BlueSpice MediaWiki

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

BlueSpice MediaWiki
Original author(s)Markus Glaser, Robert Vogel e.a.
Developer(s)Hallo Welt! GmbH
Initial releaseMarch 2011 (2011-03)
Stable release
4.2  / 2022-07-28[±]
Written inPHP
Size96.2 MB (free edition)
TypeWiki
LicenseGPLv3
Websitebluespice.com

The freely available version BlueSpice free is considered one of the most popular wiki computer programs for knowledge management in companies.[1][2]

History

The German company Hallo Welt! has been working on the development of an open source wiki based on MediaWiki since 2007. The origins of the later BlueSpice software go back to an initiative by the IBM CTO Gunter Dueck, who initiated an internal company wiki for IBM Germany in 2007 under the name "bluepedia".[3] The model for the bluepedia project was Wikipedia and accordingly the platform was based on MediaWiki. However, in daily operation, additional requirements arose for the software used. This led to the founding of a company that would develop and provide the missing functions in the future.

In 2011, Hallo Welt! decided to publish their wiki as free and open-source software. The stable version of BlueSpice for MediaWiki was released July 4, 2011.[4]: 28  From this point on, a free download has been available at SourceForge.[5] The first release of BlueSpice was a couple of extensions and has developed into 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. According to independent sources, the BlueSpice free distribution is one of the most popular wiki software for knowledge management in organisations.

In Autumn 2013, Hallo Welt! released the completely reworked version BlueSpice 2.[6] According to the BlueSpice developers this release aims for opening up BlueSpice for freelance developers in the global MediaWiki community and multiple language versions.[7]

In 2014, BlueSpice for MediaWiki became a project of Translatewiki.net.[8] In January 2015 the developers announced that they will change to a subscription model.[9]

Functionality
Search engine (Elasticsearch)
Timeline function for tracking discussions and posts
Graphical interface for rights management
Workflow function for quality assurance of articles
Representation of diagrams with DrawioEditor
Book feature

Some central features of BlueSpice are:[10]

  • Visual editing: allowing editing without any knowledge of wiki code (WYSIWYG).[11]
  • Search and navigation: An extended search (Elasticsearch) offers improved search functionalities, like faceted search. The search results can further be sorted or filtered by category, namespace, author, semantic data, data type etc. Any files attached are also searched. It also provides common features like autocomplete and search as you type.
  • 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.
  • Book function: Individual articles can be grouped into article collections to create manuals, documentations or instructions with chapter navigation. The books can be exported with it in different formats (PDF, DOCX) together with the respective file attachments.
  • Meta data and semantic: analyze and work with meta data.
  • Communication: Additional discussion and blog functionalities, a timeline and notification system support editorial processes.
  • Administration: Convenient management of users, namespaces, groups, rights and settings.

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 GPLv3 license.

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
BlueSpice 3 3.0 2018-10-17

Social: an activity, communication and interaction layer, Extended Search: based on Elasticsearch, Responsive skin "Calumma" supports mobile view and touch interaction, Graphical list: new interface element for better usability, MediaWiki VisualEditor: native support for wikitext, Role-based permissions: simplifies rights configuration, reworked authentication stack: LDAP and SAML authentication[12]

3.1 2018-09-19

Revised title bar and navigation (subpages, discussion pages, categories, revision status), UX enhancements, full screen mode, improved search scoring, enhanced table formatting and font colors, improved document embedding, support for NGINX web server, performance enhancements, improved screen reader support, delivery of Semantic MediaWiki 3.0, release of BlueSpice repositories, public docker image for BlueSpice free[13]

BlueSpice 4 4.1 2022-01-19 Combined major and minor release: New standard Discovery skin, new FlexiSkin feature, new workflow feature, tasks, BPMN diagrams, two-factor authentication, enhanced connectivity, structured data import support.[14]
4.2 2022-07-28 Minor Release:

Word import (BlueSpice Pro) upload, split content, preview, page list; file attachments; improved file upload function; enhanced blog permissions; new dialogue for PDF export; enhanced workflow activities; tag inspectors; editor for navigation menus.[15]

See also

References
  1. Figura, Maria; Gross, Daphne (13 June 2013). "Die Qual der Wiki-Wahl. Wikis für Wissensmanagement in Organisationen" (in German). Pumacy Technologies AG. Archived from the original on 2 April 2013. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  2. Loschwitz, Martin (July 2022). "Spice Is Nice. Exploring the BlueSpice wiki tool". linux-magazine.com. Retrieved 2023-03-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. Dueck, Gunter (June 2008). "Bluepedia". Informatik-Spektrum. Heidelberg: Springer. 31 (3): 262–269.
  4. Eckenfels, Mela (November 2011). "Spicy: BlueSpice for MediaWiki". Linux Magazine. Munich: Linux New Media (132): 28–31. Archived from the original on 2014-02-01. Retrieved 2014-01-18.
  5. "Download BlueSpice". Sourceforge.net. Retrieved 2013-07-11.
  6. Huber, Mathias (27 November 2013). "Blue Spice 2: Enterprise-Wiki generalüberholt" (in German). Linux Magazin. Archived from the original on 2013-12-01. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  7. Heigl, Richard (4 September 2013). "BlueSpice 2: The new version coming up later this year!". BlueSpice News. Archived from the original on 19 February 2016. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  8. Muggli, Stephan (9 December 2014). "Translatewiki.net: BlueSpice for MediaWiki project". BlueSpice News. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  9. "New model for BlueSpice". blog.bluespice.com. Archived from the original on 2015-10-17. Retrieved 2015-03-16.
  10. "BlueSpice features". mediawiki.org. Retrieved 2018-11-18.
  11. Bailey, Matt (12 September 2013). "BlueSpice (fixing MediaWiki)". Nerdnuts.com. Archived from the original on 2 February 2014. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  12. "BlueSpice 3: The successful enterprise wiki just got even better - BlueSpice Blog". BlueSpice Blog. 2018-10-17. Archived from the original on 13 November 2018. Retrieved 2018-11-18.
  13. "Say hi to BlueSpice 3.1!". BlueSpice Blog. 2019-09-25. Archived from the original on 30 September 2019. Retrieved 2018-09-30.
  14. "Hello BlueSpice 4.1". BlueSpice Website. 2022-01-20. Retrieved 2022-04-11.
  15. "Setup:Release Notes - BlueSpice Wiki". en.wiki.bluespice.com. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
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