WriteFreely v0.12.0 Release Notes

Release Date: 2020-04-22 // almost 4 years ago
  • write freely

    v0.12

    Major Features

    ActivityPub Mentions (T627)

    Enable more interaction with your posts by mentioning users on Mastodon, Pleroma, and other ActivityPub platforms! Users on instances with federation enabled can now insert @[email protected] to mention someone. You might use this to write a long response to someone in the fediverse, or even mention your own microblogging account, so that replies to your blog post also notify you there, where you can continue the conversation.

    ๐Ÿ†• New Admin Dashboard (T694)

    ๐Ÿ”ง We've redesigned the admin dashboard to be a little easier to navigate, and generally more user friendly. It now includes an overview of stats for your instance, dedicated pages for app settings and monitoring, and more details on what each configuration option does. We've also made it easier for admins to get to the "Invite people" page.

    ๐Ÿ‘ OAuth 2.0 Support (#225)

    ๐Ÿ‘ Now you can authenticate with your WriteFreely instance via OAuth! This is perfect for WriteFreely communities that are set up to accompany other platforms. We support three providers so far: GitLab, Slack, and Write.as.

    โšก๏ธ Reader Filter Updates (#269)

    Now the Reader will show the most recent 250 public posts, instead of only the last three months of public posts. This should be much more fitting for most WriteFreely instances.

    Plain Text Import

    Now you can import plain text files to publish them as posts on WriteFreely.

    ๐Ÿ›  User-Facing Changes / Fixes

    • ๐Ÿ‘‰ Show dates on blog posts (T669, #276)
    • ๐Ÿ‘‰ Show post publish dates in local time (T670)
    • ๐Ÿ›  Fix HTML entities in Draft descriptions (#248)
    • โž• Add Drafts explanation (#248)
    • ๐Ÿ›  Fix post deletion on Pleroma (#233)
    • ๐Ÿ‘‰ Make user management + Reader pages consistent in their design (#262)
    • ๐Ÿ›  Fix image metadata extraction (#266)
    • โž• Add syntax highlighting aliases: js, jsx, html (#270)
    • ๐Ÿ’… Lightly style tables in posts (#194)
    • 0๏ธโƒฃ Send users to Login page by default on private instances (#274)
    • ๐Ÿ›  Fix pagination on last page of blogs using "Novel" display format (#272)
    • ๐Ÿ‘‰ Show 503 Service Unavailable page when server under high load (#284)
    • โœ‚ Remove extraneous @context fields to fix Friendica federation (#299)

    Minor Changes

    • Require authentication for accessing editor (#245, #255)
    • ๐Ÿ›  Fix 500 on invite links with invalid characters (#250)
    • Tell search engines not to index invite URLs (#268)
    • Hide Reader footer link when unauthenticated on private instances (#274)

    Admin-Facing Changes

    • ๐Ÿ‘Œ Support Varnish use on ActivityPub endpoints (#180)
    • ๐Ÿ›  Fix automatic certificates (#228)
    • โšก๏ธ Automatically check for WriteFreely updates (T572) -- enable with update_checks = true in config
    • ๐Ÿ‘Œ Support account deletion via command-line for non-federated instances (T319 / #202)
    • ๐Ÿ‘Œ Support sign in via Write.as
    • ๐Ÿ‘Œ Support sign in via Slack (T710)
    • ๐Ÿ‘Œ Support sign in via GitLab (#277)
    • ๐Ÿ”จ Refactor command-line commands (#261)

    Developer-Facing Changes

    • โž• Add /api/markdown endpoint for generating HTML from Markdown
    • โž• Add ARM64 build (#213)
    • ๐Ÿ‘Œ Support OAuth 2.0 as client application (#225)
    • โž• Add stylesheet cache busting script and use it on official WF release (#288)

    ๐ŸŽ Performance / Backend

    • ๐Ÿ‘Œ Improve resource use for federation (#249)
    • ๐Ÿ›  Fix memory leak from gorilla/session library (#133)

    โฌ†๏ธ Upgrading from v0.11.x and v0.12.0rc1

    ๐Ÿš€ Download the latest release for your operating system. Stop running your writefreely service, replace all files in your installation with the ones in the archive, and then start your writefreely service again.

    ๐Ÿ‘‰ Now make sure your database is backed up , and update it with:

    writefreely db migrate
    

    No additional steps are needed to upgrade from v0.11.x. Follow the instructions in each previous release if you're upgrading from an earlier version.

    Developers

    ๐Ÿš€ If you are running a custom build, note that there were style changes in this release. Run the following command to generate the latest stylesheets:

    make ui
    

    Contributors

    ๐Ÿš€ Thanks to everyone who contributed to this release!

    Development

    @thebaer
    @robjloranger
    @qwazix
    @yalh76
    @ngerakines
    @techknowlogick
    @shleeable
    @nkoehring
    @paddatrapper
    @cjeller1592

    ๐Ÿ“š Documentation

    @cjeller1592

    ๐Ÿ› Bug reports

    @barbrastreisand
    @wakest
    @judges119
    @laBecasse
    @misaka00251
    @OliverViking
    @mrvdb
    @darddan
    @wiwie
    @annando


Previous changes from v0.12.0.rc1

  • write freely

    ๐Ÿš€ v0.12 Release Candidate 1

    ๐Ÿš€ This is a WriteFreely v0.12.0 release candidate. It is intended to be stable, but may not be. Please open bug reports for any issues you find, and otherwise contact us via IRC (#writefreely on freenode) if you have any questions.

