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The Pirate’s (B)log Book

Diagrams and other important news from the gliffy team

September 19, 2011 by Eric Chiang

Gliffy in Confluence 4

Drum roll please…

After several months of top secret work, we’re proud to announce the launch our new Confluence 4 compatible plugin!

Gliffy is now as easy to use as the new Confluence 4 editor. We’ve worked hard to make the editing experience as natural and as seamless as possible. No longer will you need to toggle between editing a diagram from the wiki view and updating the diagram layout from the edit view, everything happens in-line with the Confluence 4 editor.

Creating a diagram in the Confluence editor

Editing a diagram in the Confluence editor

We’ve also updated how the diagram appears in the wiki view. We’ve hidden our edit links until you’re ready to interact with the diagram. Once you hover over a diagram, you’ll now be able to zoom larger or edit straight away.

Updated wiki view interaction

Release Notes – Gliffy Confluence Plugin v4

Not enough awesomeness? Need more reasons to upgrade? There are over 100 issues resolved in this release!

Bug
  • [GLIFFY-747] – Auto-crop is too conservative at the right and bottom sides
  • [GLIFFY-3002] – null is added to the 'alt=' Gliffy Marco when Editing a Gliffy Diagram
  • [GLIFFY-3009] – Free License message when Commercial License is installed
  • [GLIFFY-4026] – Export stuck at 15% encoding
  • [GLIFFY-4165] – Flash Error when trying to do a Save and Close in Confluence
  • [GLIFFY-4166] – Flash Error when trying to do a Save and Close in Confluence
  • [GLIFFY-4178] – Gliffy Closehrome displays in preview
  • [GLIFFY-4188] – Image map element not being generated correctly for SVG transform
  • [GLIFFY-4213] – Bottom of images are cropped when text label below network shape has more than one line of text
  • [GLIFFY-1091] – Hyperlinks should be clickable in Small and Medium Display Sizes
  • [GLIFFY-2671] – Links in Published Wiki Pages Not Size L, Exist in location of size L Diagram
  • [GLIFFY-3177] – Unknown cause for License Installation Failure
  • [GLIFFY-4016] – BPMN Collapsed Sub Process and Transaction do not show text when generated from quick shape navigator
  • [GLIFFY-4022] – Document Manager displays timeout error with many spaces
  • [GLIFFY-4027] – Rich Text does not work in OL 5
  • [GLIFFY-4036] – Zooming with CTRL+ loses the visibility of red boundary line of navigator
  • [GLIFFY-4043] – Properties popup overlapping the shapes while changing the width property
  • [GLIFFY-4110] – Green Org Chart Template does not work
  • [GLIFFY-4126] – Unsynchronized Map in ClientAPIServlet causes deadlock
  • [GLIFFY-3105] – Welcome email is not sent when Confluence license is Evaluation
  • [GLIFFY-3107] – Email Confluence Admins does not fire or can not unmarshal
  • [GLIFFY-3459] – Text Properties not refreshing correctly when entering brand new text in prepopulated shape
  • [GLIFFY-3538] – On copy/paste and then Undo, properties icon is still there after shape disappears
  • [GLIFFY-3625] – Justify buttons unselecting when clicking on selected state
  • [GLIFFY-3877] – 3 Lane Swimlane looks distorted when initially changing to 2 lane.
  • [GLIFFY-3941] – Document Manager Dialog Edit drop down remains open on stage after hitting ESC..
  • [GLIFFY-3942] – Rotation handle can be hidden by Contextual Properties popup
  • [GLIFFY-3989] – Autosave throws an exception due to Bandana key > 100 characters
  • [GLIFFY-3994] – Querying for existing Autosave draft should not return Stage XML
  • [GLIFFY-4010] – Properties not staying open after shape alignment
  • [GLIFFY-4018] – Clicking and holding objects/selections where a portion is outside the bottom of the viewport will cause them to be moved down.
  • [GLIFFY-3437] – Dropdown does not reopen on first click in special case in Contextual Properties
  • [GLIFFY-3599] – Printing will often print blank pages
  • [GLIFFY-240] – Create Right Arrow for Basic and Flowchart shapes
  • [GLIFFY-3303] – HUD will stay on if holding mouse and editing text in Firefox
  • [GLIFFY-3592] – Undo twice after moving straight line then ortho line is not working.
  • [GLIFFY-3606] – When Zoomed, CTRL+Arrow for stage does not work correctly
