🌟 RDM Club Meeting 3

Thank you to everyone who attended the 3rd RDM club meeting, which took place on July 1. In this meeting, we launched the new template sharing platform, which is now up for testing over the summer by members of the RDM club. The platform is in a very early stage, but it enables users to log in with an ORCID ID, and to upload and download template files. We are planning to add more features in the autumn of 2025 according to user feedback. Nicolas Carpi explained the basics of the platform, and then the group discussed its design.

🌟 RDM Club Meetings 1 and 2 - recap

We are pleased to announce that we have a new regular community event specifically for Research Data Managers and other data professionals who support users of eLabFTW!

The eLabFTW RDM club was created to enable RDMs from all over the world to share strategies for supporting users of eLabFTW at their institutions. This club will start off with monthly informal meetings, and may eventually include working groups and real life meet-ups (!). For now, the meetings are not recorded (to encourage discussion), but there will be a blog post with a recap of each meeting.

🌟 OpenCloning introduction

In this session, the author of OpenCloning, a cloning tool for molecular biologists, presents the integration within eLabFTW and basic functions of the software.

Then Nico presents the latest changes in the new version and discusses upcoming features.

There is a Q&A session afterwards.

Watch recording

Introduction

eLabFTW 5.2 has been released! This new version brings many new features, enhancements and a few bugfixes. This blog post highlights some of these changes, but the complete list of changes is available on the release page.

A note about “stable” releases

eLabFTW is a living project — “stable” would imply it’s no longer evolving. Version 5.2.0 is production-ready, but minor bugs will surface once it’s in wide use, and patches will follow.

🌟 Sixth eLabFTW Community Meeting

In this session, we learned about strategies for teaching with eLabFTW and implementing the software at research institutions.

1. Nikki Parks (RWTH Aachen University) - “Establishing eLabFTW as a Central University Service”
2. Isabell Schmitz (Goethe University Frankfurt) - “Transforming Lab Education: Teaching with eLabFTW”

Watch recording

🌟 Fifth eLabFTW Community Meeting

In this session, we learned about the integration of eLabFTW with other tools.

1. Dr. Alexander Schlemmer (IndiScale): “Data Integration from RO-Crate and the ELN-File format using the LinkAhead Crawler”
2. Open session where users can ask questions, discuss upcoming features, and talk about their experiences with eLabFTW.

Watch recording

🌟 Illuminating Efficiency: Reflections on the Fourth eLabFTW Community Meeting

In the continuous journey of our collective exploration, the Fourth eLabFTW Community Meeting convened on November 19, 2024. This gathering became a beacon, shedding light on innovative pathways to enhance laboratory efficiency through eLabFTW.

🎤 Voices of Innovation

Two distinguished speakers graced our virtual podium, each sharing insights into optimizing laboratory workflows:

1. Dr. Michael Krieger (The Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg): Explored the integration of eLabFTW into their physics lab course, introducing the pyelabdata package—a tool designed to streamline data management and analysis.

🌐 Harmonizing Connections: Reflections on the Third eLabFTW Community Meeting

In the unfolding narrative of our collective journey, the Third eLabFTW Community Meeting convened on September 17, 2024. This gathering became a symphony of ideas, each note resonating with the theme of integration and collaborative innovation.

🎶 Voices of Integration

Three maestros shared their compositions, illuminating pathways to harmonize eLabFTW with diverse instruments:

1. Alexander Haller (University of Heidelberg): Introduced elAPI, an API client designed to seamlessly bridge eLabFTW with other services, enhancing the fluidity of data interactions (https://github.com/uhd-urz/elAPI)
2. Amir Golparvar (FAIRmat/NOMAD Lab, Humboldt University of Berlin): presented NOMAD integration of .eln import, a free web-service for sharing FAIR data
3. Clemens Mangler (University of Vienna): described how they use eLabFTW, together with QR codes and a Raspberry Pi system, to track samples analyzed using a scanning transmission electron microscope

🌊 Waves of Dialogue

Following the orchestrated presentations, the floor opened to a chorus of community insights, questions, and reflections. This interactive segment underscored the collective commitment to enhancing eLabFTW’s interoperability and user experience.

Introduction

eLabFTW 5.1 has been released! This new version brings many new features, enhancements and a few bugfixes. This blog post highlights some of these changes, but the complete list of changes is available on the release page.

Important change

A breaking change has been introduced in APIv2:

• /team_tags has moved to teams/{id}/tags. If you have scripts using /team_tags, replace it with teams/current/tags to maintain the same behaviour.