    Major Features

    ActivityPub Mentions (T627)

    Enable more interaction with your posts by mentioning users on Mastodon, Pleroma, and other ActivityPub platforms! Users on instances with federation enabled can now insert @[email protected] to mention someone. You might use this to write a long response to someone in the fediverse, or even mention your own microblogging account, so that replies to your blog post also notify you there, where you can continue the conversation.

    ๐Ÿ†• New Admin Dashboard (T694)

    ๐Ÿ”ง We've redesigned the admin dashboard to be a little easier to navigate, and generally more user friendly. It now includes an overview of stats for your instance, dedicated pages for app settings and monitoring, and more details on what each configuration option does. We've also made it easier for admins to get to the "Invite people" page.

    ๐Ÿ‘ OAuth 2.0 Support (#225)

    ๐Ÿ‘ Now you can authenticate with your WriteFreely instance via OAuth! This is perfect for WriteFreely communities that are set up to accompany other platforms. We support three providers so far: GitLab, Slack, and Write.as.

    โšก๏ธ Reader Filter Updates (#269)

    Now the Reader will show the most recent 250 public posts, instead of only the last three months of public posts. This should be much more fitting for most WriteFreely instances.

    Plain Text Import

    Now you can import plain text files to publish them as posts on WriteFreely.

    ๐Ÿ›  User-Facing Changes / Fixes

    • ๐Ÿ‘‰ Show dates on blog posts (T669, #276)
    • ๐Ÿ‘‰ Show post publish dates in local time (T670)
    • ๐Ÿ›  Fix HTML entities in Draft descriptions (#248)
    • โž• Add Drafts explanation (#248)
    • ๐Ÿ›  Fix post deletion on Pleroma (#233)
    • ๐Ÿ‘‰ Make user management + Reader pages consistent in their design (#262)
    • ๐Ÿ›  Fix image metadata extraction (#266)
    • โž• Add syntax highlighting aliases: js, jsx, html (#270)
    • ๐Ÿ’… Lightly style tables in posts (#194)
    • 0๏ธโƒฃ Send users to Login page by default on private instances (#274)
    • ๐Ÿ›  Fix pagination on last page of blogs using "Novel" display format (#272)
    • ๐Ÿ‘‰ Show 503 Service Unavailable page when server under high load (#284)

    Minor Changes

    • Require authentication for accessing editor (#245, #255)
    • ๐Ÿ›  Fix 500 on invite links with invalid characters (#250)
    • Tell search engines not to index invite URLs (#268)
    • Hide Reader footer link when unauthenticated on private instances (#274)

    Admin-Facing Changes

    • ๐Ÿ‘Œ Support Varnish use on ActivityPub endpoints (#180)
    • ๐Ÿ›  Fix automatic certificates (#228)
    • โšก๏ธ Automatically check for WriteFreely updates (T572) -- enable with update_checks = true in config
    • ๐Ÿ‘Œ Support account deletion via command-line for non-federated instances (T319 / #202)
    • ๐Ÿ‘Œ Support sign in via Write.as
    • ๐Ÿ‘Œ Support sign in via Slack (T710)
    • ๐Ÿ‘Œ Support sign in via GitLab (#277)
    • ๐Ÿ”จ Refactor command-line commands (#261)

    Developer-Facing Changes

    • โž• Add /api/markdown endpoint for generating HTML from Markdown
    • โž• Add ARM64 build (#213)
    • ๐Ÿ‘Œ Support OAuth 2.0 as client application (#225)
    • โž• Add stylesheet cache busting script and use it on official WF release (#288)

    ๐ŸŽ Performance / Backend

    • ๐Ÿ‘Œ Improve resource use for federation (#249)
    • ๐Ÿ›  Fix memory leak from gorilla/session library (#133)

    โฌ†๏ธ Upgrading from v0.11.x

    ๐Ÿš€ Download the latest release for your operating system. Stop running your writefreely service, replace all files in your installation with the ones in the archive, and then start your writefreely service again.

    ๐Ÿ‘‰ Now make sure your database is backed up , and update it with:

    writefreely db migrate
    

    No additional steps are needed to upgrade from v0.11.x. Follow the instructions in each previous release if you're upgrading from an earlier version.

    Developers

    ๐Ÿš€ If you are running a custom build, note that there were style changes in this release. Run make ui to generate the latest stylesheets.

    Contributors

    ๐Ÿš€ Thanks to everyone who contributed to this release!

    Development

    @thebaer
    @robjloranger
    @qwazix
    @yalh76
    @ngerakines
    @techknowlogick
    @shleeable
    @nkoehring
    @paddatrapper
    @cjeller1592

    ๐Ÿ“š Documentation

    @cjeller1592

    ๐Ÿ› Bug reports

    @barbrastreisand
    @wakest
    @judges119
    @laBecasse
    @misaka00251
    @OliverViking
    @mrvdb
    @darddan