  • [GLIFFY-3675] – Missing imageH on ClientExportStreamer request
  • [GLIFFY-3728] – Remove jagged corners from UML Node shape
Epic
Sub-task
  • [GLIFFY-2979] – Launch Gliffy from the RTE
  • [GLIFFY-3114] – Resolve Batik classloader issue with org.w3c namespace
  • [GLIFFY-3317] – Use AUI banners for Confluence error messaging (license nags, errors, etc.)
  • [GLIFFY-3518] – Insert Gliffy Macro Dialog
  • [GLIFFY-4053] – Improve the wiki view links for (Edit, Full-Size, Delete)
  • [GLIFFY-4075] – Add Confluence Effects, Fix Border Toggle
  • [GLIFFY-4089] – FancyBox popup for wiki view
  • [GLIFFY-4118] – Macro Conversion
  • [GLIFFY-4148] – Secure RTE edit and create
  • [GLIFFY-4200] – Create a more button that exposes a text field to enter arbitrary size
  • [GLIFFY-3477] – Implement border button on Property Panel
  • [GLIFFY-3519] – Small, Medium, Large Buttons on Property Panel for Resizing Image
  • [GLIFFY-3804] – Open Editor with a Particular Template
  • [GLIFFY-3845] – Allow Macro Autocomplete to pop-up Gliffy Macro Dialog
  • [GLIFFY-3974] – Contextual Properties docking should be User Preference
  • [GLIFFY-3976] – Write Navigator documentation in User Manual
  • [GLIFFY-3996] – User Preferences Test Cases
  • [GLIFFY-4005] – Create a cron job that can run the renewal script
  • [GLIFFY-4023] – Implement search in Gliffy Macro Dialog
  • [GLIFFY-4051] – Implement Delete from Property Panel
  • [GLIFFY-4070] – Fix and Enable Link Navigator
  • [GLIFFY-258] – Preferred paper size should be saved for each user
  • [GLIFFY-3146] – Allow plugin to work in 3.x as well as 4.x
  • [GLIFFY-3476] – Use the RTE to left, right, center a diagram rather than our own macro html
  • [GLIFFY-3973] – Navigator State should be user preference
  • [GLIFFY-3985] – Server Side implementation of User Preferences for Confluence
  • [GLIFFY-3998] – Client Side implementation of User Preferences for Confluence
  • [GLIFFY-3826] – Create export progress bar
  • [GLIFFY-2720] – Only have drawing guides process an alignment once
  • [GLIFFY-3161] – Optimize the connection point used when Quick Connection is in action
  • [GLIFFY-3798] – Correct Association Connector to be dashed line for BPMN
  • [GLIFFY-3827] – Tune Chunk Size / Computing time per frame
  • [GLIFFY-3848] – Create Async PNG encoder
Improvement
  • [GLIFFY-1219] – View diagram link on attachment view
  • [GLIFFY-3478] – When a transcoding error occurs, don't log the SVG document at the ERROR level
  • [GLIFFY-4102] – Add the link attribute to image maps and use the URL for the value
  • [GLIFFY-4105] – Show our document icon in Attachment view
  • [GLIFFY-3961] – Colorpicker does not show currently selected text color on open
  • [GLIFFY-3604] – Chunk Encoding in CommonExport.lzx Some older hardware times out in 15 seconds
  • [GLIFFY-3642] – Not rounding off the decimal places for width and height after entry
  • [GLIFFY-3722] – Do not send emails to admin when installing the Gliffy Plugin
  • [GLIFFY-3876] – Changing X/Y of shape to off of viewable stage, should relocate stage to make shape viewable
  • [GLIFFY-3046] – Stage scrolling issue while increasing the size of shape
  • [GLIFFY-3382] – Use Minify Maven Plugin to minify CSS and Javascript as part of the build process
  • [GLIFFY-3539] – Text shapes in group selections are preventing other shape properties from showing up (like background/line color)
  • [GLIFFY-3605] – Text Properties should be default tab when checking properties for Text shapes
  • [GLIFFY-3880] – Make sure loading of diagram invalidates object that are in extreme X and Y positions
  • [GLIFFY-3700] – Starter license cost should read as "free" not $0
New Feature
  • [GLIFFY-4160] – Allow Confluence customers to opt-in to email campaigns via the editor
  • [GLIFFY-4039] – Dragging and dropping most shapes does not work since OL5 upgrade with debugger off
  • [GLIFFY-1962] – Enable Navigator View in Document Properties, Thumbnail view of entire Diagram
Regression
  • [GLIFFY-4179] – Link navigator throws an exception for recently viewed items
  • [GLIFFY-4194] – Image Attachments Fail to load with java error
  • [GLIFFY-3602] – Show border option not saving in Confluence
September 14, 2011 by Kat

