ANN: VocBench (and Semantic Turkey) 15.2 and ShowVoc 6.2 released

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stel...@uniroma2.it

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Oct 23, 2026, 7:18:45 AMOct 23
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Dear all,

We are pleased to announce the release of VocBench 15.2.0 and ShowVoc 6.2.0 (and obviously, 15.2 of our favorite semantic backend Semantic Turkey!)

These releases introduce several new features and improvements across both platforms, alongside further enhancements to the Semantic Turkey backend.

Among the main additions are improved alignment management, new bulk editing operations in ResourceView, enhanced MDR management, additional customization options, and further improvements to RDF4J storage support and search capabilities. The releases also include several bug fixes and dependency updates addressing security vulnerabilities.

The new versions are available at the following pages:

VocBench: http://vocbench.uniroma2.it/downloads/

ShowVoc: http://showvoc.uniroma2.it/downloads/

Last minute update: due to a massive vulnerability in PHP, many institutions have shutdown completely or almost completely their sites (even those not in PHP, like ours, as they are having an hard time resolving the issue and no resources to checking the sites’ technologies one by one). I hope this will be solved soon so our project pages will be back online. IN the meanwhile you can refer to the direct downloads in:

https://bitbucket.org/art-uniroma2/vocbench3/downloads/

https://bitbucket.org/art-uniroma2/showvoc/downloads/

GraphDB and RDF4J compatibility

The RDF4J client (and its embedded server, when using local repositories) installed in Semantic Turkey, the backend of VocBench, has been updated to version 5.3.2. If you are using an external RDF4J triple store, we recommend using this version or a later one.

Regarding GraphDB, the officially supported version is 11.x (tested until version 11.5.0). However, a recent licensing change, introduced with versions >= 11.0, restricts free use of the platform to five repositories.

We continue to maintain compatibility with both GraphDB 10.x and 11.x, although the installation and configuration procedures differ.

The following documentation summarizes the installation and configuration options for the various solutions (RDF4J free triple store, GraphDB 10.x and GraphDB 11.x):
https://vocbench.uniroma2.it/doc/sys/#separate_triple_store

Looking ahead, we want to reassure users with different needs that all supported deployment scenarios will continue to receive attention:

  • Compatibility with GraphDB 10.x will be maintained for as long as possible, avoiding the need for existing GraphDB-free users to move abruptly to a licensed version or another technology such as RDF4J’s available free storage solutions. However, we recommend these users to start considering moving to one of these two solutions in the near future
  • We will continue strengthening support for free RDF4J repositories and improving performance of VB/SV when working on them. In particular, these updates, include:
    • Support for fast free-text search powered through Lucene indexes
    • Integration of the schema-caching-rdfs-inferencer
    • Integration of the LMDB storage
  • GraphDB licensed versions will remain fully supported, with new features added as they become available.
  • For users considering a licensed GraphDB version, GraphWise offers specific discounts for licenses used in combination with VocBench or ShowVoc. Please contact us for further information.


Release notes

The following sections summarize the changes introduced in the two web applications and their common backend, Semantic Turkey, together with the main related components that have been updated.

Semantic Turkey

15.2.0 (16-10-2026)

  • new service to edit the URI space of a dataset dataset archetype in the MDR
  • more robust listing of root datasets and connected datasets
  • better performances of getDatasetMetadata2
  • MDR repair routine is now executed only by explicit invocation
  • MDR repair routine takes into accounts multiple shards
  • migrated the MDR from the NativeStore to the MemoryStore (automatic migration routine included)
  • included imported ontologies when sealing a browsable version
  • improved rendering of external resources through dereferenciation (or SPARQL for Linked Open Dataset registered in
  • the MDR)
  • better view of the literal form of reified labels that are updated with validation enabled
  • better view of updated elements in custom views with validation enabled
  • adopted the appropriate default namespace when using URI Generators for different graphs
  • subordinate non-logged-in users to access content negotiation and the MOD-API service, when ST Core System settings
  • allowAnonymous is set to true
  • several enhancements to MOD-API server implementation
  • added a resource's IRI, localname, namespace and corresponding prefix to the set of available variables in rendering
  • engine's template; thanks to Saku Seppälä for the contribution!
  • added support for the RDF4J's Sail based on LMDB (Lightning Memory-Mapped Database)
  • added a new resource type (alignFmtCell) and corresponding template in ResourceView
  • added Lucene RDF4J Search Strategy + Custom Lucene Analyzer
  • added several filters when showing the list of alignments
  • added a system setting for the client base URL used to generate password reset links, preventing client-controlled
  • URLs in the forgotPassword procedure
  • added service in the GlobalSearch to get the indexed ShardId for the current Project
  • added awareness of closed projects to all users when listing them
  • extended machine management with support for restricting machine access to a subset of projects and added support
  • for Secure Access Tokens in addition to the existing Client Credentials Flow
  • adopted generic status phrases in the error messaged returned by MOD-related controllers
  • removed unnecessary print onto to the console in ExceptionDAO
  • removed no longer user CrossContextSessionFilter and CrossContextSessionRequestWrapper from the core-framework
  • removed the complete stack trace from the object representing corrupted project facets
  • included the uriSpace, title and description of the dataset abstraction in the class DatasetMetadata2
  • better performances when locating the dataset for a given resource
  • due to a bug in RDFLoader (RDF4J framework) we are currently using our own implementtion called RDFLoader_fixed
  • fixed a bug related to dataset metadata vocabularies not finding the appropriate dataset metadata
  • fixed a bug about the showing of deprecated classes
  • fixed a bug in the dynamic generation of STProperties causing the properties to always be typed as strings
  • irrespective of what has been defined in a schema (if any). This was relevant in particular for custom facets.
  • fixed bug when merging an Archetype having a LOD implementation
  • fixed StackOverflowError in BaseRenderingEngine that was triggered  in Resources.getResourcesInfo on certain data
  • fixed a bug when sorting the Alignments list for a given language
  • fixed issues when discovering a dataset passing the void file URL
  • fixed a problem in showing the right order of the source/target in the Correspondences
  • several other minor bugfixes
  • updated to spring-boot 3.5.16
  • updated to RDF4J 5.3.2
  • updated to maple 0.0.24
  • updated to lime-api 0.4.13
  • updated to CODA 2.2.4
  • updated to Sheet2Rdf 6.0.13

