Version: Alice (Release April 2015)#

d3web is an extensible Java API for running knowledge-based systems. The Semantic Wiki KnowWE builds on the engine d3web and offers the web-based and distributed development of knowledge bases.

This distribution comes with the following files:

Release Notes.pdf This document.
Licenses.pdf License information of the d3web and KnowWE systems and all external libraries.
Please find the license texts in the directory license_texts.
d3web Quickstart.pdf A first steps installation readme for using the d3web libraries
KnowWE Quickstart.pdf A first steps manual for installing and starting KnowWE
d3web Folder containing the binaries (libraries), the sources, and the JavaDoc information of d3web
KnowWE Folder containing an installation archive (zip) as binary, the sources, and the JavaDoc information of KnowWE
Closed Sources Folder containing password protected closed sources of the TimeDB plugins
Tools Folder containing the tools KnowledgeBaseBook (creates a PDF version of the knowledge base), Testing-App (allows to continuously test knowledge bases) and KnowWE-Headless-App (application to create knowledge bases from wikicontents without using KnowWE in a wiki environment).
Quality Report Folder containing all files of the quality assessment report for this release. It contains the test protocols of the system tests (based on Fitnesse and the manual system tests), a summary of the integration tests, and a analysis of the unit tests and the static code analysis.

System Requirements#

Installation of d3web requires the Java Platform, Standard Edition JRE 6. KnowWE requires JRE version 8. For operating systems, the distribution runs with Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. We officially support Firefox 17 ESR or better and current Google Chrome better. Please note, that we do not officially support Internet Explorer at the moment, although Internet Explorer 11+ should work fine.

What's New#

The release includes the following notable new features:

  • Watch Variables: For developing d3web knowledge, you can now add variables and expressions as watches (similar to eclipse or IntelliJ) in a specialized view on the right side, visible independently of your current page.
  • Retractable LeftMenu: To make more space for the page contents on small displays (like projectors) or in case of large page contents, the LeftMenu can be retracted.
  • DiaFlux Improvements
    • Zoom: Flowcharts now come with easy to use zoom tools, allowing to zoom out to get a better overview of large flowcharts and also zoom to fit the current window size.
    • Improved Routing: Edges come with improved routing and a more intelligent placement of labels. Edges are highlighted on mouse-over.
    • New Tools: The flowchart editor comes with many new tools to intelligently select, align, clean up and pack the nodes and edges of a flowchart.
    • Performance: Improved rendering performance.
  • CI Improvements:
    • New CI Tests: CyclicFlowchart, InformationGain, InterviewLength, AmbiguousEdge and DuplicatePath
    • CI Test groups: Using the annotation @group allows to group a set of CI tests together in the CI dashboard
  • Rule Improvements:
    • Highlighting: Highlighting of condition states and fired actions, also added proper highlighting support for Rules with multiple actions.
    • TimeDB action Compatibility: Improved support for assigning eval expressions to choice questions.
  • TimeDB-Scripts: The commercial plugin TimeDB now supports the definition of new functions directly inside KnowWE. Using JavaScript to write the functions and having low level (read) access to given variable and history arguments, allows virtually unlimited functionality. The functions are stored as knowledge elements inside the d3web knowledge base and can be used equally to other functions in all rules and variables.
  • Ignore Out-Of-Range Values: The TestCasePlayer, Continuous Integration dashboard and Testing App now allow to skip values that are outside the defined ranges of the questions, using a simple annotation or parameter.
  • Regex-Conditions in STCs: Sequetial Test Cases (STCs) now support conditions with regular expressions, which for example also allows to check date questions in the TestingApp.
  • TimeZone-Support for Date Questions: It is now possible to assign dates to date questions with respect to specified time zones. Also, time zones can be set as the unit for date questions, resulting in these questions date values to be displayed in that time zone.
  • Explanation-Module: Show and recursively trace how solutions and values were derived over the different knowledge elements like rules and flowcharts.
  • Icon Cleanup: KnowWE now uses the Font-Awesome icon set to get a more consistent visual look.
  • Visualizations for Ontologies: Ontologies developed in KnowWE can be visualized in different visualization variants.
  • Significantly reduced Memory Footprint: For many large wikis, the memory footprint should be reduced by around 20% because of internal optimizations.
  • Migration to JSPWiki 2.10: Since the end of 2012, JSPWiki is a Apache Project and got several new releases. Since there are a lot of internal changes in JSPWiki, the migration was non-trivial. Instead of JSPWiki 2.8.4, KnowWE now uses 2.10.
  • Migration to Java 8: To be able to use all the nice new features for developers, KnowWE is now running on Java 8. For compatibility reasons, the d3web-core will stay Java 6 for a while.
  • Compatibility for Tomcat 7 and 8: The last versions of KnowWE only supported Tomcat up to version 6. With the next version, we also support version 7 and 8 (until 8.0.9).