The Future of Communication…

Gliffy is looking forward to the Confluence 4.0 release to launch some awesome new features! Be on the look out….

Atlassian’s biggest product release ever is just days away. After more than a year of development, and many more years of listening to your feedback, Confluence 4.0 will deliver the fastest, richest, most intuitive content collaboration experience, ever. Confluence 4.0 takes team collaboration to a whole new level with greatly enhanced social features. It’s never been easier to bring your team in on the important conversations in Confluence.

To celebrate this monumental release Atlassian thought it was fitting to take you on a little journey that they like to call Communication Through the Ages…

Take a look, find the easter egg, and stay tuned for Confluence 4.0, the future of online content collaboration.

August 15, 2011 by Clint Dickson

Gliffy Online Update – Page Navigator and bug fixes

You’ve created that large diagram mapping the universe, but can’t seem to easily get from one edge to the other, without the use of wormholes or teleportation (in progress). Well, we’ve now included a page navigator feature to help with this. The page navigator gives you a small birds-eye view of your entire diagram so that you can easily pan or click to any portion of your diagram. It also provides simple zoom controls so you can quickly add in those fine details.

You can toggle the the page navigator on or off with a simple control on the tool bar at the top of Gliffy.

In this update, we’ve also made various bug fixes to things like text properties and shape mutation, as well as other stability patches. See a complete list of updates in the release notes below. Happy diagramming!

Release Notes

Bug

  • [GLIFFY-3459] – Text Properties not refreshing correctly when entering brand new text in prepopulated shape
  • [GLIFFY-3538] – On copy/paste and then Undo, properties icon is still there after shape disappears
  • [GLIFFY-3625] – Justify buttons unselecting when clicking on selected state
  • [GLIFFY-3877] – 3 Lane Swimlane looks distorted when initially changing to 2 lane.
  • [GLIFFY-3941] – Document Manager Dialog Edit drop down remains open on stage after hitting ESC..
  • [GLIFFY-3942] – Rotation handle can be hidden by Contextual Properties popup
  • [GLIFFY-4010] – Properties not staying open after shape alignment
  • [GLIFFY-4018] – Clicking and holding objects/selections where a portion is outside the bottom of the viewport will cause them to be moved down.

Improvement

  • [GLIFFY-3642] – Not rounding off the decimal places for width and height after entry
  • [GLIFFY-3876] – Changing X/Y of shape to off of viewable stage, should relocate stage to make shape viewable
  • [GLIFFY-4065] – When using the rest API to start from a template (copy) also copy over the template's image

New Feature

  • [GLIFFY-1962] – Enable Navigator View in Document Properties, Thumbnail view of entire Diagram
  • [GLIFFY-3290] – Add product pricing tab on top of new plugin licensing page
  • [GLIFFY-258] – Preferred paper size should be saved for each user
August 2, 2011 by Eric Chiang

Gliffy Online Update – New Account Management Features

We’ve found that managing your Gliffy Online account hasn’t been so easy, so today we’re releasing several self service Account Management features that customers have been asking for.  Here’s what you can do with the new Account Management pages:

  • Change your account name
  • Update your credit card on file
  • Upgrade your account type
  • Cancel your account

 

These new features are now available via the ‘account’ menu under a new menu item called ‘Update Account Info’.

