What's New in Review Board

Review Board 2.0.19 is out! This release focuses on some e-mail-related improvements and a series of compatibility/bug fixes.

Extension authors have access to several new hooks that allow extensions to better control the recipients for an e-mail list. They can be used to filter out addresses or add to the To/CC lists.

On the user side, e-mails now provide a bunch of new headers that you can use for more fine-grained filtering:

• Any review e-mail with a Ship It! will contain a X-ReviewBoard-ShipIt: 1 header.
• If it doesn't have any other contents, it'll be accompanied by a X-ReviewBoard-ShipIt-Only: 1 header.
• You'll find a X-ReviewBoard-Diff-For header for every file in a diff, to really help sort those into appropriate right e-mail folders.

It wouldn't be a .z release without some good bug fixes:

• We've fixed more character set compatibility issues with different systems we integrate with.
• Some issues relating to Power Pack compatibility on Windows and with SSH scalability have been resolved.
• Comment dialogs no longer show the wrong thing if immediately opening a newly-saved plain text comment.
• Opening and closing text fields or the comment dialog no longer results in unnecessary drafts being created.

The full list of changes are up in the release notes.

Please note that you're also going to want to upgrade your version of Django to 1.6.11.1. We cannot install this version for you at this time, so see our earlier announcement for instructions.

We've just put out new, unofficial releases of Django 1.6.11 that contain security fixes backported from the latest versions of Django.

The Django project is no longer maintaining Django 1.6.x, as it has end-of-lifed. However, for many reasons, we're currently dependent on this version. As such, we will be maintaining security releases for Django 1.6.x from here on out, in the form of 1.6.11.x releases.

The latest security releases can always be download here. We will announce new releases on our Official Announcements mailing list and on our community support forum.

To upgrade to Django 1.6.11.1, you can run:

$ sudo easy_install \
    -f http://downloads.reviewboard.org/releases/Django/1.6/ \
    Django==1.6.11.1

or, using pip:

$ sudo pip install \
    -f https://s3.amazonaws.com/downloads.reviewboard.org/releases/Django/1.6/index.html \
    Django==1.6.11.1

Unfortunately, due to restrictions in the design of pip, we will not be able to automatically upgrade to these versions of Django in our upcoming releases of Review Board. It will be up to you to handle this for now. We will announce instructions along with the releases.

For information on what's in this security release, see Django's announcement.

Please note that Django 1.6.x is the last version to support Python 2.6.x, which has also end-of-lifed. We will be dropping support for Python 2.6 in Review Board 2.6, so we recommend moving to Python 2.7 at your earliest convenience.

Many of you may have heard that Google Code is going read-only starting tomorrow, and some have asked us how this will affect the project, since we host our bug tracker there.

Not to worry. Google's been nice enough to whitelist us for a little while, so even though most of Google Code will be down, we'll continue to be up. This is not permanent, but for the time-being, you'll still be able to report bugs at the old address.

Going forward, we'll be migrating off of Google Code and onto a new tracker. That will happen in the coming weeks, and we'll talk more about it when it happens.

So why the delay? Why did Google need to extend the shutdown date for us? We actually have something new on the way that we're pretty excited about. We call it Splat, and while still very young, it's shaping up to a pretty cool bug/issue tracker. We weren't quite prepared to switch over to it by the shutdown date, but we have enough of it ready to launch pretty soon.

There's a lot more that I'd like to say about Splat, but there will be time for that. We'll make a more formal announcement soon.

We're in the home stretch for the big release of Review Board 2.5. Today's release candidate is, we hope, the last release before 2.5 goes live, so if you've been waiting for a good opportunity to jump in and test it out, now's the time!

This release primarily focuses on bug fixes, with a few new extension and Markdown improvements that came along for the ride. Some of the extension features (namely, new hooks that control some e-mail behavior) and fixes are ported over from the upcoming 2.0.19 release, so those of you staying on 2.0.x will be getting those soon.

Markdown input has gotten more stylish. Fenced code blocks, used to format blocks of code, will now syntax-highlight that code, just like the diff viewer. This supports 14 major languages, including CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Ruby, Python, C/C++, Go, and PHP.

The login, registration, and password reset pages are now mobile-friendly, helping you to get going quickly on your mobile devices. Once you're in, you'll find some improvements to the dashboard and user pages to help you filter for the review requests you want to find.

See the release notes for the full list of changes.

Once again, barring any major problems, we will be releasing the final 2.5 soon. That means if you're planning an upgrade soon, you should really give RC 1 a test to make sure the final 2.5 will work for you.

Installing the beta

If you want to give this release a try, please do so on a test server with a copy of your production database.

To install the beta, run:

$ sudo easy_install \
    -f http://downloads.reviewboard.org/releases/ReviewBoard/2.5/ \
    -U ReviewBoard

(Note that pip is not currently supported for beta/RC installs.)

Please give it a try and report any bugs that you find!

Hey there, everyone! We have a great release this week for those of you living on the bleeding edge and helping us beta test the next generation of Review Board.

Review Board 2.5 beta 2 is out, bringing new API enhancements, UI polish, better dashboard management, the beginnings of mobile support, and more. This builds on top of all the features we announced for beta 1 back in March.

What you'll notice right away are the changes to the UI. We've been going through the product and working to polish things up, and have been making good progress. You'll see some tweaks to the review request page, file attachment thumbnails, the diff viewer, dashboard, and the New Review Request page.

So let's take a quick look at some of the highlights of the beta.

A dashboard with room to breathe

The new dashboard is a lot less crowded, and a bit more informative. Take a look:

We've also made the dashboard usable on a mobile device. In fact, most of Review Board is now usable, with the rest to follow. Try resizing your screen on our demo server to see how it works.

