EtherPad Foundation today released a new version of its free EtherPad web-based collaborative text editor. This is the second major release since the foundation took over active development of the code base, following the Google Open Source release. The new version includes many new features and improvements:
- Easy upgrade – Installation scripts checks your java and scala versions
- Easier management – Improved Admin interface including an easier to understand plugin manager
- Improved import and export of file documents – support for import and export out of the box
- Easy start pro mode – Teams are supported by default
- Pad Cloning and template creation – Pad cloning allows you to create template pads and copy them to create new pads with a standard content
- Sitemap support and improved SEO support – Pads tagged as public will automatically be added to a sitemap.xml file so that they are spidered correctly by search engines such as Google
- Improved documentation – There is documentation for installation all the way through to the plugin manager. We also hope to release youtube videos with basic user guides over the next few weeks
- Easy rebranding – You can easily rebrand your Etherpad with your company or site name.
- Better debug support – FireBug Light and other tools to ease debugging while developing plugins on non-firefox browsers
- File upload support – Files can be uploaded and embedded into pads
- Image support – Images can now easily be inserted into Etherpad pads
- Real time recent changes – An admin can see in real time what is being edited
- Delete Pad – Pads can be deleted using the site admin screen
- Improved theme support, includes micro and nano theme – Three themes are included: the standard default theme, a micro theme which has no brand or management content on the page and a nano theme which is a pure collaborative editor with no toolbar intended for embedding in other webpages
- Replacement of unfree libraries – Some of the items included in the original Etherpad package weren’t free software so we have replaced them with free software equivalents
- License and Language easy tagging of pads – Pads can be tagged with a license and with a language using drop-down menus
About EtherPad: EtherPad is a web service that allows real-time document collaboration for groups and teams.
About EtherPad Foundation: EtherPad foundation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the development of EtherPad and collaborative text editing.
That seems like a great improvement, thank you. Could I upgrade an existing installation (Google’s original Open Source version) to Etherpad 1.1, using the old database — will all the old pads (public as well as “teamed”) be unchanged including edit history, chat comments etc?
To whom it may concern,
I was interested in evaluating etherpad to see if it would be an effective tool for us to use when collaboratively working on building function specification documents.
I tried using it on your public sites.
Our typicall business process would be that we start with a base document and then collaborate to make edits.
So I kept trying to import Office 2010 (.docx) and they all failed.
Is this system suppose to support docx and documents with images and text?
When starting the import it would run for about 10-15 seconds and then say import failed due to timeout.
Any ideas or thoughts?
Rick