[ddj] Fwd: Announcing Google Refine 2.5

Mon Dec 12 19:06:46 UTC 2011

FYI

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Huynh <dfhuynh at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 8:02 PM
Subject: Announcing Google Refine 2.5
To: "<google-refine at googlegroups.com>" <google-refine at googlegroups.com>

The Google Refine team is pleased to announce version 2.5 of Google
Refine, a free, open source, data hacker's power tool for working with
messy data, cleaning it, transforming it, and linking it to databases
like Freebase or OpenCorporates.

    http://code.google.com/p/google-refine/wiki/Downloads?tm=2

There are many significant improvements and fixes, such as

Completely new user interface for project creation, including:

Live preview with interactive settings before creating project
Fixed-width importer that allows for specifying column widths by
clicking (Issue 85)
XML and JSON importers that allow for interactive selection of
elements to import
Direct access to Google Spreadsheets (issue 278) and Google Fusion
Tables (Issue 279)
Import and export to private Google Spreadsheets & Fusion Tables for
logged-in users
Import using results of Google spreadsheet visualisation API query (issue 375)
Sheet selection for import from Excel (issue 280) & Google
Spreadsheets (issue 281)
Support for directly selecting files within zip/archive file without
unpacking them first (Issue 131)
Support for creating a project using contents of the cut/copy/paste
clipboard buffer (Issue 84)
Better progress feedback during upload & processing (issue 179)

Custom tabular exporter that allows for selecting and configuring
columns to export, and direct upload to Google Spreadsheets and Fusion
Tables
Support for IE8 and IE9 through Google Chrome Frame
New command "Key/value Columnize" (see explanation)
Issue 31: Maximum number of facet values should be configurable.
Issue 38: Fix the table header so that it's always visible when
scrolling a long page
Issue 97: Exporting CSV should allow for optional columns
Issue 447: Extend toTitlecase() function with support for custom delimiters
Operation "Transpose columns into rows" now supports an additional
mode of generating 2 key and value columns (rather than generating
just one combined column); it also has an option for filling in other
columns.
reinterpret() now supports optionally specifying a source encoding to
be used instead of the project encoding - reinterpret("target
encoding", "source encoding")

For a full list of changes, see
    http://code.google.com/p/google-refine/wiki/ChangesFor2p5

Other than backing up your data as a precaution, there is no special
upgrade procedure required.

The Google Refine project has always been completely open sourced,
liberally licensed, and community driven.  If you'd like to be
involved, we'd love to have you.  Check the wiki for ways to
participate.

-The Google Refine Team