BlueSpice

BlueSpice 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
Original author(s)Markus Glaser, Robert Vogel e.a.
Developer(s)Hallo Welt! GmbH
Initial releaseMarch 2011 (2011-03)
Stable release
4.3.1 Edit this on Wikidata / 2023-07-20[±]
Written inPHP
Size92.99 MiB (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] A key feature of the software was the provision of a WYSIWYG editor, which at the time was based on the TinyMCE editor.[6]

In Autumn 2013, Hallo Welt! released the completely reworked version BlueSpice 2.[7] According to the BlueSpice developers this release aims for opening up BlueSpice for freelance developers in the global MediaWiki community and multiple language versions.[8]

In 2014, BlueSpice for MediaWiki became a project of Translatewiki.net.[9] In January 2015 the developers announced that they will change to a subscription model.[10]

Functionality and technology
Screenshot of the search engine in BlueSpice 4 (Elasticsearch)
Search engine (Elasticsearch)
Screenshot of the timeline function in BlueSpice 4
Timeline function for tracking discussions and posts (Pro Edition)
Screensho of the PermissionManager
Graphical interface for rights management
Screenshot of the workflow functionality
Workflow function for quality assurance of articles (Pro Edition)
Screenshot of an integrated diagram
Representation of diagrams with DrawioEditor (Pro edition)
Screenshot of the BookManager
Book feature (Pro Edition)

BlueSpice is written in the PHP programming language and uses MySQL, Apache/IIS, Tomcat. BlueSpice is released in a free edition and two paid editions. The free edition adds more than 50 extensions to a MediaWiki,[11] mainly in the areas of:

  • Editing: A version of the MediaWiki VisualEditor is delivered, which, unlike the original, contains additional functions, such as an easier procedure for uploading documents or inserting dynamic content. The creation of new pages is supported by page templates.
  • 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.
  • Administration: Convenient management of users, namespaces, groups, rights and settings.

Licensing and distribution

All extensions of the BlueSpice distributions are under open source licenses. The functions written by Hallo Welt! are published under the license GPLv3.[11]

The free version is made available for download as a classic server installation in a tarball or as a Docker image, with BlueSpice free having the widest distribution via the official Docker version (with more than 1 million pulls in three years).[12]

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[13]

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[14]

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.[15]
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.[16]

4.3 2023-06-29 Minor Release:

Content droplets, advanced menu editor, startpage templates, filter elements of your page content, embed PDF preview on wiki page and more improvements.[17][18]

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.
  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. Bailey, Matt (12 September 2013). "BlueSpice (fixing MediaWiki)". Nerdnuts.com. Archived from the original on 2 February 2014. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. Muggli, Stephan (9 December 2014). "Translatewiki.net: BlueSpice for MediaWiki project". BlueSpice News. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  10. "New model for BlueSpice". blog.bluespice.com. Archived from the original on 2015-10-17. Retrieved 2015-03-16.
  11. "BlueSpice Software Catalogue". BlueSpice Helpdesk. Retrieved 2023-05-13.
  12. "bluespice/bluespice-free". dockerhub. Docker Inc. Retrieved 2023-05-13.
  13. "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.
  14. "Say hi to BlueSpice 3.1!". BlueSpice Blog. 2019-09-25. Archived from the original on 30 September 2019. Retrieved 2018-09-30.
  15. "Hello BlueSpice 4.1". BlueSpice Website. 2022-01-20. Retrieved 2022-04-11.
  16. "Setup:Release Notes - BlueSpice Wiki". en.wiki.bluespice.com. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  17. "Setup:Release Notes - BlueSpice Wiki". en.wiki.bluespice.com. Retrieved 2023-06-29.
  18. BlueSpice (2023-06-29). "It's time for BlueSpice 4.3 — BlueSpice News". BlueSpice knowledge base and wiki. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
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