Weekly Web Updates – September 2, 2019

We’ve added the world maps to our new Drupal 8 sites. You can add a map to your page and select the countries you’d like to shade in. See this new component in action on the Middlebury Institute website.

Updates

Fixes and Tweaks

  • Menus on Top Level pages of the new Admissions site will now show only their immediate child pages in the navigation.

Ongoing Work

  • Creating a new “Offices” site for institution-wide anchor functions.
  • Creating new Drupal 8 sites for our schools and programs.
  • Upgrading the Course Hub to Drupal 8.

Weekly Web Updates – August 26, 2019

A new expectation for the undergraduate college asks instructors to make syllabi available to all students prior to the start of the semester. To support this effort and save instructors extra clicks when setting up their courses, the Course Hub now uses “Any Middlebury Person” as the default visibility when adding a syllabus to a course spaces in the Hub. “Public” and “The Class” visibility options are still available.

Updates

  • Drupal chosen 8.x-2.8
  • Drupal paragraphs 8.x-1.9
  • WordPress badgeos plugin 3.0
  • WordPress seriously-simple-podcasting plugin 1.20.9
  • WordPress the-events-calendar plugin 4.9.7

Fixes and Tweaks

  • Resolved an issue in several MediaWiki sites where a cache table in the database got corrupted, which prevented information for new logins from being saved and trapping people in a redirect loop with CAS.
  • Drupal 8 sites now all have access to the “Quad Story Feature” and “Statistic Block” components and the FAQ component can be used on Top Level pages.
  • Updated the MCSE website logo.

Ongoing Work

  • Creating a new “Offices” site for institution-wide anchor functions.
  • Creating new Drupal 8 sites for our schools and programs.
  • Upgrading the Course Hub to Drupal 8.

LibrarySearch!

LibrarySearch is here!

The library has switched its discovery platform from Summon to one from EBSCO, which we are calling “LibrarySearch.”  LibrarySearch will work very much like Summon: it will still retrieve results from the library catalog (MIDCAT), and it will still find article-level results from our subscribed journals and databases (as well as beyond, if desired).

We made this switch for a number of reasons.  LibrarySearch:

  • offers better discovery of non-full-text indexes such as MLA Bibliography and RILM (in fact, these databases are not indexed by Summon, due to their dissatisfaction with how Summon handles non-full-text databases)
  • has features not available in Summon, such as a view into which databases search results are coming from, and the option to save search results directly into online storage providers such as Dropbox
  • is more tightly integrated with the library’s catalog than Summon
  • is (like Summon) a very stable and widely-used system
  • is highly customizable
  • is also now available to students and colleagues at the William Tell Coleman library at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies

Of course, since LibrarySearch is provided to us by a different vendor, you will see changes in how search results are ranked and displayed, and the interface will look somewhat different. 

Please see go/librarysearch to try out the new system.  As with any new system, there are bound to be some bugs, broken links, unexpected results or behavior, etc.  Please submit problems, or suggestions for improvements, to Terry Simpkins in the Library (x5045).

Weekly Web Updates – August 19, 2019

Updates

  • Drupal 8.7.6
  • Drupal webform 7.x-4.20
  • WordPress seriously-simple-podcasting plugin 1.20.8
  • WordPress social-icons-widget-by-wpzoom plugin 3.3.2
  • WordPress editorial-calendar plugin 3.7.4
  • WordPress responsive theme 3.16.2

Fixes and Tweaks

  • Issuu content can now be embed in the Drupal 7 site using the iframe shortcode.
  • Course groups and Course Hub spaces for the MIIS Language & Professional Programs term (ending in “88”) are now properly populated and available in the Course Hub to support new online translation programs.
  • Added a new section to the WRMC website for their upgraded studio.

Ongoing Work

  • Creating a new “Offices” site for institution-wide anchor functions.
  • Creating new Drupal 8 sites for our schools and programs.
  • Upgrading the Course Hub to Drupal 8.

Weekly Web Updates – August 12, 2019

We’ve added a set of new chart components to our Drupal 8 sites which will allow editors to add bar, pie, line, and donut charts, along with a component that just lets you put a big number on the page.

