Creating Release Notes

JIRA provides the functionality to create release notes for a specific version of a project. The release notes contain all issues within the specified project that are marked with a specific "Fix For" version. The release notes can also be generated in a number of formats (e.g. HTML, plain text, etc.) so as they can be included in various documents.

At present, two example format templates are provided - HTML and Text - using Velocity templates. Further format templates can be created and added to the system.

Generating Release Notes

1. Click 'Projects' and select the project of interest.
2. Click 'Road Map' tab on the left of the screen.
   Tip: If you wish to see past release notes click on the 'Change Log' tab instead.
3. Click 'Release Notes' link for the project version whose release notes you wish to generate. The 'Release Notes' page will be displayed.
4. Click the 'Configure Release Notes' link to configure the release notes. The 'Configure Release Notes' page will be displayed:
   
   • Select the required project version for which the release notes will be generated in the 'Please select version' dropdown.
   • Select the required format of the release notes — HTML and plain text format templates are provided in the 'Please select style' dropdown.
5. Selecting the 'Create' button will generate the release notes using the specified template in the specified format. The release notes will be displayed on screen and can be copied and pasted to another application.

Adding a New Format Template

1. Create a Velocity template similar in content to that of the examples provided — releasenotes-text.vm and releasenotes-html.vm. Consult the JIRA API documentation and the Apache Velocity User Guide.
2. The title within the template should be modified along with the code within the text area. The other sections of the template do not need to be modified.
3. Add the new format template to the list of existing ones within the jira-config.properties file. For each new template format, corresponding entries must be added to the existing values of the following properties:
   
   • jira.releasenotes.templatenames
   • jira.releasenotes.templates
     Corresponding entries in both of these properties must be in the same order.
     If these properties do not exist in your jira-config.properties file, then for each of these properties, add the property's name, followed by an '=', followed by the content of the property's corresponding <default-value/> element copied from your JIRA installation's jpm.xml file. Next, begin adding the corresponding entries for the new format template.
     See Making changes to the jira-config.properties file for more information.
4. The new format template is available for selection as a release note format template.

Also see the tutorial on Creating a Custom Release Notes Template Containing Release Comments.