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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:

New user interface and responsive design

BlueSpice 3 offers a new navigation concept and a responsive user interface. Users can now access and edit wiki content at any time and from their smartphone or tablet. The new interface is more graphic and tidier. Among other things, this becomes obvious in the new navigation in the right-hand column. Here we have bundled the functions for quality assurance and other page actions. In addition wiki contents in BlueSpice 3 are given considerably more space and prominence by the optional folding away of the left and right navigation column. This leaves more space for reading and editing the content.

New search engine

BlueSpice 3 uses the high-end search engine Elasticsearch, which is also utilized by Wikipedia. Previous functions like filtering search results or searching through file attachments are of course retained. The new search offers significant improvements:

• a more meaningful presentation of search results
• searchability of semantic metadata (e.g. data in forms)
• clearer display of auto-complete with display of similar articles
• personalization by marking relevant search hits

VisualEditor of Wikipedia

In BlueSpice 3 we replace the previous TinyMCE editor with the VisualEditor from MediaWiki. This editor has been developed especially for MediaWiki and is permanently used in all wikipedias of the world, thus is extremely stable. The new editor supports many specific wiki functions like easy editing of templates without having to understand wikitext or interfering with the source code. Popular BlueSpice functions such as the insertion of images via drag & drop remain a valuable component of the software.

News communication and discussion system

The possibilities to discuss articles are very limited in the classic MediaWiki. Similar to facebook or twitter BlueSpice 3 now features a timeline that facilitates collaborative work on content. Discussion posts can be quickly created, commented on, recommended, assigned to articles and easily tracked. The new tool also offers a blog function and many other exciting features.

Simplified rights management

Wiki administrators now receive a standard selection of „roles“ (including admin, author, editor, reviewer, commentator or reader) that can be assigned to users for different namespaces. This eliminates the tedious task of selecting from over 100 individual rights per role. Other roles and rights constellations remain possible in the future.

Further novelties

No less important are these new functions

• Documents can now be attached to the end of an article via drag & drop, ideal for all types of documentation.
• Admins will now find a clearer interface to configure the wiki.
• Multiple files can be uploaded at once.
• There is a two-column view of editing conflicts.
• Tables in the content area can be filtered.
• The central login functionality (LDAP and SAML) has been updated

Finally, it's time. Our developers have done a good job and released a beta version of our new wiki software BlueSpice 3 on July 19, 2018. To make our wiki software even better and meet your 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 breaking 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?

Thank you in advance for your time and your contributions!

The BlueSpice team