performance to make all aspects of JIRA faster and more scalable than ever. This work has continued in this release. You'll also notice a few additional features in JIRA 5.2 that make your life easier, if you are running JIRA in an enterprise environment.
Performance improvements
This release includes a multitude of performance improvements. You may not notice every tweak we've made, but it all adds up to a better user experience. Here are some of the areas that we've tackled:
- Speed — faster rendering for attachments, increased performance for nested filters, faster display of version lists (all browsers except Internet Explorer), faster rendering of wiki markup.
- Indexing — more low level lucene options exposed.
- Memory usage — a reduction in velocity files and more efficient searching
We've also released an HTTP requests log analyser, which you can download separately. See the Additional tools for download section below.
SSL configuration via the JIRA configuration tool
If you want to run JIRA over SSL or HTTPS, you'll be happy to know that we've simplified this process. You won't need to tinker around in XML files anymore, as the JIRA configuration tool has a new screen that lets you easily configure access via HTTPS. The configuration tool also validates your configuration, so you won't need to worry if you've mistakenly entered an invalid certificate.
Other improvements
Streamlined user interfaces for projects
You'll notice more improvements to the user interface for projects in this release, including:
| UI Feature | Where did it use to be? | Screenshot |
|---|---|---|
| New Create New Project button on the Browse Projects > All Projects page | N/A |  |
| Administer Project button now available on the Browse Project page itself | Browse Project > Summary tab (now removed) |  |
| Standard issue filters directly available on Browse Project > Issues page | Filters dropdown on Browse Project > Summary tab (now removed) |  |
| Standard issue filters directly available on Browse Version > Issues page | Filters dropdown on Browse Version > Summary tab (now removed) |  |
| Standard issue filters directly available on Browse Component > Issues page | Filters dropdown on Browse Component > Summary tab (now removed) |  |
| People section in Project Summary and page renamed to Roles | N/A |  |
| Project > Popular Issues page redesigned | N/A |  |
| Project > Labels page redesigned | N/A |  |
Copying and editing issue collectors
In JIRA 5.1, we introduced the JIRA issue collector — letting you embed JIRA feedback forms in your websites that create issues in your JIRA instance. In this release, we've added the ability to edit and copy issue collectors. Tweak an existing issue collector or use it as the basis for an entirely new one.
Faster and more reliable mentions
We added mentions in JIRA 5.0, which gave JIRA users an easy way to share an issue with other users via email. This release includes a significant performance improvement to this feature. You'll notice that user names are suggested much more quickly, when you start typing after an '@' character. The suggested results are also more accurate and reliable.
Platform changes
We have made a number of platform changes in this release, including upgrading JIRA to run on Tomcat 7. These changes affect the installation and upgrade process for JIRA.
Please read the upgrade guide for details.
Additional tools for download
HTTP Requests Log Analyser
We recently developed a tool to analyse request logs that we are now making available to customers. The HTTP requests log analyser provides you with information, such as the maximum requests per minute, that can help you performance tune your JIRA instance. The tool is not bundled with JIRA, but you can download it for free.