Writefreely Versions Save

A clean, Markdown-based publishing platform made for writers. Write together and build a community.

v0.11.0

4 years ago

write freely

Major Features

Automatic SSL certificates from Let's Encrypt (T542)

It's now even easier to start up a WriteFreely instance with free, automatic certificates from Let's Encrypt. With the application facing the public internet (i.e. not behind a reverse proxy), you can set a few configuration values to have WriteFreely generate the certificate for you.

For new instances, choose Production, standalone > Secure (port 443), auto certificate during the interactive setup process.

For existing instances, set autocert = true and tls_cert_path = certs (see config documentation for more information).

WriteFreely Command-Line Interface

We've released our first official WriteFreely client along with this version: wf-cli! This is a simple command-line-based tool for publishing to one or many WriteFreely instances. It's perfect for tech-savvy users who don't want to leave their terminal window or anyone looking to build WriteFreely publishing into their desktop writing workflow -- and it's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

User-Facing Changes / Fixes

Prevent transliterated slugs from exceeding character limit (#137)
Don't consider posts unpublished when they have a title (#138)
Blog 404 pages are now styled like the rest of the blog (T493)
Fix missing hostname when publishing via API and support WriteFreely CLI (#144)
Fix various minor issues with single-user instances (#145)
Support <audio> HTML element (#147)
Fix future pinned posts showing in navigation (#158)
Fix false logged-in state on failed login
Fix title attribute getting stripped on <abbr> elements (#184)
Add helpful instructions on invite links when logged in (T690)
Publish to user's blog by default, instead of Drafts (T697)
Fix blog URLs in CSV export (#205)

Minor Changes

Fix go-sitemap-generator overriding GOMAXPROCs (#86)
Log server software and version on startup (#168)
Fix crash on some duplicate ActivityPub follows (#159)

Admin-Facing Changes

Support setting a default visibility for all blogs (T675, #148)
Support toning down WriteFreely promotion (T676, #149)
Support using an alternative editor template (T677)
Support customizing Reader page (T684)
Support resetting user password from web-based UI (T695)
Fix tar bomb on install (#160)

Developer-Facing Changes

Add make build-arm7
Remove dependency on github.com/gogs/gogs/pkg/tool (#182)
API endpoints will now honor Accept: application/json headers (not only Content-Type) (#178)

Experimental / In-Progress Work

User Silencing (T661)

Now instance admins can silence problematic users to make their writing inaccessible to the world and prevent further publishing. This strikes a balance between preventing further abuse and making reversible moderation decisions, as users will still be able to log in to their account and access their data.

This is still experimental, as it needs more extensive testing. Please report any bugs you find and give us any feedback you have on this feature!

Reader-centric instances (T681, #157)

As part of our new Write.as for Teams service, we're experimenting with an alternative configuration for admins that want their site to be more focused on the collective work of its writers, rather than on individuals. It's meant for businesses, organizations, and institutions that want to create more of a shared blog than provide individual blog hosting. It sets the Reader view as the home page, uses blog templates with global navigation, and has hashtags search across all public blogs.

This functionality is not at all finalized, and subject to change drastically without notice. We don't recommend enabling this in your configuration unless you're merely curious or want to provide feedback (which we highly encourage!).

Upgrading from v0.10.0

Download the latest release for your operating system. Stop running your writefreely service, replace all files in your installation with the ones in the archive, and then start your writefreely service again.

Now make sure your database is backed up, and update it with writefreely --migrate.

No additional steps are needed to upgrade from v0.10.0. Follow the instructions in each previous #release if you're upgrading from an earlier version.

Developers

If you are running a custom build, note that there were style changes in this release. Run make ui to generate the latest stylesheets.

Contributors

Thanks for contributing to this release!

@robjloranger @OddBloke

v0.10.0

4 years ago

write freely

Major Features

Fully Private Instances (T576)

Communities looking for more privacy can now start up WriteFreely instances meant only for internal use. Just enable the private config value to make all blogs and content accessible only to authenticated users in your instance.

NOTE: this is a breaking change! This changes behavior for existing instances with the private config value already set to true. If you have it set, you should verify that the new behavior is what you want.

Landing Page Customization (T565, T574)

Now admins have two new ways to customize their multi-user instance:

Editing your landing page. Now you can change the content of your landing page from the Admin dashboard, including the banner text to the left of the signup form and the optional text below.

