It's been a while since I've reviewed the latest versions of GitLab, right? 🙈 The last few months of 2021 have been particularly busy for me since the post on GitLab 14.3 release.
Rest assured, I'm going to present you the features that marked my attention for the last three releases of 2021 in this article.
Are you ready to review three months of functionality? 😅
October - 14.4
Edit the current file with a single keystroke
I don't usually learn the shortcuts of the application I used, but I'll definitively use this one on GitLab! Each day, I need to manually edit a file (I could not automate it, it needs a human) so it will be quicker to change it now!
November - 14.5
Explore project topics tab
Do you remember adding topics to your GitLab projects? Before this release, I didn't even know if it was for anything other than looking pretty. 🙈
It would have been useful to the Apache Log4J vulnerabilities, we could have found quicker all Java applications just by looking at the Java topic. That would have required all projects to have the correct metadata, but that's another story. 😅
Topic management in the Admin Area
If I was still working at the Université de Sherbrooke, this is certainly a characteristic that I would have liked to explore more! I've always found it better to navigate GitLab when all the projects have icons and descriptions. 😎
Group-level settings for merge request approvals
Something I don't like about GitLab is that for some features you have to change them in each project if you want them to be consistent with each other. With this new feature, I think it's a step in the right direction! Hope they add the ability to cascade other settings soon! 🤗
Conditional includes with exists keyword
It's always fun to see that the GitLab team continues to improve the way we create and reuse pipelines.
With this new feature, someone could include an external pipeline and depending on their files, some jobs would be automatically activated. This could be useful to lint and scan for vulnerabilities based on file extensions! 🤩
Add personal README to profile
Now it's GitLab's turn to add the ability to customize our user profile! I'm sure it's great for some people, but that's another page to maintain!
I can't seem to properly maintain my README project on GitHub, I think I'll wait before adding another in GitLab! 😂
Topics selection in project settings
Another feature about topics! It is now easier to manage topics in projects. 😊
December - 14.6
Render the title of a referenced issue within markdown
By simply taping the number of an issue or a merge request followed by a plus (ex. #12+), it will automatically create a link with the title of the issue or merge request. It's cool, right? 🤤
View inline the change that outdated a merge request thread
No more context switching when someone addresses the issue of a thread! 😏
Support job:when and rules at the same time in CI/CD configuration
Another step to allow jobs to be more flexible by combining the when and the rules keywords. 🤓
Conclusion
And that concludes the latest new features of the three previous months. 😀
Are you ready for the next release coming on January 22? 😆
