Hey all,

We are proud to announce the immediate release of Semantic MediaWiki 1.7, the next major version after 1.6.1, which brings many new features, internal improvements and bugfixes.

Many thanks go to all the people that contributed to this release, without you this release would not have been possible :)

== What's new ==

* Added native "internal objects" that can be set using #setobject. * Added support for selecting a default graph when using RDF stores, configuration called $smwgSparqlDefaultGraph * Use of native MediaWiki sortable tables for the table formats. * Added value distribution functionality that can be used by result formats. * Added validation and manipulation of the format paremeter using Validator. * Added 'class' parameter to the 'table' format, which allows setting the CSS class. * Added automatically-generated CSS classes for rows and cells in 'table' format. * Added alpha version of native SMW Ask API with modules 'ask' and 'askargs'. * Added setting to choose which optional special properties are enabled ($smwgPageSpecialProperties). * Added creation date special property (disabled by default) (bug 32165). * Added support for altitudes in geographic coordinates (bug 32698). * Added definitions for missing params (sort, order, searchlabel) to the base query printer. * Added automatic invocation of the SMW_setup maintenance script when running update.php (for MW >= 1.19). * Added support for the Page Schemas extension.

== Compatibility changes ==

* Dropped compatibility with MediaWiki 1.15.x (and earlier). * Dropped compatibility with old-style (SMW < 1.6) query printers. This means that older versions of extensions that add result formats, such as Semantic Result Formats, will no longer work with SMW 1.7. More recent versions will of course work properly. * Full compatibility with MediaWiki 1.18 and foreward-compatibility with 1.19.

== Bug fixes ==

This release comes with a load of bug fixes, of which some are listed below:

* Fixed separator and filename parameters for the DSV format. * Fixed display of properties of type URL (bug 30912). * Fixed hide query functionality on Special:Ask (bug 30768). * Fixed display of internal SMW helper constants in certain queries (bug 30969). * Fixed some issues with the category result format (including bug 30761). * Fixed email validation issue (bug 32295). * Fixed incorrect handling of sort and order parameters on Special:Ask (bug 32706). * Fixed display of images to old behaviour after a recent regression. * Fixed fatal error in the concept cache maintenance script (bug 32592). * Fixed factbox links to Special:SearchByProperty containing numerical numbers for wikis in languages with the comma as decimal separator instead of a dot. * Fixed the "hide incoming properties" link on Special:Browse.

== Download ==

You can get this release from

* SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/semediawiki/files/semediawiki/Semantic%20Med... * SVN: http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/tags/extensions/SemanticMediaWiki...

== Installation / Upgrading ==

You can install or upgrade as usual. You will need to run the table update script via Special:SMWAdmin or maintenance/SMW_setup.php.

More detailed installation instructions can be found on the SMW wiki: http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Installation_1.7.0

A slightly more extensive overview of this release can be found here: http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki_1.7.0

Cheers

-- Jeroen De Dauw http://www.bn2vs.com Don't panic. Don't be evil. --