Gnizr 2.4.0 Milestone 1 Release

Gnizr 2.4.0 Milestone 1 is now available for download.

• Download: gnizr-2.4.0-M1.zip
• How to install or upgrade
• What has changed

Note: This release is intended for evaluation and testing, and it's not suitable for any serious deployment.

New Features

Super Faster Bookmark Search. We've added Lucene search engine to power gnizr bookmark search. The result is an significant performance gain in bookmark search.

Improved OpenSearch logic. We've simplified the search interface by collapsing all search functions into a single OpenSearch function. A single search box is displayed on the top of the page. A user can search his/her bookmarks, bookmarks saved by other users, and one or more third-party OpenSearch engines on the Web.

Firefox Browser Search Plugin. Users can add a search plugin to the Firefox or IE 7 browser. They can quickly search bookmarks in gnizr without needing to go to the gnizr main page.

New 'icon' Machine Tag. Users can label bookmarks with colorful icons using a new machine tag called 'gn:icon'. Users can use this machine tag to express their personal opinions about the bookmarks or explicitly describe the kind of media content that is described in the bookmarks. On the "add bookmark" page, we've implemented a Machine Tag Helper UI for adding these 'icon' machine tags.

Upgrading from Gnizr 2.3.0

If you want to try out gnizr 2.4 on the top of your existing gnizr 2.3.0 database, follow these instructions:

1. Backup your existing database.
   
2. Follow the standard upgrade procedures, except that you don't need to upgrade your database. Skip all steps described in the section "Upgrade database tables and stored procedures". Gnizr 2.4.0 M1 runs on the same database schema and store procedure as gnizr 2.3.0.
3. After copying the gnizr webapp into your Tomcat, edit gnizr-config.xml using these instructions. Note that new configuration parameters have been added in 2.4.0.
   
4. Start Tomcat.
5. Go to you gnizr web application and login as 'gnizr' the super user.
6. Manually create a search index database for bookmark search. Go to "settings". Under "Administration", click on "Rebuild search index". Follow instructions on the page.
7. Done.
   

Questions. Send them to the gnizr discussion group.

Gnizr 2.3.0 Final Release

Gnizr 2.3.0 Final Release is now available for download.

• Download: gnizr-2.3.0.zip
• How to install or upgrade
• What has changed

We're happy to announce the final release of gnizr 2.3.0. This marks a major advancement in the design and implementation of an open source social bookmarking and Web 2.0 mashup application. Several new features are introduced in 2.3.0 and many bugs have been fixed since the release of 2.2.0.

We thank those users who have reported issues and given us feedbacks. Without them, the open source gnizr project would not be possible.

Feature Highlights

Using SKOS for Search Term Suggestion

Administrator can define a set of tag relationships to assist the search of bookmarks. Tag relationships are defined using SKOS vocabulary -- narrower, broader and related-to. Read more.

OpenSearch Support

Gnizr users can search bookmarks and other resources on the Web under a unified search interface, which is similar to that of the A9 search engine. Administrator can customize the set of OpenSearch services that are available to gnizr users. Read more.

Improved User Interface

We try hard to improve gnizr user experience. In this release, we made an effort to improve tag relationship management, tag suggestion and auto-complete, machine tag helper, and gnizr bookmarklet.

What's Next (gnizr 2.4.0)

We've started the development of the next generation of gnizr. Couple major features are under development:

• Integrate Apache Lucene search
  
• Search gnizr via Firefox search plugin
• New machine tags for describing bookmark content (video, photo, audio etc.)
  

We expect to release gnizr 2.4.0 Milestone 1 in the next couple weeks.

Gnizr 2.3.0 Release Candidate 2

Gnizr 2.3.0 Release Candidate 2 is now available for download.

• Download: gnizr-2.3.0-RC2.zip
• How to install or upgrade
• What has changed

This should be the last candidate release of 2.3.0. Unless there are reports of major code bugs, we will finalize the release of 2.3.0 in couple weeks.

In this RC release, we fixed couple bugs. One of which is related to running RSS robot. We discovered that the Java thread that runs the robot is not properly terminated when the hosting Servelet Container is shutdown. Fixes have been added to the code. If you use 2.3.0 RC2 and still experience "dangling" threads when your Servlet Container is shutdown., please let us know.

We also updated Java API documentation and a Wiki page that describes the implementation of gnizr User Authentication. We will continue to improve our developer documentations.

Gnizr 2.3.0 RC 1 Build Failure

A developer reported to us that he is unable to build gnizr 2.3.0 RC1 after checking out the source from the SVN. We looked into the problem and discovered that the problem is caused by JUnit test failures in building the gnizr-robot package.

This problem has been reported to the bug tracking system: issue 46.

We will fix this problem in the upcoming gnizr 2.3.0 RC2 release. For now, if you are building RC1 from the source, use 'mvn -Dmaven.test.skip=true install' to skip all JUnit tests.

Gnizr Dev Server Down for Maintenance

Couple developers wrote us about not being able to access gnizr public Maven repository and the Javadoc page on dev.gnizr.com. Our server dev.gnzir.com is down due to a network upgrade. The site will be back online in the next couple days.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

UPDATE (March 4, 2008): the server is now back online.

Gnizr 2.3.0 Release Candidate 1

Gnizr 2.3.0 Release Candidate 1 is now available for download.

• Download: gnizr-2.3.0-RC1.zip
• How to install or upgrade
• What has changed

We Need Your Feedback

As we march forward with the new gnizr 2.4 development, we want to hear from you on how you have used gnizr. We have few choices in prioritizing our next milestone objectives. Your feedbacks and comments will help us to define our development goals.

• What do you use gnizr for (e.g. sharing bookmarks with friends or co-workers)?
  
• What features do you like the most in gnizr?
• What features do you use the most in gnizr?
• What features do you think we should improve in the next release?
• Do you have a Wish List for gnizr?

You can send in your comments to our public user group or email to Harry Chen privately.

Gnizr 2.3.0 Milestone 4

Gnizr 2.3.0 Milestone 4 release is now available for download.

• Download: gnizr-2.3.0-M4.zip
• How to install or upgrade
• What has changed
• Updated API JavaDoc
  

This is the last milestone release before we begin our Release Candidate releases.

Notes: if you use bookmarklet to save bookmarks, please help us to test the new bug fixes related to the bookmarklet usage (see changelog). Make sure you delete your existing bookmarklet in the browser and save it again by following the link in the gnizr webapp's HELP page.