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BlueSpice 3: The successful enterprise wiki just got even better

With BlueSpice 3 we finally published a brand new version of our popular wiki software based on MediaWiki. By a thorough revision and the employment of newest technologies we developed a software, which will inspire users.

Under the name BlueSpice (formerly BlueSpice free) we continue to provide a free basic software for private users and smaller enterprises. With BlueSpice pro corporate customers will benefit from a powerful wiki software with numerous improved and new enterprise functions. BlueSpice pro is the software of choice for the following use cases:

  • Knowledge Management / Knowledgebase
  • Quality Management (ISO 9001:2015)
  • IT Documentation (ITIL, ISO/IEC 20000)
  • Technical Documentation (VDI 4500)
  • Organization Manuals
  • Customer Service & Support (Online-Helpdesk)

BlueSpice pro stands for stability, security and scalability and is the foundation of a modern, knowledge-based company. As a central, cross-departmental and cross-location solution, BlueSpice pro is THE alternative to intranet software and a turbo for optimizing your corporate culture.

We would like to introduce you to the most important innovations in BlueSpice 3: Continue Reading

BlueSpice 3 – Become a beta tester now!

BlueSpice 3 Beta

Finally, it’s time. Our developers have done a great job and released today a beta version of BlueSpice 3. To make our wiki software even better and meet the high requirements, you now have the opportunity to test BlueSpice 3 and provide your valued feedback.

BlueSpice 3 beta

BlueSpice 3 will be a big leap forward in many ways: New technologies, new functions, new design.
The wiki software scores points:

• simpler text editing
• faster high-end search
• optimized user guidance
• enhanced discussions
• easier follow-up of Wiki contributions

But that’s not all! Find out what else has changed with BlueSpice 3 and take a look at the notable changes.

Your opinion is important to us!

Of course we are interested in your opinion of BlueSpice 3. What do you miss? What would you improve? What do you like? Continue Reading

BlueSpice 2.27.3 is published

 

Release Image

 

Everything you need to know about the new version.

With BlueSpice 2.27.3 a new patch release is available. Over 80 bugfixes bring numerous improvements under the cover.

 

Release highlights

Since this is a patch release, 2.27.3 contains only a few functional improvements:

  • The display of all subpages is sorted in a better way.
  • The link wizard InsertLink informs users whether the desired page to be linked exists.
  • Namespaces can now also have hyphens in their names.
  • The InsertMagic wizard (which you can use to insert tags, switches and variables) now offers the possibility to give users a list of the most important tags to prevent longer searches (“Quick access”).
  • In future, our pro users will be able to assign many pages to a book at once using the “Mass add” function in the Bookmaker. You select the pages of a category or the subpages of a page and only have to sort the added pages. It is also possible to search for pages and export the search results and import them into the book.

More details can be found in our current release notes. And on the release page in the helpdesk.

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Univention Corporate Server now offers BlueSpice

Kooperation BlueSpice und Hallo Welt!

 

The Univention Corporate Server (UCS) is the leading Linux solution for small and medium-sized businesses. Now you can run a BlueSpice wiki with the UCS.

The two companies Univention and Hallo Welt! have been in touch for several years already. Now it worked: The Linux specialists from Bremen and the MediaWiki people from Regensburg have launched a promising cooperation project and are combining their products. Beneficiaries are the users of the Univention Corporate Server (UCS), who have now with BlueSpice MediaWiki another application that can be easily implemented in the previous server environment. Continue Reading

Best practice: Developing products and services with a wiki

Pinakothek der Moderne
More orientation in the product management with wikis. Image: Pinakothek der Moderne, München 2004, by: Reinhard Jahn (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Wikimedia Commons.

A wiki is the central tool for sharing information about changing products and services centrally, efficiently and systematically. Are there best practises? We have compiled the most important questions.

When companies develop their services and products, there are many questions that need to be answered quickly and communicated to the relevant departments and teams:

  • What is included in the product?
  • How is the product calculated?
  • How does the product differ from competing products?
  • Is there a need to observe certain procedures and requirements at the time of delivery?
  • Where is there additional information about quality features or about similar products in the product range?
  • What are the experiences with this product and how should it be further developed?

Sales, development, project management and support depend on up-to-date information in order to carry out their tasks efficiently and efficiently. Continue Reading

draw.io for MediaWiki and BlueSpice – create drawings collaboratively

A picture is worth a thousand words - show graphics in your wiki with draw.io. Picture: CCO Public Domain via Pixabay.
A picture is worth a thousand words – show graphics in your wiki with draw.io. Picture: CCO Public Domain via Pixabay.

Experienced and creative authors already got to know the diagram editor draw.io a long time ago. It is based on a web application, already developed by the company JGraph as free software, and it is already compatible with diverse applications like, for example, Confluence.

draw.io is also available for MediaWiki, making is possible to display processes, elaborate flowcharts and much more and in many ways. This fulfils the desire of many wiki users to create and present clear graphics like flowcharts, process chains and decision trees, working collaboratively in the wiki.

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The top 10 MediaWiki skins

Maximal mobility and responsive design are central when developing MediaWiki skins. Image: Kelson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

We have had a look around at what interesting skins are available for MediaWiki and here we present those we think are the ten best.

But first, we will say a few words on MediaWiki and skinning in general. When comparing new MediaWiki skins, one always comes back to the following three themes:

  1. Mobile: How and how well do the skins support mobile applications? Many skin developers use standard HTML, CSS and JavaScript frameworks like Bootstrap or Zurb, to develop “Mobile First” skins.
  2. Navigation: Orientation towards mobile applications has significant consequences for the layout and design. It becomes “flatter”. The edit functions are in the background so as not to overload the small screen, and to reduce complexity. In this way, the pages appear more attractive on the web, and the “Mobile First” skins are more handsome, particularly for the reader. A power user wanting to work in the wiki will often find such skins problematic because they need extra clicks to access the functions they need.
  3. Semantic support: Many wikis use Semantic MediaWiki to work with metadata. Some skins integrate functions from the semantic extension into the skin or customise the layout in such a way that it does not break the optical design.

Let us now look at a few skins.

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Replace Text – Search and replace in your wiki

CCO Public Domain via Pixabay.

When working with longer texts, it is not unusual to have to change a common term because it has been written incorrectly or because it is no longer up-to-date. Common word processing software packages like MS Word have a “search and replace” function so that you do not have to go through the whole text and change everything by hand.

There is a similar tool for MediaWiki users called ReplaceText. This is a small but powerful MediaWiki extension allowing you to search for specific combinations of characters, whether it is text, code or spaces, and to replace them both in wiki articles and in article titles. It is also possible to use complex algorithms which recognise patterns in the form of regular expressions so that you can undertake more sophisticated search-and-replace tasks.

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