---
layout: post
title: JBrowse 1.15.2 maintenance release
date: 2018-08-14
tags: ["News","Software releases"]
---

JBrowse 1.15.2 has been released! This contains a couple nice features including
estimating feature density directly from the index file of BAM, VCF, and other
tabix formats. We also updated the website with a new blogging and documentation
platform! Please try it out and give us feedback.

Enjoy browsing!

*   [JBrowse-1.15.2.zip](https://github.com/GMOD/jbrowse/releases/download/1.15.2-release/JBrowse-1.15.2.zip) - 4.34 MB
*   [JBrowse-1.15.2-desktop-win32-x64.zip](https://github.com/GMOD/jbrowse/releases/download/1.15.2-release/JBrowse-1.15.2-desktop-win32-x64.zip) - 69M
*   [JBrowse-1.15.2-desktop-linux-x64.zip](https://github.com/GMOD/jbrowse/releases/download/1.15.2-release/JBrowse-1.15.2-desktop-linux-x64.zip) - 67M
*   [JBrowse-1.15.2-desktop-darwin-x64.zip](https://github.com/GMOD/jbrowse/releases/download/1.15.2-release/JBrowse-1.15.2-desktop-darwin-x64.zip) - 68M


## Minor improvements

 * Created "index stats estimation" which overrides the older "global stats estimation"
   that randomly samples genomic regions of BAM, VCF, etc to find feature density. This
   allows initial track load to be faster automatically. (<a href="https://github.com/gmod/jbrowse/issues/1092">issue #1092</a>, <a href="https://github.com/gmod/jbrowse/pull/1167">issue #1167</a>,
   <a href="https://github.com/cmdcolin">@cmdcolin</a>)

 * Removed the "full" or "dev" releases from the build. If you need a "dev" release, you
   can simply download the JBrowse "source code" link from the GitHub releases page, or
   use a git clone of the JBrowse repository. This will behave the same as the "dev"
   release. (<a href="https://github.com/gmod/jbrowse/issues/1160">issue #1160</a>, <a href="https://github.com/gmod/jbrowse/pull/1170">issue #1170</a>, <a href="https://github.com/cmdcolin">@cmdcolin</a>)

 * JBrowse now uses a new binary-file caching and fetching backend based on the
   [http-range-fetcher](https://www.npmjs.com/package/http-range-fetcher) and
   [tenacious-fetch](https://www.npmjs.com/package/tenacious-fetch) npm modules. Users
   may see slightly higher performance when viewing indexed binary formats such as BAM,
   CRAM, 2bit, etc. (<a href="https://github.com/gmod/jbrowse/issues/1155">issue #1155</a>, <a href="https://github.com/gmod/jbrowse/issues/1175">issue #1175</a>, <a href="https://github.com/gmod/jbrowse/pull/1165">issue #1165</a>, <a href="https://github.com/rbuels">@rbuels</a>)

 * Updated the main jbrowse.org website to use the docusaurus platform. The main docs
   for the website are now moved from the GMOD.org server to jbrowse.org. You can find
   the latest documentation in the header bar. We hope you will enjoy this upgrade!
   There is also a new quick start guide based on setting up JBrowse with indexed file
   formats. (<a href="https://github.com/gmod/jbrowse/issues/1153">issue #1153</a>, <a href="https://github.com/gmod/jbrowse/issues/1137">issue #1137</a>, <a href="https://github.com/gmod/jbrowse/pull/1173">issue #1173</a>, <a href="https://github.com/cmdcolin">@cmdcolin</a>)


## Bug fixes

 * Added a more robust HTML processing in Util.js. Thanks to <a href="https://github.com/hkmoon">@hkmoon</a> for the idea and
   implementation. (<a href="https://github.com/gmod/jbrowse/pull/1169">issue #1169</a>, <a href="https://github.com/hkmoon">@hkmoon</a>)

 * Remove utils/jb_run.js from the minified release (<a href="https://github.com/gmod/jbrowse/issues/1161">issue #1161</a>, <a href="https://github.com/gmod/jbrowse/issues/1160">issue #1160</a>, <a href="https://github.com/cmdcolin">@cmdcolin</a>)

 * Fixes issue where navigating away from genome browser and returning would not remember
   the location. Thanks to Vaneet Lotay for reporting. (<a href="https://github.com/gmod/jbrowse/issues/1168">issue #1168</a>, <a href="https://github.com/cmdcolin">@cmdcolin</a>)

 * Fixes off-by-one in the display of the size of the genomic region being viewed. Thanks
   to <a href="https://github.com/sammyjava">@sammyjava</a> for the bug report! (<a href="https://github.com/gmod/jbrowse/issues/1176">issue #1176</a>, <a href="https://github.com/cmdcolin">@cmdcolin</a>)