Release Notes – Gliffy – Version Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Sprint 1

Bug

  • [GLIFFY-3437] – Dropdown does not reopen on first click in special case in Contextual Properties
  • [GLIFFY-3599] – Printing will often print blank pages

Improvement

  • [GLIFFY-1001] – Suggest we change text ‘Organization Name’ to ‘Organization or Name’ and make this field required
  • [GLIFFY-1904] – There should be a way to change the credit card number from the ‘Manage Account’ button
  • [GLIFFY-3013] – Include details about Managing Account at Account Manager dialogue

New Feature

  • [GLIFFY-1029] – Allow Customers Ability to Modify Account Information (credit card number, expiration date, terminate account) Online
  • [GLIFFY-1190] – Allow Administrator of Multiuser Accounts to Edit Account Name
  • [GLIFFY-3319] – Allow Customers Ability to Modify Account / Organization name Online
  • [GLIFFY-3739] – Need link to cancel trial account
July 19, 2011 by Clint Dickson

Gliffy Online Update – Auto-save and more!

Power outages or browser crashes giving you the blues? Even worse, you’re in the middle of creating that soon to be Emmy nominated flowchart on how to improve the stability of your new computer when good ol’ Murphy lays down the law. If you’ve been working on a diagram and suddenly something crashes that makes it look like you’ve lost your work, don’t fear, Auto-save to the rescue. Just re-launch your browser, and launch Gliffy, and when you re-open the diagram, you will see a banner at the top asking you if would like to recover the unsaved draft of this document. Just click the Recover Draft link, and viola, the state of the diagram should recover to where you lost it.

This will also work if you were working on an untitled document that had not yet been saved. You can also just discard the draft if you’d like. Gliffy will save a draft of your document periodically as your work on it. You will see a notification of the draft save on the top right of Gliffy near the save button.

Along with Auto-save, we’ve made a number of other improvements and bug fixes to Gliffy Online. Please see the list below for all of the major updates. Happy diagramming!

Release Notes

Bug

  • [GLIFFY-240] – Create Right Arrow for Basic and Flowchart shapes
  • [GLIFFY-2462] – Logging into another Gliffy and then clicking Save As from old Gliffy, doesn't give login dialog
  • [GLIFFY-3303] – HUD will stay on if holding mouse and editing text in Firefox
  • [GLIFFY-3592] – Undo twice after moving straight line then ortho line is not working.
  • [GLIFFY-3606] – When Zoomed, CTRL+Arrow for stage does not work correctly
  • [GLIFFY-3728] – Remove jagged corners from UML Node shape
  • [GLIFFY-3786] – Gliffy prices are identifying local currency but not converting prices

Improvement

  • [GLIFFY-1673] – Permit Duplicate Account Names / Organization Names
  • [GLIFFY-3046] – Stage scrolling issue while increasing the size of shape
  • [GLIFFY-3539] – Text shapes in group selections are preventing other shape properties from showing up (like background/line color)
  • [GLIFFY-3605] – Text Properties should be default tab when checking properties for Text shapes
  • [GLIFFY-3742] – Online Autosave Client
  • [GLIFFY-3798] – Correct Association Connector to be dashed line for BPMN
June 28, 2011 by Eric Chiang

Gliffy Plugin for Confluence/JIRA v3.5.2 Release

A minor bug fix release is available today to address a few issues reported by customers.

You can download it via the Universal Plugin Manager (UPM) or directly here for Confluence or JIRA

Release Notes – Gliffy – Version Plugins 3.5.2

Bug

  • [GLIFFY-3754] – Gliffy Attachments are being saved as 'application/octet-stream' and are not being indexed
  • [GLIFFY-3755] – Create Diagram link should not be shown for Comments

New Feature

  • [GLIFFY-3775] – Add Warning Banner to display for users who are on Chrome on MAC
June 21, 2011 by Clint Dickson

User Advisory: Unexpected behavior when using Gliffy in Chrome 12/13/14 on the MAC

A few users have reported unexpected behavior when using Chrome 12 on ONLY the Apple Mac operating system. The behavior ranges from not being able to click a shape, to only being able to select shapes and not deselect them. Although this behavior seems random, we’ve been able to track this down to one root cause where we believe that Flash thinks the SHIFT key is being pressed (key down event) and never depressed (key up event). We believe this is a software bug in the communication of events between Chrome and the embedded Flash player. We’ve got a small sample test case in the video below, clearly showing this bad behavior:

We have posted a bug report to Google as well. You can track the issue here: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=86992

If you run into this issue, the workaround right now is to either click away from the application, or to hit the SHIFT key again.

In the meantime, we’ll see if we can find a more viable workaround to alleviate the issue in the short term.

June 13, 2011 by Eric Chiang

Gliffy Plugin for Confluence v3.5.1 Release

We’ve discovered an issue with the Link Navigator functionality in the v3.5 release of our Confluence plugin.