Changing the landing URL. For anyone who doesn't want to use their normal landing page -- such as with closed or invite-only instances -- this lets you set the URL that unauthenticated users go to when they first come to your site. For example, you might send them to your About page (/about) or your public Reader (/read).

User-Facing Changes / Fixes

Add Lithuanian translation (writeas/web-core#3)
Fix changing RTL setting back to LTR from web UI (#103, #110)
Fix federation with pubgate (#100, #111, #116)
Include pinned posts in JSON export (#112)
Include post title in exported txt files (#114)
Fix same-size 1st- and 2nd-level headings on blog index (#82)
Fix post deletion logic needed for WriteFreely CLI (#117)
Fix C syntax highlighting (#124)
Fix default background-color not set (#132)
Fix inconsistent naming / icons on post metadata page

Admin-Facing Changes

Landing URL is now editable (T574)
The private config option now makes an instance readable only by registered, authenticated users (T576)
New upgrade script
The --config command now automatically initializes the database, removing the need for --init-db during setup
Specify which part of the app configuration you want to edit with the new --sections flag, e.g. writefreely --config --section="app db server"
Landing page is now customizable (T565)

Developer-Facing Changes

Fix lessc installation on macOS and CentOS (#97, #99)
MathJax library is now a git submodule instead of directly included
The writefreely.Serve() func has been split out into multiple functions
Flag handling has moved out of the writefreely pkg to cmd/writefreely/main.go

Upgrading from v0.9.x

No additional steps are needed to upgrade from v0.9.x. Follow the instructions in each previous #release if you're upgrading from an earlier version.

Developers

If you are running a custom build, note that there were style changes in this release. Run make ui to generate the latest stylesheets.

Contributors

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this release!

@dariusk @gytisrepecka @robjloranger @joyeusenoelle @sandrockcstm @qwazix @mrvdb

#WriteFreely

v0.9.1

5 years ago

write freely

This isn't a required upgrade; it's only needed to fix new installations.

Admin-Facing Changes

Fix V2 migrations not run on a new instance (#92)
Fix Docker build with Go Modules enabled (#95)

Upgrading from v0.9.0

No additional steps are needed to upgrade from v0.9.0. Follow the instructions in each previous #release if you're upgrading from an earlier version.

Contributors

Thanks for contributing to this release!

@kaiyou

#WriteFreely

v0.9.0

5 years ago

write freely

User-Facing Changes / Fixes

Fix hash symbols (#) wrongly recognized as hashtags inside code blocks (#6)
Hashtags without spaces between them are now properly parsed
Fix IsValidUsername check when PagesParentDir isn't current dir
Fix code blocks not highlighting when an invalid language is given (#81)
Strip HTML from meta descriptions (#83)
Add missing Apple touch icons (#77, #78)
Fix future-dated posts being immediately federated when moving from Draft to blog (#76)
Fix draft post metadata (#91)
Fix excessive space between paragraphs inside blockquotes

Minor Changes

Navigating to a non-existent invite ID now shows "Page not found" instead of "Server error"
On Export page: "zip" option now shows "txt" instead
Remove unused references to files.writeas.org resources

Admin-Facing Changes

Improve admin navigation
Move "About" and "Privacy" page editing off the dashboard to a new dedicated section
Add the ability to change "About" and "Privacy" page titles
Add Admin Dashboard link in backend navigation

Upgrading from v0.8.x

Now make sure your database is backed up, and update it with writefreely --migrate.

No additional steps are needed to upgrade from v0.8.x. Follow the instructions in each previous #release if you're upgrading from an earlier version.

Developers

If you are running a custom build, note that there were style changes in this release. Run make ui to generate the latest stylesheets.

Contributors

Thanks for contributing to this release!

@mrvdb

#WriteFreely

v0.8.1

5 years ago

write freely

User-facing Fixes

Fix same-page anchor links (#43, #42, #33)

Install Fixes

Admin account isn't created correctly with --config (#71)
Use correct go get command in documentation

Admin-Facing Changes

Fix --create-user usage error message

Trivial Changes

Fix Write.as link in README

Upgrading from v0.8.0

No additional steps are needed to upgrade from v0.8.0. Follow the instructions in each previous #release if you're upgrading from an earlier version.