Updates

  • Drupal group 8.x-1.0-rc4
  • WordPress instagram-feed plugin 1.12.2
  • WordPress jetpack plugin 7.6
  • WordPress redirection plugin 4.3.3
  • WordPress the-events-calendar plugin 4.9.6
  • WordPress responsive theme 3.16
  • WordPress rokophoto-lite theme 1.1.25

Fixes and Tweaks

  • A number of accessibility improvements to the new themes for Drupal 8: header and left navigation menus will now always have descriptive headings, profile lists and themed panels no longer lack unidentified headings, and the page HTML passes validation checks.
  • The site cache for the Library site is now manually cleared at 12:01am to ensure that the hours are fetched and re-cached each day.

Ongoing Work

  • Creating a new “Offices” site for institution-wide anchor functions.
  • Creating new Drupal 8 sites for our schools and programs.
  • Upgrading the Course Hub to Drupal 8.

Weekly Web Updates – August 5, 2019

Due to a recent update, the backend process that updates RSS feeds on our site would sometimes silently fail when it encountered too many redirects trying to fetch a feed and stop processing. We believe we have fixed this issue, but are continuing to investigate.

Updates

Fixes and Tweaks

  • Fixed an issue on the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference photo gallery listing where HTML in profile bios was getting chopped prematurely, causing the whole page to be in italics.

Ongoing Work

  • Creating a new “Offices” site for institution-wide anchor functions.
  • Creating new Drupal 8 sites for our schools and programs.
  • Upgrading the Course Hub to Drupal 8.

Weekly Web Updates – July 29, 2019

We’ve added a new Degree Finder tool to the Middlebury Institute’s homepage and the menu of all its sub-pages in order to make getting to the academic programs simpler.

Updates

  • Drupal link_attributes 8.x-1.9
  • Drupal metatag 8.x-1.9
  • Drupal views_field_formatter 8.x-1.10
  • WordPress enable-media-replace plugin 3.3.5
  • WordPress members plugin 2.2.0
  • WordPress nextgen-gallery plugin 3.2.10
  • WordPress post-expirator plugin 2.4.0.1
  • WordPress seriously-simple-podcasting plugin 1.20.6
  • WordPress the-events-calendar plugin 4.9.5
  • WordPress hueman theme 3.4.26
  • WordPress responsive theme 3.15.2

Fixes and Tweaks

  • Fixed an issue where RSS Feeds on the Drupal 7 site would break if they fetched content from a remote source that returned it in “chunks”, such as a feed with multiple pages.
  • Editors can now make the call to action links in the Card Carousel component in Drupal 8 sites accessible using the aria-label attribute to add explanation to link text like “Find out more”.

Ongoing Work

  • Creating a new “Offices” site for institution-wide anchor functions.
  • Creating new Drupal 8 sites for our schools and programs.
  • Upgrading the Course Hub to Drupal 8.

Macbook recalls

ITS wants to make all employees and students aware of two current serious Macbook recalls:

Recall #1:

Apple has issued a battery recall notice for “Mid-2015” model 15″ Macbook Pro laptops. The situation is a safety issue as according to Apple “the battery may overheat and pose a fire safety risk.”

Apple’s customer info page about the issue can be found at:
https://support.apple.com/15-inch-macbook-pro-battery-recall

Employees here at the college with college-issued Macbooks affected by this issue have been contacted via a WebHelpdesk ticket to arrange to have Apple repair their computer. Employees with personal computers and students are advised to use the above link to check their serial number and then follow the instructions on their website to arrange repair. Due to the nature of this repair, Apple is not allowing us to perform the repair in-house so your Macbook will need to be shipped to Apple for repair. Turn around will be 1 to 2 weeks and Apple advises users to shut down and stop using the computer until after it is repaired.  If you store any files to the local hard drive, you will want to transition your data onto one of our cloud storage solutions, like OneDrive/Middfiles beforehand.  With an off-site repair, data is not guaranteed to be intact, and our cloud storage options are backed up and accessible from just about anywhere.   

Recall #2:

Another recall is for the SSD (hard drive) in some 13” non-touchbar Macbook Pro laptops. This problem can lead to data loss. To check your serial number, use this link:

https://support.apple.com/13-inch-macbook-pro-solid-state-drive-service

Affected employees here at the college have already had tickets created and been emailed via WebHelpdesk. Users are advised to ensure they are properly storing all their data on OneDrive/Middfiles in order to protect their data in the event their SSD fails prior to repair.