Google Chrome for Mac was released on June 6th (v12.0.742.91), several days after we certified our plugin release. Unfortunately, customers using this browser will see Gliffy freeze when attempting to bring up the Link Navigator.

This bug fix restores the previous Text Linking functionality when the browser is Chrome 12.x on a Mac. Please be aware that the Link Navigator is also disabled for all versions of Safari.

This release is recommended for all customers.

Release Notes – Gliffy – Version Confluence Plugin 3.5.1

Bug

  • [GLIFFY-3624] – Anonymous users are prevented from creating/saving diagrams even though they have permissions to the page
  • [GLIFFY-3690] – Disable Link Navigator on Google Chrome for Mac v12.x
June 6, 2011 by Chris Kohlhardt

The New Gliffy Confluence and JIRA Plugins have features that save you time and reduce frustration

We are super happy to announce some major improvements to version 3.5 of the Gliffy Confluence Plugin and Gliffy JIRA Plugin. Check out the quick demo videos of each of these new features below.

Floating Properties Panel

With this release, we’ve spent significant time improving the usability involved with changing colors, line thicknesses, and other properties of shapes and lines in Gliffy. With the introduction of the Floating Contextual Properties Panel, the placement of the panel has been optimized so that you spend less time moving your mouse back and forth across the screen. This usability improvement also increases the drawing area by up to 50%, which really comes in handy if you’re using a small screen like a laptop. Studies have shown that there is a direct correlation between being able to see more of your work on the screen at one time, and increase efficiency, which has been a big driver with our development of this feature. The end result is that you’ll be able to create great looking flow charts, uml diagrams, and all sorts of other rich visuals with Gliffy in much less time than you did before.

Integrated Confluence Link Navigator – Confluence Only

It’s now easier than ever to link from Gliffy diagrams to any content stored inside Confluence. This was a top feature request from users, which was the main driver for implementing this feature (keep voting on features you’d like to see!). Now when you click on the ‘link’ icon in Gliffy, the Confluence Link Navigator that you’re already familier with is presented. This makes it simple to select and link to any content stored in Confluence.

Auto-save – Confluence Only

We can all identify with a situation like this: You’ve been working for hours on your compter when tragedy strikes. Maybe your web browser crashes, or your computer crashs, but either way you loose your work you spent so much time on. We’ve now implemented auto-save in the Gliffy Confluence Plugin to help eliminate the frustration of lost work the results from computer or browser crashes.

Detailed Release Notes

Bug

  • [GLIFFY-3132] – Quick shape navigator should disappear when scrolling stage
  • [GLIFFY-3430] – Apostrophe in Diagram Name Results in Invalid Request Error
  • [GLIFFY-3457] – /gliffy/ has broken link to blank.html
  • [GLIFFY-3473] – Do not override user content when updating a diagram
  • [GLIFFY-3533] – Diagram Indexing does not work when search index is not set as "English"
  • [GLIFFY-3578] – Viewing License ID results in blank page
  • [GLIFFY-3614] – Zoom and fit to screen with only one shape

Improvement

  • [GLIFFY-3540] – Remove laszlo dialog on "Back to Confluence" and replace with browser prompt
  • [GLIFFY-3577] – Gliffy Macro Form: When using the autocomplete for page, will prefix the space key causing the diagram to not be found

Task

  • [GLIFFY-3456] – Disable call to download jquery in Confluence 3.1.4

Sub-task

  • [GLIFFY-3338] – Confluence Auto-save API / Persistence Layer
June 2, 2011 by Chris Kohlhardt

Gliffy.com website updated: Now with more robots

Last night we pushed out a major update to our website. We’ve been working on this update for quite some time, so we’re super excited to get this out there. We’d love to hear about any feedback you might have out the new look! I wanted to send out a special thank-you to the people who made this redesign possible:

  • Beate Fritsch – Fantastic Design
  • Laura Khalil – Killer input on design direction and copy writing, and created videos for product pages
  • XHTMLized – Most excellent HTML production
  • Eric @ Gliffy – Elegantly integrated the new design into critical parts of Gliffy Online
  • Todd @ Gliffy – Todd – Life savor by helping to build functionality that will enable automatic license generation for our Confluence / JIRA plugin customers.