Releasing pretalx v0.2!

1 ديسمبر، 2017

pretalx has just reached its second release – in the month since the first release, we have been busy and introduced a
range of new features (and fixed a few bugs). We want to thank all our contributors, especially our first-time
contributor Jahongir Rahmonov.

Breaking changes

We have one breaking change – the default SSL setting for the connection to the email server is no False, which
permits the default configuration of localhost:25 to work on more machines. Currently active settings will not
be changed, this change will impact new instances and new events.

Features

The new release comes with a huge amount of features.

  • E-mails are now sent with a multipart/HTML attachment, using the event's chosen primary
    color.
  • You can now choose to hide the public schedule (including talk pages and
    speaker pages, but excluding feedback pages and the schedule.xml export).
  • You can now ask questions that take an uploaded file as an answer (great for documents like a CV, or presentations, or
    papers).
  • Speakers can now upload files which will be shown on their talk page.
  • The review interface has been rewritten to include fewer pages with more
    information relevant to the user, dependent on event stages and their role
    in the event.
  • pretalx can now be configured to run with celery (an asynchronous task
    scheduler) for long running tasks and tasks like email sending. A new config
    section was added, and usage has been documented.
  • A rebuild command was introduced that recompiles all static assets.
  • Question answers now receive a nice evaluation, aggregating all given answers into statistics.
  • Questions may now be marked as 'answers contain personal data'. Answers of
    these questions are deleted when users delete their accounts, granting speakers more
    agency over their personal data.
  • We moved to a new permission system that allows for more flexible roles.
    Please report any bugs that may relate to incorrect permissions.
  • You can now configure a custom domain to use with your event, in case
    you have an event specific domain for each of your events.
  • You can assign "override votes" to reviewers, which function like vetos
    (both positive and negative), on an individual basis.
  • A read only REST API was introduced (and documented, of course!). At the moment, it only supports
    resources for events and submissions.
  • Our documentation has received some design work and a better structure.

Bug fixes

Not all bugs are features, and we caught a variety of the non-feature kind.

  • Mail template placeholders are now validated so that templates including
    invalid placeholders cannot be saved at all. (#215)
  • pretalx crashed when an incorrect invite key was used, now it shows a 404
    page.
  • When building absolute URLs for exports, emails, and RSS feeds, 'localhost'
    was used instead of the actual configured URL.
  • If an account was configured to be both an orga member and a reviewer, it
    encountered access rights issues.
  • When removing the custom event color, and then adding it again, caching issues
    could be encountered.
  • Inactive questions (questions not shown to speakers) could not be edited.
  • In some places, gravatar images of the visiting user were shown instead of
    the speaker.
  • The event stage display could show several conflicting phases as active.
  • The default submission type was not, in fact, suggested by default.