BlueSpice MediaWiki

BlueSpice MediaWiki
BlueSpice MediaWiki-Admin Dashboard
Original author(s) Markus Glaser, Robert Vogel e.a.
Developer(s) Hallo Welt! GmbH
Initial release March 2011 (2011-03)
Stable release
2.27.3 [1] / 18 April 2018 (2018-04-18)
Written in PHP
Size 85.3 MB
Type Wiki
License GPLv2 or later
Website bluespice.com

BlueSpice MediaWiki (BlueSpice for short) is free wiki software based on MediaWiki and licensed by GNU General Public License. It is especially developed for businesses as an enterprise wiki distribution for MediaWiki and used in over 150 countries.

Editions

BlueSpice is published in two editions:

  • BlueSpice free is a gratis version for an entry level solution for businesses. It provides functional added value for wiki admins and users.
  • BlueSpice pro is a business-critical solution with comprehensive functionalities, a growing number of available extensions and long-term support – updates and patches are also included.

Both editions are software collections, which are based on MediaWiki. The extensions are developed by Hallo Welt! GmbH, its technology partners or independent MediaWiki developers.

Usage scenarios for BlueSpice

The icon of BlueSpice.

BlueSpice is mostly used as

  • a central company wiki,
  • a technical documentation platform (e.g. IT help desk or for product specifications)
  • a quality handbook (descriptions of processes and procedures)
  • knowledge management platform (lessons learned, expert debriefing)
  • documentation tool for research and development

Functionality

BlueSpice VisualEditor, version 2-23-1
BlueSpice PermissionManager, version 2-23-1

Some central features of BlueSpice are:[2]

  • Editing: allowing editing without any knowledge of wiki code (WYSIWYG). This makes creating tables, and uploading and inserting pictures easier than with MediaWiki.[3]
  • Search and navigation: An extended search (Apache Lucene) offers improved search functionalities, like faceted search. The search results can further be sorted or filtered by category, namespace, author, data type etc. Any files attached are also searched. It also provides common features like autocomplete and search as you type. The navigation is customizable via dashoard or user sidebars.
  • Administration: Convenient management of users, namespaces, groups, rights and settings.
  • Quality assurance and review tools (workflow tool, reminder e.a.): Pages for instance can be assigned to a reviewer. This allows articles to be reviewed and approved.
  • Meta data and semantic: analyze and work with meta data.

Technology

BlueSpice is written in the PHP programming language and uses MySQL, Apache/IIS, Tomcat (optional). The editions can be installed on top of an existing MediaWiki installation or as a standalone installation that includes MediaWiki.

The distribution is a collection of extensions, which can be extended with user-specific features or skins. While every single extension can be deactivated, BlueSpice editions integrate and standardize extensions to improve the user experience and maintenance.

Licensing

According to the MediaWiki standard all extensions are published under the GPL 2+ license.

History

The German company Hallo Welt! has been working on developing the open source wiki software BlueSpice since 2007. The project was originally initiated by IBM ("bluepedia"), who wanted to deploy MediaWiki but was unable to live with its downsides.[4]

In 2011, Hallo Welt! decided to publish their wiki as free Open source software. The stable version of BlueSpice for MediaWiki was released July 4, 2011.[5] From this point on, a free download has been available at SourceForge.[6] The first release of BlueSpice was a couple of extensions and is today a complete stand-alone distribution, which has the latest MediaWiki as a core system but offers in the free version more than 50 distinct extensions and a completely different user interface. Following independent sources the BlueSpice free distribution is one of the most popular wiki software for knowledge management in organisations.[7]

In autumn 2013, Hallo Welt! released the completely reworked version BlueSpice 2.[8] According to the BlueSpice developers this release aims for opening up BlueSpice for freelance developers in the global MediaWiki community, and lays the foundation for many new language versions.[9]

In 2014, BlueSpice for MediaWiki became a project of Translatewiki.net.[10] In January 2015 the developers announced that they will change to a subscription model.[11]

Versions

Name Version Date of issue Notable changes
BlueSpice 1 basic 2010-11-17
1.0.1 2011-09-07
1.1 2012-03-15 Performance improvements, support for postgreSQL and Oracle databases
1.20.0 2012-12-21
1.20.1 2013-01-17
1.21.0 2013-06-12
BlueSpice 2 2.22.0 2013-11-27 Completely reworked skin, reworked PermissionManager and UserManager, new internationalisation framework, FlexiSkin, Dashboards, Notifications extension, StateBar (with "similar pages")
2.22.1 2014-02-13
2.22.2 2014-05-08
2.23.0 2014-12-09 Integrated package installer for MediaWiki and BlueSpice, support of MobileFrontend, rewritten skin, support of memcached caching, translations in more than 40 languages, reworked localisation, context menues
2.23.1 2015-06-25
2.23.2 2015-11-30

Improved integration of Semantic MediaWiki and BlueSpice, compatibility with MediaWiki's VisualEditor

2.23.3 2016-05-31
2.27.0 2016-11-09

New extensions: e.g. PageAssignments, Showtime and ReadConfirmation. Many functional improvements of the WikiFarm Package. Full compatibility with MediaWiki 1.27

2.27.1 2017-04-06

ExtendedFileList, CategoryManager, Logged Reviews, Review with semantic properties, Compatibility with PHP7

2.27.2 2017-07-20

Updated Visual Editor, Insert templates function, filtering of all special pages, revised permission manager with new mouse-over function, daily or weekly combined notifications, inserting signatures, integration and visualization of dynamic maps.

2.27.3 2018-04-18 Patch release

Customers and partners

Desertec, the renewable energy company uses BlueSpice as its collaboration platform. Furthermore, XTREMEtech[12] and HAVI Logistics [13] use BlueSpice as an internal or public wiki.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Download". Hallo Welt! GmbH. Retrieved 2018-04-18.
  2. ↑ "BlueSpice features". mediawiki.org. Retrieved 2016-03-08.
  3. ↑ Bailey, Matt (12 September 2013). "BlueSpice (fixing MediaWiki)". Nerdnuts.com. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  4. ↑ Eckenfels, Mela (November 2011). "Spicy: BlueSpice for MediaWiki". Linux Magazine. Munich: Linux New Media (132): 28–31.
  5. ↑ Eckenfels, 28.
  6. ↑ "Download BlueSpice". Soureceforge.net. Retrieved 2013-07-11.
  7. ↑ Figura, Maria; Gross, Daphne (13 June 2013). "Die Qual der Wiki-Wahl. Wikis für Wissensmanagement in Organisationen". Pumacy Technologies AG. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  8. ↑ Huber, Mathias (27 November 2013). "Blue Spice 2: Enterprise-Wiki generalüberholt". Linux Magazin. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  9. ↑ Heigl, Richard (4 September 2013). "BlueSpice 2: The new version coming up later this year!". BlueSpice News. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  10. ↑ Muggli, Stephan (9 December 2014). "Translatewiki.net: BlueSpice for MediaWiki project". BlueSpice News. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  11. ↑ "New model for BlueSpice". blog.bluespice.com. Retrieved 2015-03-16.
  12. ↑ "Wiki as CMS". Tcworld.info. Retrieved 2013-07-10.
  13. ↑ "HAVI Logistics on their way to Enterprise 2.0". Blog.bluespice.com. Retrieved 2013-07-10.
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