Fixed Issues#

The IDs of the listed issues correspond to the ticket tracking system available at https://tickets.denkbares.com.

ID Product Title Status
258 KnowWE search in KnowWE is case sensitive FIXED
314 KnowWE Handling of predefined terms FIXED
465 KnowWE More user-friendly SPARQL output FIXED
466 KnowWE Relation markup does not support single line definition FIXED
476 KnowWE Refactoring "rename" of ontology concept name do not consider occurrences in SPARQL FIXED
488 KnowWE Make the LeftMenu retractable FIXED
517 KnowWE Test KnowWE with Tomcat 7 FIXED
524 KnowWE SVG download for d3js visualizations do not work FIXED
544 KnowWE Inspect Expressions FIXED
546 KnowWE Zombie DOT processes FIXED
547 KnowWE Assigning QuestionOCs in a ExpressionAction FIXED
555 KnowWE Unify Iconset FIXED
558 KnowWE Case sensitivity of ontology terms FIXED
562 KnowWE KnowWEPlugin.deleteRenamedArticles can throw NPEs FIXED
563 KnowWE D3webUtils.getKnowledgeBase doesn't handle null compilers gracefully FIXED
564 KnowWE KnowWE not fully compatible with Java 8 FIXED
566 KnowWE Turtle parser wrongly interprets string literal as a number FIXED
567 KnowWE "ShowInfo" doesn't check appropiate permissions FIXED
569 KnowWE d3web-Rdf2Go compiles incomplete Ontology on startup FIXED
570 KnowWE After flowchart editing the flowchart shows non-existing errors INVALID
571 KnowWE After "zoom to fit" no article content is shown if flowchart is too big WORKSFORME
572 KnowWE Tool menu on flowchart nodes creates an error FIXED
573 KnowWE %%turtle doesn't support long literals (""") FIXED
574 KnowWE Too much URLDecoding (probably in the %%sparql markup) FIXED
575 KnowWE configurable range check in Testcase-Player desired FIXED

Known Issues#

The IDs of the listed issues correspond to the ticket tracking system available at https://tickets.denkbares.com.

ID Product Severity Title Release Comment
565 KnowWE min Wikibook download skips indenture level in certain situations Not relevant for d3web knowledge base development.