VocBench Web Client

15.2.0 (16-10-2026)

  • Improved the central panel of the alignment management dashboard in Alignment projects, adding several editable filters.
  • Added bulk property assignment for IRI values in ResourceView.
  • Added a "Deprecate all" action for resource values in ResourceView.
  • Improved sorting in the Notes section of ResourceView when "Sort by rendering" is enabled.
  • Enabled users to set language preferences as defaults across all their projects.
  • Allowed users to see closed projects in the project list, marked as inaccessible.
  • Added customization of vertical spacing between nodes in trees and lists.
  • Added support for configuring the client base URL in the System Configuration editor, including automatic detection from the current browser location.
  • Made MDR SPARQL queries available to administrators regardless of the experimental features setting.
  • Enabled updating the URI space of Dataset Archetypes in the MDR.
  • Fixed synchronization issues for instance-type resources and improved instance searching in Alignment projects.
  • Updated Angular to version 21.
  • Updated several dependencies to address vulnerabilities.
  • Minor bug fixes and improvements.

ShowVoc Web Client

6.2.0 (16-10-2026)

  • Restored the possibility of editing labels of unversioned/legacy distributions.
  • Added support for configuring the client base URL in the System Configuration editor, including automatic detection from the current browser location.
  • Added support for applying the same facets to multiple projects at once.
  • Added support for configuring a default search language for tree and list structures.
  • Enhanced the Link Interceptor to resolve URIs appearing in textual descriptions of literals within ShowVoc.
  • Improved the rendering of references to external resources defined in other ShowVoc datasets, including badges identifying their origin and, when available, the corresponding dct:identifier
  • Enabled displaying images in ResourceView, configurable through a setting.
  • Enabled browsing resource values in the modal ResourceView.
  • Added the possibility of sorting concepts based on specific properties.
  • Added customization of vertical spacing between nodes in trees and lists.
  • Made MDR SPARQL queries available to administrators without requiring experimental features to be enabled.
  • Enabled updating the URI space of Dataset Archetypes in the MDR.
  • Fixed an issue that occasionally prevented target resources from being inspected in the Alignments browser.
  • Updated Angular to version 21.
  • Updated several dependencies to address vulnerabilities.

Semantic Turkey
https://bitbucket.org/art-uniroma2/semantic-turkey/src/15.2.0/ChangeLog.txt

VocBench Web App
https://bitbucket.org/art-uniroma2/vocbench3/src/15.2.0/ChangeLog.md

ShowVoc Web App
https://bitbucket.org/art-uniroma2/showvoc/src/6.2.0/ChangeLog.md

Sheet2RDF
https://bitbucket.org/art-uniroma2/sheet2rdf/src/6.0.13/ChangeLog.txt

CODA
https://bitbucket.org/art-uniroma2/coda/src/2.2.4/ChangeLog.txt

LIME API
https://bitbucket.org/art-uniroma2/lime-api/src/0.4.13/ChangeLog.txt

MAPLE
https://bitbucket.org/art-uniroma2/maple/src/0.0.24/ChangeLog.txt

 

Migration from a previous version of the system

As usual, users migrating from a previous version of VocBench 3 / ShowVoc should:

  • Keep the SemanticTurkeyData directory. We strongly recommend making a backup before proceeding.
    • Be aware that some migration routines may make the data directory incompatible with previous versions of VocBench.
  • Remove the previous distribution (the semanticturkey-x.y directory) and replace it with the new distribution contained in the vocbench3-15.2-full.zip archive, or the equivalent ShowVoc archive.
  • If using an external triple store:
    • Before upgrading, back up your data!
    • For GraphDB 10.x and 11.x: 
    • For GraphDB 10.x:
      • If you already have GraphDB 10.x installed with the sails from a previous installation for VB 14.x or SV 5.x, keep them. In general, you should use the sails from the old VB 14.x and SV 5.x. These are still compatible with the new VocBench but have the proper compilation for working within the old GDB 10.x
      • For a fresh installation, retrieve the sails from VB 15.x. See the detailed instructions: https://vocbench.uniroma2.it/doc/sys/#separate_triple_store
    • For GraphDB 11.x: deploy the following JARs, extracted from the Semantic Turkey 15.2.0 distribution, into the GraphDB lib directory:
      • st-changetracking-sail-15.2.0.jar, located in /semanticturkey-15.2.0/lib/st-changetracking-sail/15.2.0
      • st-trivial-inference-sail-15.2.0.jar, located in /semanticturkey-15.2.0/lib/st-trivial-inference-sail/15.2.0

For developers willing to recompile the project

The following dependencies of VocBench and ShowVoc, based on software developed by our team, have been released and are available from Maven Central:

Developers can therefore choose which components to rebuild and which to use directly as dependencies.

Cheers,

The VocBench/ShowVoc team

 

 

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