What's new in eLabFTW 4.9.0

Introduction

This is a relatively small release, but it contains a major change that impacts many aspects of the application: a rework of the status and categories.

You can see the complete changelog on the release page. This blog post is more about going into details for some of the changes.

How to update (for Sysadmins)

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

Users features

Rework of Status and Categories

This work was sponsored by Vrije Universiteit Brussel, a big thanks to them!

Previously it was like this:

ExperimentsResources
Category👍
Status👍

Now it is like this:

ExperimentsResources
Category👍👍
Status👍👍

It means that Experiments can now belong to a Category and Resources can now have a Status.

Categories and Status are defined at the team level by the Admin. There are Status for Experiments, and Status for Resources, so the Admin Panel now shows two tab: Categories and Status, and they each contain a section for Experiments or Resources.

admin panel

So now Experiments can look like this, belonging to a Category and having a Status:

view experiment

And the same for Resources:

view experiment

Importantly, Category or Status can now be “Not set” (null)!

New custom fields types

Three new custom fields (extra fields) types have been added: Users, Experiments and Resources. They allow defining an extra field that will generate an input where autocompletion will be available for one of these three types.

users extra field type

Categories show on Dashboard

The Dashboard now displays the Categories, for easy access:

new dashboard

Multiple fixes

This release also contains a few minor bugfixes and enhancements, as always.

Admin features

With the new categories and status, the Admin should look into the Admin Panel to add a few Categories or Status.

Conclusion

Thanks to everyone who contributed directly or not to this release. Reporting issues on the bug tracker or in the chat is very valuable! Make sure to report any bug you might find, even the most minor one, it’s always appreciated!

To report a bug, select “Submit feedback” from the top right help menu:

report bug

The adventure continues!