Dear User,
Here is a list of the latest changes we implemented in Aviary during Sprints 79-91. These are available on the site as of February 1, 2022. Complete change log can be found in the Aviary Knowledge Base.
New Features
Organization owners will now receive weekly stats emails that provide information on activity in their account over the past week, including:
Number of new resources/media files added
Number of unique views of resources
Number of unique users:
Most common detail search terms:
Most common search page terms
Most popular resource
Want to create your own segment or (index) points on an audio or video file? Use Aviary’s new beta indexing utility (i.e., the OHMS Indexer) directly in Aviary - just click the three dots in the Index tab for any resource and select “Create an Index” (or “Edit an Index” - if you have an existing index you want to edit). Aviary will open your media in the OHMS Indexer and you can add titles and metadata to any timestamp in the recording.
See this demonstration for guidance on how to use this exciting new feature: https://weareavp.aviaryplatform.com/c/create-index
Indexes created in Aviary are searchable and actionabile within the Application.
Indexes created in Aviary can be exported as WebVTT if desired.
Aviary organization users can now adjust individual timestamps on transcripts directly in Aviary.
When an organization user hovers over a timestamp, there is an option to edit it.
A pop-up allows the user to set a new timestamp for any given timestamp in a transcript and then select if it should just change that one timestamp or recalculate all succeeding timestamps relative to the change in the first timestamp.
Enhancements
Aviary has turned the temporary Take Flight COVID offering to an ongoing free trial option that gives any user 14-days to test out an independent Aviary site for publishing audiovisual content online.
Use Aviary more seamlessly on your mobile device! The resource detail page has been styled to make better use of the size, shape, and features of mobile displays.
Aviary Indexes can now display hierarchical structures. When a WebVTT index with structure is imported into Aviary, the Index can be displayed hierarchically. See the WebVTT specification for hierarchy of nested segment cues: https://www.w3.org/TR/webvtt1/#file-using-only-nested-cues.
Parent segments willdisplay before their child segments with a shaded background, aligned all the way to the left, only displaying the segment title (not the segment synopsis, and without any timecode).
Child segments should display normally after their applicable parent segments.
Aviary import package can now be broken out into independent parts:
A user can submit only a resource.csv file in order to create resources in Aviary that don't have any media files attached.
A user can submit only a media csv file in order to attach media files to existing Aviary resources.
Users must ensure that Resource Data Key field entries match existing Aviary Resource IDs. If entries do not match, they will be listed as error(s) in the bulk import error log.
A user can submit only an index csv file in order to attach indexes to existing Aviary media files.
Users must ensure that Resource Data Key field entries match existing Aviary Resource IDs. If entries do not match, they will be listed as error(s) in the bulk import error log.
A user can import only a transcript csv to attach transcripts to existing Aviary media files.
Users must ensure that Resource Data Key field entries match existing Aviary Resource IDs. If entries do not match, they will be listed as error(s) in the bulk import error log.
The style of the audio-only player has been updated to allow more convenient access to the Share, Playlist, Manifest, and Download options.
Organization users can now add a Title to a bulk import job so that they can differentiate between import jobs.
Organization users can now set up bulk transcription jobs from the Resources table so that they can create multiple jobs at once. This is now available in the bulk options on the Resource table.
Added feature for the Limited Access URL option. When the downloadable checkbox is enabled for a Limited Access URL, then users who have the URL can not only access the Resource content, but also can download the media file content.
Improved handling of controlled vocabulary during edits and imports.
During bulk metadata edit operations, if a new dropdown option value is presented in the CSV for a particular metadata field, Aviary will add it to the list for that field.
Dropdown options (and custom vocabulary) lists will get values appended to them if they are imported in a bulk metadata edit operation.
If the "dropdown option" values are different, just update (append) the list of values.
If the "custom vocabulary" values are different, just update (append) the list of values.
When any Aviary user conducts a search with a NULL value (no search term), the default sort order display will now be Title A-Z instead of Relevance.
When an organization user creates a clip of a media file in Aviary, if Agent and Date metadata fields are present for the parent Resource, then they are copied and set metadata values for the new Media File in the media file metadata tab when it gets created.
