Critical Security Update

Yesterday we discovered a bug that allowed malformed URLs to crash Etherpad Lite. We published a patch yesterday to develop and released 1.1.3 today for general consumption.

Please note these bugs have existed in Etherpad Lite since we adopted the express framework so it is important you update today.

Please “git pull” or head over etherpad.org and click download to get the latest version.

Thanks!

Note: Online activists and ISP’s stopped the attack from spreading too wildly by disabling the internet connectivity of the attacker. Whilst we can’t promote this type of activity it did help and our thanks goes out to them.

Say hello to Etherpad v1.1.2

V1.1.2 is a significant move forward towards making Etherpad easier to implement into your service.

The communities focus has been on improving usability, documentation, hooks (where your code runs) and other bits that makes your job as a developer less stressful giving you more time to enjoy petting your unicorn.

What’s new?

More Hooks
Extended API
Extended support for pad GET parameters
Polished UX
More humanly readable code
Even faster loading times
Simpler Windows install
Bugfixes galore

Quit your jibber jabber and just show me the damn pull requests!

So, what next?

Our community is amazing, this month has seen massive contributions from Marcel, Chad, Wikinaut, Yourcelf, Lepidum and many others.. We’re really happy with how things are progressing but we want to see things move faster.. Our goal for 1.1.3 is still the same as our goals since 1.1 and we’re making some real steps towards accomplishing them. We have some big news to share over the next few weeks and we hope you stay tuned and keep on sharing the love :)

Plugin Spotlight: Help bubbles


Do you have users that are new to Etherpad and want to show them how to use the interface? Install the aptly named “Help Bubbles” plugin and enjoy simple pop ups enlightening you.

How to install this plugin
Visit http://youretherpaddeployment.com/admin/plugins and login with your username/password then search for the plugin “help_bubbles”.

Plugin Author: John McLear
Plugin on npm

From your CLI to Etherpad

Today we’re shining our spotlight on some great work by Simon Maddox that sends your CLI output (STDOUT) to a pad in real time. Great for debugging or tracking installation procedures.

The project is named Etherpad stream and it can be installed with:

npm install -g etherpad-stream

And used by following the very simple usage documentation

Find out more and get started with Etherpad Stream

Plugin Spotlight: Go social with Sharethis

Now it’s even easier to share a pad link with your friends on your favourite social network.

Because we don’t have any allegiance to any social network you will notice there are many available and if you like you can modify the plugin and add your own favourite or register with Sharethis and get the benefits of analytics.

Shortly settings will be available so you can easily add your own publisher code to the existing plugin.

Say Hello to Etherpad Lite V1.1.1

Oh you haven’t heard about us already

Etherpad Lite is a collaborative editor, sort of like a web-based multiplayer Notepad but with some really amazing features and a really developer friendly community and framework. Etherpad Lite is completely open-source and comes with no douchery what so ever attached..

If you scroll to the bottom of this post you can see Etherpad Lite in action. The Etherpad Foundation (That’s us) maintain a public Etherpad Lite sandbox deployment for you to start toying with. The public API key is EtherpadFTW.

Have you checked out the plugins? They are freaking amazing!

What’s new with the software?

  1. Support node v0.8
  2. Various bugfixes (See: https://github.com/Pita/etherpad-lite/pull/834)
  3. Various new hooks (aceEditEvent, handleMessage)
  4. Various new API endpoints (getLastEdited, lastPadsOfAuthor, listAuthorsOfPad, padUsersCount)
  5. Various resolution of security issues (Disconnect on lack of authentication)
  6. Plugin installation no longer needs a server restart to be active.
  7. Nazi’s on the moon
  8. Better Microsoft Windows support out of the box
  9. Postgres support
  10. Unified timeslider and editing protocol
  11. Better disconnect handling

What’s new in the foundation?

  1. Marcel Kehr is our bugmaster.
  2. Redhog and FourPlusOne now have more authority over the repo.
  3. Berkley, MIT, Mozilla and various other fantastic organizations now run Etherpad and we’re really greatful for their support!
  4. We’re looking for more sponsors so we can dedicate more resources into making the software and the community flow better, please get in touch if you can help!

What’s next for the foundation?

We have achieved our goal of making etherpad easy to adopt for web developers, we’re really happy with the number of contributors and new plugins being developed by the community. Our next goals are:

  1. Povide a robust testing framework
  2. Migrate any legacy Etherpad instances(such as PrimaryPad, PiratePad) to Etherpad Lite
  3. Language translation support
  4. Integration with even more CMS’, Kudos to Moodle, Elgg, MediaWiki and others for their integration to date!

Whilst these might not seem like exciting or bells and whistle new features they will allow Etherpad to enter into a more enterprise type environment. Don’t worry guys, we’re not all of a sudden going to suggest a migration to Java ;) Our goal is to ensure our current users have a stable, flexible and well supported future with Etherpad. Most of the cool shiny new features that create exciting new UI components are being developed as plugins so you should visit /admin/plugins after you install to see what is available!

We’re desperatley trying to find someone who can lead our community efforts so if you love organizing meet ups and/or love social networking please get in touch.

Thanks to 0ip, jhollinger, redhog, mtraceur, cboylan, marcelkehr, pita and others for making 1.1.1 possible :) Without their and others hard work we would be months behind on our release schedule. We all owe them a great deal of gratitude!

Thanks also to our current sponsors and new sponsors especially ones that advocate for freedom on the internet ;). Kudos to the UN, NATO, various Pirate Parties and other government bodies for fighting litigation that could cripple freedom of speech on the internet, without you guys in our corner our struggle would be a lot more fraught with danger..

Existing Etherpad Lite users, don’t delay, git pull today!

Ninjas – Visit Etherpad Lite on Github
Warriors – Get Etherpad Lite for Linux
Pretenders – Get Etherpad Lite Microsoft Windows

Testing Etherpad Lite

We have recently partnered with SauceLabs to provide a testing framework for Etherpad Lite. This framework currently supports browser only tests and must be run in Selenium or on the Sauce Labs onDemand service.

If you require a key please get in touch and we will provide you one.

Here is a video that explains How to get started running and writing tests.

I want to encourage everyone to start forking, writing tests and issuing pull requests to the feature/selenium branch

Have fun and live strong beef rangers.