Open-Source Projects#

Project Name Contents QA State
d3web-EmpiricalTesting Validation of knowledge bases using test cases   release
d3web-GlobalTests A summarizing project for integration tests combining different projects and components, respectively.   release
d3web-Kernel Knowledge representation, basic problem-solvers, session management, default dialog control X release
d3web-Persistence IO component for saving and loading knowledge bases X release
d3web-Plugin-BasicProperties Definition of properties for terminology objects using the plugin.xml file X release
d3web-Plugin-CostBenefit Implementation of a dialog strategy (indication of questions) based on a cost-benefit principle.   release
d3web-Plugin-DiaFlux Reasoning problem-solver for the DiaFlux language X release
d3web-Plugin-Interview Interviews interfaces and form strategies X release
d3web-Plugin-Kernel-ExtensionPoints The extension possibilities of the d3web kernel defined in the plugin.xml file. X release
d3web-Plugin-Persistence-Basic see d3web-Persistence X release
d3web-Plugin-Persistence-ExtensionPoints see d3web-Persistence X release
d3web-Plugin-SessionPersistence-Basic see d3web-SessionPersistence X release
d3web-Plugin-SessionPersistence-ExtensionPoints see d3web-SessionPersistence X release
d3web-Plugin-TestingFramework Framework allowing the continuous execution of tests on knowledge bases and other objects. X release
d3web-Plugin-Tests Contains tests to be run with the TestingFramework X release
d3web-Plugin-XCL The set-covering model reasoning engine implemented as problem-solver plugin for the d3web Kernel.   release
d3web-PluginManager Manages plugins for d3web and KnowWE. X release
d3web-SessionPersistence IO components for loading and saving standard cases (i.e. sessions) X release
Project Name Contents QA State
d3web-TestCase Components for executing test cases on a d3web knowledge base X release
d3web-Utils Contains a variaty of util classes and tools to be used in d3web and KnowWE   release
KnowWE-App Framework app of KnowWE X release
KnowWE-core Basic engines for parsing and the management of wiki content X release
KnowWE-GlobalTestUtils Small set of classes for testing the KnowWE implementation   beta
KnowWE-KDOMParseUtils Utils for internal data structure of KnowWE   release
KnowWE-Plugin-CI4KE Plugin for implementing the continuous integration dashboard and engine of KnowWE X release
KnowWE-Plugin-CITestModules-d3web Continuous integration tests for d3web knowledge bases in KnowWE X release
KnowWE-Plugin-Core Core plugins and handlers of KnowWE X release
KnowWE-Plugin-d3web-basic The fundamental components to integrate the d3web engine into KnowWE X release
KnowWE-Plugin-d3web-MarkupSet Standard markup components used by some KnowWE/d3web plugins X release
KnowWE-Plugin-DiaFlux Authoring plugin for KnowWE of the DiaFlux language X release
KnowWE-Plugin-ExtensionPoints All extension possibilities for plugging KnowWE X release
KnowWE-Plugin-Include Allows to render contents of other wiki pages with a simple markup   release
KnowWE-Plugin-InstantEdit Plugin to allow fast and easy editing of KnowWE articles   release
KnowWE-Plugin-JSPWiki-Connector The connector between the parent wiki engine JSPWiki and the extension KnowWE X release
KnowWE-Plugin-JSPWiki-MarkupSet Allows the interaction of KnowWE plugins with the default JSPWiki-Markup   beta
KnowWE-Plugin-KBRenderer Plugin for easy rendering of the knowledge base content inside KnowWE articles   beta
KnowWE-Plugin-Ontology-MarkupSet Provides several markups (e.g. turtle) for the creation of ontological knowledge in KnowWE   beta
KnowWE-Plugin-OntoVis Various visualization markups for ontologies   alpha
KnowWE-Plugin-QuickInterview A plugin to quickly enter a problem-solving session X release
KnowWE-Plugin-Rdf2GoSemanticCore Provides Rdf2Go triple store to KnowWE enabling creation of ontological knowledge   beta
KnowWE-Plugin-Table Default markups for tables, also usable by other plugins.   release
KnowWE-Plugin-Tagging Tagging plugin of KnowWE X release
KnowWE-Plugin-TestCase Markups for entering test cases in KnowWE X release
KnowWE-Plugin-TestCases Executing test cases in KnowWE X release
KnowWE-Plugin-Wikicontent-Download Admin-Tool allowing to download the wiki content as a zip file   release
KnowWE-Plugin-Visualizations Utility for graphical visualizations of ontologies and knowledge bases   alpha
KnowWE-Resources Template files for the KnowWE server engine X release

Commercial Projects#

Project Name Contents QA State
d3web-Plugin-ImageMap Allows the annotation of images to be connected with answers of questions   beta
KnowWE-Plugin-AutoComplete A code completion feature for KnowWE markups   release
KnowWE-Plugin-DenkbaresDialog Interactive, web-based interview for running a problem-solving session   release
KnowWE-Plugin-EditMode Special editing mode for KnowWE to allow faster and direct editing an rearranging of the wiki page   release
KnowWE-Plugin-ImageMap see d3web-Plugin-ImageMap   beta
KnowWE-Plugin-Todos A simple plugin to manage todos within the wiki X release
Legend:

Project Name Corresponds to the name of the Maven project, i.e., the name of the source code project. For simplicity, plugin postfixes are omitted (e.g., *jpf-plugin)
Contents A further description of the contents of this module
QA Under regulation of the project contract. All contracted projects are certainly subject of the quality management system. Non-contracted modules may be subject to changes in the proposed release plan.
State Quality assessment of the project:
no: Not officially included, experimental demo
alpha: Basic functions included, API to be considered as "unstable" documentation partly available/not available mostly untested
beta: All functions are included documentation available functionality tested on unit level
release: All functions are included documentation available functionality tested on system level (integration tests) internal processes fully applied (issue management, development process)

Changes concerning compatibility#

The following sections describe changes of this release, that are of importance to users migrating from previous releases:

d3web API#

There are no noteworthy changes to the API of d3web.

d3web #

No relevant changes.

KnowWE#

Due to the upgrade of KnowWE's JSPWiki base from 2.8.2 to the 2.10 branch, there are some changes to the jspwiki.properties and jspwiki.policy:

  • jspwiki.properties: jspwiki.properties moved from WEB-INF/jspwiki.properties to WEB-INF/classes/jspwiki-custom.properties. The content of the properties is mostly the same, but we still recommend to start fresh and migrate all changes that were made to jspwiki.properties (like var.basedir and jspwiki.baseURL) and make them again in the new jspwiki-custom.properties.
  • jspwiki.policiy: File name and position are the same, but because of JSPWiki becoming an apache project, the package names were changed from com.ecyrd.jspwiki.* to org.apache.wiki.*. To migrate, just open the policies file in an text editor and find/replace all occurrences of "com.ecyrd.jspwiki" with "org.apache.wiki".