Hello everyone,
it is my pleasure to announce the launch of the beta version of BlueSpice 3 [1].
For those who don't know the project yet: BlueSpice is a MediaWiki distribution for
companies and organizations. There is a widely used free version, often used by NGOs and
non-profit associations.
We would like to invite everyone who is interested to test the beta. For the MediaWiki
community, the most exciting point is probably to check our approaches to issues like
quality assurance or on-site communication, which might be different for organisational
wikis. Our experience with that type of wikis nurtured the development of version 3.
What's new? A lot. Most notably:
* we now use VisualEditor and ElasticSearch. Search can be filtered and supports semantic
properties.
* there's a responsive skin and a redesigned interaction concept involving two
navigation columns. You might like the neat preview images for recent changes.
* in the discussions try to break new ground. We want to facilitate discussions about
articles and make them more traceable. To this end, we have introduced a timeline function
and are gaining practical experience.
* we introduced a right navigation bar for quality assurance and for power users, with the
goal of making the software more comfortable not only for readers, but also for authors.
More changes for BlueSpice 3 can be found out at the Notable Changes list. [2]
Being a beta version, BlueSpice 3 is certainly not (yet) perfect. That's why we are
interested in feedback from wiki authors, maintainers and developers. We collect insights
directly in our beta test environment on a feedback page.
If you want to become a beta tester: Please apply for edit access to the test environment.
We'll send you an account. [3]
For all participants of our beta test we offer two info webinars [4], where we present
BlueSpice 3, but also will be answering questions and share experiences.
* Tuesday, 31 July 2018 at 8 am UTC (in German)
* Thursday, August 2, 2018 at 1 pm UTC (in English)
Happy to hear from you all, and
best regards,
Markus (mglaser)
[1]
https://beta.bluespice.com/
[2]
https://beta.bluespice.com/bluespice/index.php/Notable_Changes
[3]
https://bluespice.com/request-for-a-beta-test-account/
[4]
https://bluespice.com/webinar/