Notable XWiki 12x features to try so far

29 Jun 2020 5 min read
Written by Andreea Chirica, Communications and Support Specialist

1. In-place editing

Where to find it: starting XWiki 12.3, when editing plain wiki pages in-place with the WYSIWYG editor as the preferred content editor. 

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In addition, the entries of a newly-created AppWithinMinutes application are now editable in-place. For existing applications, you will need to edit the application and go through the application wizard so that the application sheet is re-generated, but be aware that you might lose you customizations in the process.

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What you can do while editing in-place:
  • edit only a section of a plain wiki page, as it places the focus in the desired section so that you don't have to scroll the page.

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  • render macros live

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  • translate page content

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  • switch to source while editing in-place (starting with XWiki 12.5)

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2. Support for User Mentions

A popular requested feature has been added by default starting with XWiki 12.5User Mentions. You can mention a user in two ways: either by typing "@" in the WYSIWYG editor as displayed in the screenshot, or by inserting a Mention macro. Mentioning a user will have for effect to send a notification to that user, with the link to the page or place (can be a comment or an object) mentioning her/him.

3. A name strategy for your wiki pages

What does it do: Since XWiki 12.0, a Name Strategy Module has been introduced to allow administrators to have more control on the wiki page names. The name strategies allow to validate and transform page names before they are created to comply with a defined policy. Two strategies have been implemented as a start for this new feature: the Character Replacement Strategy and the Slug Name Strategy.

How to use it: This new feature can be setup in the Administration in Editing > Name Strategies.

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4. A targeted XWiki version for exports

What does it do: The new option named "Target XWiki version" is useful if you need to generate a XAR that is compatible with an older version of XWiki or higher than 12.0.

How to use it: In the Export administration section, pick the "Target XWiki version". For instance, if you need to import the generated XAR in an XWiki version older than 12.0 then you should set "Target XWiki version" to "Below 12.0".

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5. Simplified WYSIWYG Editor Toolbar

Starting with XWiki 12.1, the WYSIWYG Editor toolbar has been simplified by grouping and reorganizing the buttons, removing those that were used very rarely.

Here's a summary of the changes:

  • the Format dropdown is now the first item on the left side
  • Strike, Underline, Subscript, Superscript and Remove Format have been grouped in a dropdown menu
  • the list buttons have been grouped in a dedicated dropdown menu
  • the Unlink button was moved from the main toolbar to the floating toolbar that is shown when you click on a link
  • the image floating toolbar is now enabled, visible when an image is selected
  • Horizontal Line, Special Character and Import from Office have been grouped in a new Insert dropdown menu
  • the Insert/Edit Macro button has been moved to the Insert dropdown menu, where we also added shortcuts for common macros
  • the Copy, Cut and Paste buttons have been removed from the toolbar, and are now available in the context menu
  • the Copy Formatting button has been removed, as we don't encourage the usage of in-line styles
  • the Language dropdown option has been eliminated because it was causing confusion with the wiki page language

Result: the toolbar now takes a single line by default.

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6. Extensible User Profile Menu

What's new starting with XWiki 12.2: The user profile menu is now extensible. You can add new entries to the user menu using the org.xwiki.plaftorm.user.profile.menu User Interface Extension Point (UIXP).

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7. Extended Page Information

What's new: The information tab displayed at the bottom of each page has been extended with more information such as the original page locale, the current page locale, the available page translations, the page syntax, and whether the page is hidden or not. Moreover, some of the page information is now editable in-place, from view mode.

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8. Selection preserved when switching between WYSIWYG and Source

Starting with XWiki 12.4, through an upgraded CKEditor Integration extension we've brought in a new feature: the selection/caret is preserved when switching between WYSIWYG and Source area. This makes it really easy to:

  • check the wiki syntax that corresponds to the current WYSIWYG selection
  • check how the selected text from the Source area is rendered when switching back to WYSIWYG

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9. User Avatar macro with user picker

What it does: when inserting the User Avatar macro from the WYSIWYG editor you can now select the target user with a user picker.

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10. Toggle Rendered Diff Context

What's new: You can now use the "Show context" toggle button to show/hide all the unmodified parts of the page rendered content when comparing two versions of a wiki page from its history. Check the user guide for more information.

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Don't forget that you can view how a page has changed visually from one version to another starting with the XWiki 11.6 version. See the documentation for more information.

Shout out to notable features from the XWiki 11x cycle

1. Password Security Policy

Starting with XWiki 11.9, administrators of a wiki can choose password policy rules that are applied when passwords are chosen (for registration) or when they are changed (by users or administrators). The password policy rules are available in the Administration > Users & Rights > Registration. Find more details on the User Management documentation page.

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2. Replace Author when Deleting Users

Starting with the XWiki 11.7 version deleting a user from the Administration requires 2 steps:

  • You have to disable the user first. Disabling the user prevents them from performing any action if they log-in and it doesn't break the scripts that they last modified. This is the recommended way to "remove" a user account from your organization.

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  • If you really need to completely remove the user account then you can delete it. However, you should choose another user account with similar access rights to replace the deleted one as page author of existing pages, otherwise, any scripts inside those existing pages will lose their rights and stop working.

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Check out this blog article if you are curious about more improvements and features brought starting with the XWiki 11x cycle. Don't miss as well the summary of product features you can try in XWiki Cloud starting the 11.10.3 version.

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