JIRA 5.2 EAP 4 (m6) Release Notes

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15 October 2012  

Atlassian is proud to present JIRA 5.2 EAP 4 (m6). 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 is underway and we want your involvement!

Please provide us with your feedback here.

Highlights

 

New issue navigator

 

Workflow scheme designer

 

Getting started

 

Webhooks

 

(warning) 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 system filters — Easily filter for the most common views in JIRA: 'My Open 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. However, 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.

The new issue navigator is a Labs feature in this EAP milestone (for more information about Labs features, see Labs Features in JIRA ). 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.

This Labs feature needs to be manually enabled. For instructions, see Enabling Labs Features in JIRA 5.2 . The property for this feature is jira.search.kickass For more information about Labs features, see Labs Features in JIRA.

Read more...

 

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 designer

This release provides you with the perfect complement to the existing workflow 'Diagram edit mode'  — the workflow scheme designer. The workflow scheme designer replaces the existing workflow scheme page for a project (note, it is not available from the global list of workflow schemes). It provides you with a powerful tool for viewing and configuring a workflow scheme.

The workflow scheme designer shows a visual representation of a workflow scheme. A diagram of each workflow in the scheme is displayed in a table, with the associated issue types alongside. The old text-based view of each workflow is still available as well, if you prefer.

Configuring a workflow scheme is also much easier. Want to preview changes as a draft before publishing? Want to browse through diagrams of the workflows in the system when adding a workflow? Want to assign multiple issue types to a workflow in a single step? You can now do all of these tasks and more.

Read more...

Screen design made easy

The screen designer has been overhauled in this release. Screens are just as customisable as ever, however the user interface is faster and much simpler to use. You won't have to wrestle with controls when reordering — just drag and drop to move a field or tab. Autocomplete is now used when adding fields, making this process quicker and easier as well.

Read more...

 


 

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.

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.

You can also refine a webhook to suit your needs — constrain a webhook to fire for a set of issues and/or specific issue events; use a variable to include the key of the issue that fired it; or configure a workflow post-function to fire a webhook.

Webhooks for issues is a Labs feature, so you can start to experiment with it. We'll be moving it out of Labs in the near future. For more information about Labs features, see Labs Features in JIRA.

Read more...

 

 

 

Enterprise scale and performance improvements

In JIRA 5.1 we created a dedicated team focused on improving JIRA's core performance to make all aspects of JIRA faster, more scalable, and easier to manage. In 5.2, we've continued on to deliver more scale and management improvements for customers 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.

Read more...

 


 

 

 

 

 

Other improvements

Streamlined user interfaces for projects

We've been working hard to improve the user interface when you are browsing a project, so that you can concentrate on the task at hand without any distractions. The list of improvements are in the table below:

UI FeatureNotesScreenshot of new UI
New Create New Project button on the Browse Projects > All Projects pageN/A
Browse Project > Summary tab redesigned:
  • Administer Project button now available on the Browse Project page itself
  • Activity Stream only shows activity on JIRA issues and JIRA plugins
  • Issues: Updated recently section removed 
  • Issue: Unresolved section removed
  • Versions: Unreleased section moved to different position on tab
    • Show/hide toggle for additional versions removed
    • "Eyeball" toggle replaced with smart switcher at bottom of list
  • Administer Project button used to be on Browse Project > Summary tab (now removed)
  • Issues: Updated recently and Issue: Unresolved sections superseded by activity stream.
Standard issue filters directly available on Browse Project > Issues pageUsed to be in Filters dropdown on Browse Project > Summary tab
(now removed)
Standard issue filters directly available on Browse Version > Issues pageUsed to be in Filters dropdown on Browse Version > Summary tab
(now removed)
Standard issue filters directly available on Browse Component > Issues pageUsed to be in Filters dropdown on Browse Component > Summary tab
(now removed)
People section in Project Summary and page renamed to RolesN/A
Project > Popular Issues page redesignedN/A
Project > Labels page redesignedN/A

Copying and editing issue collectors

 

 

 

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 and support for Java 7. Some of 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.

Read more...

 

 

 

 

Last modified on Nov 12, 2012

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