Video

A video has been produced, summarizing some of the features:

🌟 Echoes of the Second eLabFTW Community Meeting

In the continuum of our shared journey, the Second eLabFTW Community Meeting emerged as a beacon of collective wisdom and innovation. Held on May 16, 2024, this gathering became a confluence of minds, each contributing to the evolving narrative of our community.

🎤 Voices That Illuminated the Path

Three distinguished speakers graced our virtual stage, each weaving their unique threads into the rich tapestry of eLabFTW’s story:

🌿 The First eLabFTW Community Meeting — A Gathering Etched in Memory

On a quiet day that now lives only in the minds of those who were present, the first eLabFTW Community Meeting unfolded—not as a livestream, not as a downloadable file, but as a fleeting constellation of voices, thoughts, and shared enthusiasm.

There is no recording. No polished replay. No timestamped transcript.

Only laughter woven with curiosity, only questions dancing with ideas, only stories exchanged like the gentle passing of notes between lab benches in the soft morning light.

Introduction

The 5.0.0 release is a major release. You can tell because before it was 4.x.y now it’s 5.x.y. But what does it mean exactly?

The major version number has been bumped because there is a breaking change: complete drop of APIv1.

And that’s it, that is the only big thing that changes, and hopefully it won’t impact many users, as everyone is now using APIv2, right? right?

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!

Introduction

This release contains at least a dozen bugfixes and many new features and improvements, all users should update.

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

Improvements for extra fields

Extra fields can now have units (for input of type “number”). You can define a list of possible units and it will look like this:

Introduction

This release comes quickly after 4.6.1, and thus contains only a few bugfixes and new features. Normally the bugfixes would go in 4.6.2 and new features in 4.7.0, but this time it’s a bundle with both.

So what’s new in this version?

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

Update like usual: see documentation.

Introduction

This release features a major user interface redesign. We worked a lot on improving how the app looks and feel, and we hope you’ll like it.

So what’s new in this version?

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

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

General changes

Interface redesign

The first thing that you’ll notice is the improved interface. There are too many changes to list, but here are some of them:

Introduction

This release comes quite fast after the release of 4.4. The goal being to bring new features and bugfixes to end users faster.

So what’s new in this version?

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

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

Users features

Major feature: improved permissions system

The permissions system has been overhauled. There is still the basic permissions where you can choose between “Public”, “Organization”, “All the teams I’m part of”, “User + Admins” and “Only me”, but now it is possible to combine this setting with Teams, Teamgroups or individual users. And you can have several of each, or just one, with all combinations possible.

So what’s new in this version?

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

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

User features

Reaction drawing

Previously the chemical structure editor would only allow one molecule, now you can have several. Reactions can be saved as .chemjson files and re-imported in the editor. They can also be exported as PNG images (for inclusion in text for instance).

I’m very pleased to announce that eLabFTW, the free and open source electronic lab notebook version 4.3 is now available for everyone!

So what’s new in this version?

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

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

General

• Soft delete: an entry will now be marked as deleted instead of being actually deleted from the database
• Same with uploaded files that are replaced
• More than 22 bugfixes!

Users features

New search interface with advanced features

Thanks to the amazing work of Marcel Bolten, the search page has been entirely revamped and improved.

I’m very pleased to announce that eLabFTW, the free and open source electronic lab notebook version 4.0.0 is now available for everyone!

This new version is PACKED with new features!

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

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

Users features

• Experiments/items can no have a visibility of “user only”, previously this corresponded to owner + admin(s).
• Blockchain timestamping with Bloxberg. Click the icon with blocks in view mode to certify your results into the blockchain. It will create a zip file attached to the experiment that contains the certified pdf along with a certificate. Note that this action can take up to 30 seconds. You can certify as many times as you want.

• Use “Ctrl-Shift-d” to add the date on cursor, select the date format from your profile.

I’m very pleased to announce that eLabFTW version 3.6.0 is now available for everyone!

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

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

LDAP Authentication

It is now possible to authenticate directly using LDAP. A much awaited feature (github issue).

The documentation about this feature can be found here: https://doc.elabftw.net/ldap.html

I’m very pleased to announce that eLabFTW version 3.5.0 is available for everyone!

This new version contains a lot of new things and a few fixes and improvements from the previous version. All users should upgrade!

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

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

Enforce read/write permissions by admin

The Admin of a team can now enforce read and write permissions for experiments of users in their team.

I’m very pleased to announce that eLabFTW version 3.4.0 is finally available for everyone!

This new version contains a lot of new things and a few fixes and improvements from the previous version. All users should upgrade!

This version took a long time to get out because it involved a lot of work to make some major changes. I’m hoping now to have much more frequent releases.

WARNING: to update, you need to call the db:updateTo34 command once the container is updated (or the new files are pulled).