Tweaks to review requests

The review request page has some general tweaks all over. We've added tab-based navigation, increased the amount of room for the content, and more.

Shiny HD thumbnails

The file attachment thumbnails are now wider, and show more of the thumbnail than before. Hover your mouse over the thumbnail, and it'll scroll to show you even more of the page. If you're on a high-DPI ("Retina" display), your thumbnails will be even more crisp and clear.

A friendlier issue summary table

You'll also notice that we've completely redone the issue summary table, giving it a visual refresh and make it a lot easier to both see what's open and to filter it.

At a glance, you can now see exactly what's left on your plate without reading a bunch of text. To filter by a status, simple click the status. This is far better than the old text-based stats and drop-down lists we had before, don't you think?

Plenty more where that came from

That really just scratches the surface. We didn't even show off the mobile UI, the New Review Request page, or the new format for reviews. That will come in time.

Check out the release notes for everything in this beta.

You can also follow our work over at the Review Board ChangeLog, our new community forum for all things Review Board development.

Installing the beta

If you want to give this release a try, please do so on a test server with a copy of your production database.

To install the beta, run:

$ sudo easy_install \
    -f http://downloads.reviewboard.org/releases/ReviewBoard/2.5/ \
    -U ReviewBoard

(Note that pip is not currently supported for beta installs.)

Please give it a try and report any bugs that you find!

Today, Amazon released their all-new CodeCommit service as part of the Amazon Web Services family. CodeCommit is a Git repository hosting service built for scalability and reliability, helping to securely store encrypted versions of your code, binaries, and configuration related to your products and cloud infrastructure.

They've put together a guide on integrating AWS CodeCommit with Review Board that you can follow if you're wanting to give this service a try. It'll walk you through deploying a Review Board server, setting up access to CodeCommit, linking your repository, and posting changes for review.

Currently, setup requires maintaining an in-sync clone of your repository on the Review Board server. We're aiming to work with the CodeCommit team to help bring direct support for hosted CodeCommit repositories to a future release of Review Board and RBCommons.

For more information on getting set up, check out the CodeCommit page and read our guides on configuring Git repositories and our recommended RBTools workflows for Git.

Last week's release of Power Pack 1.3.1 hit some snags with Review Board installs running on Python 2.6.

We've fixed these issues, and things should work smoothly once again. Other than this fix, this release is the same as 1.3.1, meaning that if you're running on Python 2.7, you won't need to upgrade.

Getting Started

If you're new to Power Pack, you can get started by downloading a trial license and following the installation instructions. When your trial expires, you'll be able to keep all your current features for up to 2 people, forever.

If you're already using Power Pack, upgrading is simple:

$ sudo easy_install -U ReviewBoardPowerPack

Once installation completes, reload your web server, and you're good to go!

As always, if you have any questions or bugs to file related to Power Pack, e-mail us.

We have a new release of Power Pack for you today, featuring a number of improvements to the Microsoft Team Foundation Server integration and PDF document review.

I'd like to start with a big thank you to everyone who has worked with us to improve the stability of TFS in the past month, by filing reports and testing builds.

We'll cover the highlights of the release here. You can also check out the full release notes for more details.

Better TFS Support

The big focus of this release is our TFS support. We've made it easier to get started with TFS, simplifying the process for installation, and fixing compatibility issues.

We've worked around a number of TFS file type reporting issues, which led to broken diffs. If you still encounter any broken diffs, let us know, and we'll work with you to fix them.

There's also new support for TFS projects that contain multiple Git repositories. If you have a repository on TFS, it should now just work.

HD Thumbnails for PDFs

Power Pack 1.3.1 brings support for HD thumbnails for PDF files.

HD thumbnails are a new feature in the upcoming Review Board 2.5 release, offering higher-quality, spacious thumbnails that show more of your document at a glance. If you're on a high-DPI/Retina display, these thumbnails will really shine.

Getting Started

If you're new to Power Pack, you can get started by downloading a trial license and following the installation instructions. When your trial expires, you'll be able to keep all your current features for up to 2 people, forever.

If you're already using Power Pack, upgrading is simple:

$ sudo easy_install -U ReviewBoardPowerPack

Once installation completes, reload your web server, and you're good to go!

As always, if you have any questions or bugs to file related to Power Pack, e-mail us.

We have a great little bug fix release for you today! Our team has been hard at work squashing a few of the more obnoxious repository/extension-related that have come our way. This includes:

• Self-signed certificates on Subversion repositories.
• Compatibility issues when posting CVS/Perforce diffs.
• SSH-related problems on some Subversion setups.
• Some confusing errors during diff validation.
• Unnecessary Markdown escaping of text coming from commit messages or Perforce change descriptions.
• Packaging problems for static media files in extnsions.

That's just a few of our fixes. You'll want to check out the release notes for everything that went into 2.0.18.

2.0.16 may have come out just a few days ago, but it's old news now. We've made some fixes and tweaks to the improvements in that release, fixed up some small packaging issues, and added new extension-related enhancements.

We know a few of you have hit some of the bugs from 2.0.16 in your deployments, so we wanted to get this out to you fast.

The main highlights include:

• Extensions can now set custom data on reviews through JavaScript hooks, and listen to publishing-related events.
• Files that were copied but not modified will now appear in the diff viewer.
• Publishing-related errors in the API will now show up again.
• Errors with diff generation will show an error page, not a HTTP 500.
• Users making heavy use of private user profiles and the Depends On field for review requests won't see API errors when modifying drafts.

See the full list of changes for more details.

In case you missed it, check out the announcement for last week's release of Review Board. We cover the new security fixes, performance improvements, bug fixes, and new installation methods available satrting in 2.0.16.