Contributors

Thanks for contributing to this release!

@mrvdb @SamWhited

v0.8.0

5 years ago

write freely

Features

User Invites (T556)

Now it's even easier to run a private / invite-only community, with user invites. Admins have a new user_invites setting that can enable invite link generation for all users, admins only, or no users at all (the default). If enabled, users can create invite links to let others sign up for your WriteFreely instance, even if public registration is closed. Invite links can each be set to expire, or optionally have a maximum number of uses.

User-Facing Changes / Fixes

Fix spacing in sublists (#27)
Optimize web font loading (#65)

Admin-Facing Changes

Fixed Docker build (#57)
Support automated database migration with writefreely --migrate (T509)
Support configuring resource directories (T560 / #63)

Upgrading from v0.7.x

Now make sure your database is backed up, and update it with writefreely --migrate.

No additional steps are needed to upgrade from v0.7.x. Follow the instructions in each previous #release if you're upgrading from an earlier version.

Developers

If you are running a custom build, note that there were style changes in this release. Run make ui to generate the latest stylesheets.

Contributors

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this release!

@kaiyou @nkoehring

#WriteFreely

v0.7.1

5 years ago

write freely

Fixes

Fix blog customize page not rendering on Windows (#61)
Initialize database during config step for single-user instance (#59)

Upgrading from v0.7.0

No additional steps are needed to upgrade from v0.7.0. Follow the instructions in each previous #release if you're upgrading from an earlier version.

v0.7.0

5 years ago

write freely

Features

User Management

Admin user creation. Admins can now create a normal user from the command-line with: writefreely --create-user username:password
Users List (T553). Get an overview of all the users in your community with the new user list for admins. This is the foundation for future moderation features.

Changes

Use an en dash in the title of posts that are written in German, instead of em dash (#1)
Now you can build writefreely without SQLite support. To include support, compile with the sqlite build tag (this is the default with all make commands)
Blog names starting with a number now have an ActivityPub avatar

Fixes

Prevent creating users with invalid usernames via command-line (#49)
Fix metadata update for draft posts on single-user instances (#50)
Fix "Database user or password not set." error when starting SQLite-backed instances (#54)
Fix user creation process hanging on SQLite-backed instances (#53)
Fix tagged post query on SQLite-backed instances (#55)
Fix ActivityPub follows on SQLite-backed instances (#56)

Upgrading from v0.6.0

No additional steps are needed to upgrade from v0.6.0. Follow the instructions in each previous #release if you're upgrading from an earlier version.

Developers

Some style changes were made in this version. If you are running a custom build / fork, run make ui to generate the latest stylesheets.

Contributors

Thanks for contributing to this release!

@geekgonecrazy

v0.6.0

5 years ago

write freely

Features

SQLite support (T529)

You no longer need MySQL / MariaDB to store data for your instance! Just select SQLite during the configuration process to use it instead of the MySQL driver.

Reader / local timeline (T554)

Take a break from writing to see what others on your instance have written! Admins can now turn on the Local timeline option in the Admin panel ([app] local_timeline in config.ini) to enable this for both writers on your instance and the wider public. The local timeline functions just like Read Write.as -- it includes an RSS feed, and is opt-in. Writers can start publishing their work on the feed by going into their blog settings and choosing the Public visibility option.

More changes

Ability to create admin user from the command-line with: --create-admin username:password (T544)
Specify non-default configuration file to use with various commands via new -c [filename] flag
Host highlight.js and MathJax locally, instead of on CloudFlare (T551)

Upgrading from v0.5.x

No additional steps are needed to upgrade from v0.5.x. Follow the instructions in each previous #release if you're upgrading from an earlier version.

Contributors

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this release!

@BenOvermyer @kaiyou

v0.5.0

5 years ago

write freely

Features

Configure bind address with new bind configuration value (#38, #5)
Syntax highlighting support for all programming languages supported in highlight.js (#39)
Modify NodeInfo description with new site_description config value
Change admin values via the web admin UI (T541)

Fixes

Fix metadata editing in single-user mode (#40)
Always show stats on About page if public_stats enabled

Upgrading from v0.4.x

No additional steps are needed to upgrade from v0.4.x. See previous releases if you're upgrading from an earlier version.

Contributors

Thanks for contributing!

@mrvdb