Also, the user is given a chance to set the title of the new media file.
Custom metadata fields for media file metadata are now searchable and available on the Media File management table.
When files are uploaded to Aviary using a Dropbox direct link, Aviary uses the Dropbox filename to name the file in Aviary.
When a user selects a search results view choice (changing to gallery from list), the selection is now remembered and maintained through additional search and filtering, until the start over button is pressed or the enter site session is refreshed.
When a user selects a search results sorting choice from the drop-down menu (see image attached), the selection is now remembered and maintained through additional search and filtering, until the start over button is pressed or the entire site session is refreshed.
We added improvements to the bulk import job management table so that the sorting is more useful. By default, the Manage Imports screen will sort the records by the Date and Time column in descending chronological order (most recent at the top).
There is a new analytics data point available for Aviary organization users that quantifies Resource Views By IP Address And Email Domain. This allows organizations to understand which email domains are using their content and from which IP addresses.
Improvement to Playlist UI
Removed excess “more” options.
Improved use of thumbnails so that they display in a centered position.
Aviary bulk import packages now support HTML within the text fields. A user can include a limited set of html tags to import as resource.csv. The allowable tags are:
<b>, <i>, <em>, <strong>, <sub>, <sup>, <p>, <br>, <a href>
Integrated Aviary custom URLs for resources with Aviary’s IIIF Manifest URL. A user can now successfully resolve a IIIF URL for a resource by using the custom-url (if exists) for the resource in place of the PURL string in the valid IIIF url for that resource.
For example (these resolve to the same manifest for the same resource):
https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/vq2s46hg4b/manifest
https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/mssa.hvt.3874/manifest
Improved UI of the Organization administrative side bar so that the selected tab is clearly identified for the user.
Moved the bulk metadata edit process to asynchronous/backend process instead of requiring a user to wait in the browser for it to finish.
When a user uploads a CSV for bulk metadata edit, perform the edit on the server instead of waiting in the browser.
The user gets a message that the CSV was uploaded and that an email will be sent when the update completes.
Fixes
Fixed an issue causing some site owners to receive “Access Denied” messages when logging in from certain URLs.
New daily logic checks public access urls and permission groups' end dates. When the duration end date is in the past, Aviary sets the public access URL or permission group to inactive.
Fixed the known issue where YouTube transcripts were not automatically acquired by Aviary when YouTube videos were added to an Aviary resource.
Resolved an issue where an Aviary user was unable to create bulk transcription requests from the Resources table for more than 1 resource at a time.
Resolved an issue where users were unable to create a successful bulk import with <a href> tags in the Resources.csv.
Resolved an issue where users could not successfully export Resource metadata that included embedded HTML tags.
Styled resource detail page Description text editor fields to handle HTML tags (not display the tags).
“White list” has been changed throughout the site to “Access list.”
Improved handling of allowed HTML tags in IIIF Manifests. Allow <em> and <strong> and <u> in HTML exports for IIIF Manifests.
Improved sorting of annotations in IIIF Manifests so that annotations sort by start-time ascending.
Added a fix to update the syntax of our IIIF media fragments so that the selector is in form of #t=3.709,8.16 instead of #3.709,8.16.
Fixed a bug where Collection Title and Access fields were not exporting successfully into the exported CSV from a resource table when they are enabled and displayed.
Refactoring
Increased Unit Test coverage across the platform.
Upgraded Aviary’s Ruby version throughout the platform.
Upgraded Aviary’s Rails version throughout the platform.
Upgraded Aviary’s database version throughout the platform.
Updated Aviary’s Stripe gem and API connections.
Update Aviary’s Blacklight gem to latest version.
Upgraded Aviary servers to latest Ubuntu versions.
Update Aviary git branches to latest recommendation in order to remove “master” and “development” and replace with “main” and “dev”.
Improved security for access to all Aviary hardware and computing resources.
Vulnerability fixes throughout the Aviary codebase based on recommendations from BurpSuite.
Complete change log can be found in the Aviary Knowledge Base.
Join the conversation!
Share your experience with other Aviary users in the Aviary Google group: https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/aviary-users
Your feedback is valuable to us! Feel free to submit your questions, concerns, or requests at any time.
