Avalon 8.0

Avalon 8.0 includes support for Fedora 6, improved UI/UX and browser support in the Ramp media component library, support for Microsoft cloud storage, and a variety of bug fixes and improvements.

Dependency Updates

• Fedora 6
• Rails 7.2
• Ruby 3.3
• Ramp 3.3
  • Progress bar style changes for improved seeking
  • State management has been widely refactored
  • Captions settings for user sessions are now saved in the browser
  • Expand/collapse buttons for structural metadata moved from Avalon to a new Ramp component
  • Fixed a bug where parameters in URLs passed to Ramp caused errors
  • Multiple bugs fixed for mobile browsers

Features and Changes

• Sharepoint can now be configured as a source in Browse Everything, allowing users to connect and upload media files directly from Microsoft cloud storage services
• Date is no longer a required field in descriptive metadata for items
• Subject field now links out to other items with the same subject
• Support for progressive download—Avalon can now stream MP3 files directly without transcoding
• Improved handling of thumbnail and poster image generation when certain derivative streams are unavailable
• The location for temporary files created during processing can now be configured
• Optimized waveform generation
• mediainfo removed as a dependency
• Solr queries updated to improve response times
• Performance improvements to item edit pages and HLS manifest generation

Bug Fixes

• Item deletion now properly removes child files from objects
• Encode jobs with invalid status no longer block the encoding dashboard from displaying
• IIIF Manifests are properly generated for items still being processed

Full Changelog: v7.8...v8.0

Upgrade instructions: https://samvera.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/AVALON/pages/2580086785/Upgrading+Avalon+7.8+to+Avalon+8.0

Avalon 7.8

Avalon 7.8 includes a new component for searching transcripts within the transcript viewer, dependency upgrades, and a variety of bug fixes and minor improvements.

Search, Navigation, and UI Updates

• "Found in" text now appears in search results, indicating the number of matches for separate areas of the record: descriptive metadata, section metadata and transcript text
• Upgraded to Ramp 3.2, which includes a component for searching within documents in the transcript viewer with rich navigation and match highlighting
• IIIF Content Search service
• Playback rate control: media playback speed can be decreased or increased with a widget in the media player
• Catalog searches return more quickly
• IIIF manifest URL added to the Share panel
• Embedded media player now uses Ramp

Other Major Changes and Updates

• Captions can be marked as transcript documents, allowing them to serve as both captions in the media player as well as a document within the transcript viewer
• The Avalon API now allows for CRUD operations for supplemental files, including caption and transcript files
• Batch ingest now accepts columns captions and transcript files and metadata
• Transcript language can now be specified per file
• New configuration added to provide a link for direct download of derivatives through the UI
• New recordChangeDate field to track the last change to descriptive metadata
• "Has Transcript" and "Has Caption" facets moved to the admin facet listing
• File size limit for web upload changed to remove the 2 GB default
• Added setting for configuring alternative Rack tempfile location
• Bibliographic ID value added to the search index for instances where import is not performed

Bug Fixes

• Short playlist descriptions do not results in buttons next to text
• Playlist description is now collapsed by default
• Poster and thumbnail images are no set to improper aspect ratios for certain video container files
• Added handling for media whose ratio is defined in metadata and was not reported by mediainfo
• Limit the number of stream tokens in a user session to avoid session overflow errors
• Timecode values in the Timeliner tool display properly for media longer than 60 minutes
• Fixed an internal error when saving a parent object fails
• Parsing fix for SRT files

Special thanks to Thirdwave, LLC for contributing their code for search functionality in Ramp's transcript viewer.

Full Changelog: v7.7.2...v7.8

Upgrade instructions: https://samvera.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/AVALON/pages/2580086785/Upgrading+Avalon+7.7+to+Avalon+7.8

Avalon 7.7.2

Bugfixes

• Fixed Add to Playlist Bug Where Track Information Does Not Populate
• Add to playlist button disabled on iPhone Safari until user plays media item
• Fixed a bug where the Create Thumbnail action created unnecessary network requests

Full Changelog: v7.7.1...v7.7.2

Avalon 7.7.1

Bugfixes

• Media file duration is now set to the value reported during encoding instead of the imprecise value returned by the mediainfo tool
• Action buttons on the item page are only enabled after the player is completely loaded
• Fixed slow loading of the Manage Content page
• Fixes for player styling and icon sizes

Captions

• Added missing SRT format support for caption files
• Captions have been removed from HLS manifests for greater compatibility
• Default language value for captions is set to the system default during migration

Updates

• Collection ID has been added to media object JSON responses
• Positional URLs for playlist items are supported again (i.e. avalon-site.edu/playlists/##?position=3)
• Fixes and improvements to the Avalon reindexing script
• Fuzzier searching added to the playlists listing
• The Create Thumbnail button is now disabled for audio items
• Security updates for smaller dependencies

Full Changelog: v7.7...v7.7.1

Avalon 7.7

Avalon 7.7 includes significant changes to the media player, dependency upgrades, and a variety of bug fixes and minor improvements.

Changes and Updates

• Ramp, a general-purpose media player component library using IIIF manifests as a data source, replaces the existing MediaElement.js-based player
• Application speed has been greatly improved on the Playlist and Item pages
• Multiple caption files can now be associated per media file, with language value assigned for each caption file
• New "Add to Playlist" form provides greater flexibility when adding media to playlists
• "Series" added as a new descriptive metadata field and is also indexed for faceting
• Improvements to accessibility that bring user-facing Avalon pages up to WCAG 2 Level AA conformance
• Transcripts can be marked as "machine-generated" to appear differently in the UI
• Added checkbox to set auto-scroll property for transcript viewer
• Previous and Next buttons added to the media player for easier navigation between sections
• The "Create Thumbnail" button has been moved outside of the media player
• Structural Metadata Editor now displays video when available
• Searching in the Timeline listing has been changed to allow for friendlier, fuzzier matching
• Changes to collection admin page forms for updating access control
• A new administrative facet allows filtering by item access level
• Many updates and additions to IIIF manifest generation
• IIIF Authentication has been removed from publicly accessible items
• Support for reCaptcha v3
• Support for Solr 9
• Rake task added for cleaning up stray files from encoding with FFmpeg
• Rake task added for migrating caption files to their new home in ActiveStorage
• A new system script has been added to improve reindexing from Fedora

Bug Fixes

• Many fixes for UI/UX on iOS and Android devices
• Fix for an extension error in some transcript files when downloading
• Protocol scheme (http/https) added to URLs in embed code
• Managers can now be added to the Editor role for a collection
• Structural Metadata Editor now shows an error message when no waveform is available

Full Changelog: v7.6...v7.7

Avalon 7.6

Avalon 7.6 includes major dependency upgrades in addition to a set of bug fixes and minor improvements.

Notable Updates

• Rails 7 and Ruby 3
• Long filenames can now be viewed in full on the Manage Files edit page
• Fix for missing files in the Google Drive adapter for Browse Everything
• Updated build of the Structural Metadata Editor
• Bug fixes for the media player
• Minor updates to IIIF manifest generation

What's Changed

• Upgrade to Rails 7 by @cjcolvar in #5058
• Fix development mode for rails 7 by @cjcolvar in #5069
• Fix mediainfo by @cjcolvar in #5070
• Refactor MediaObject methods for improving save performance by @cjcolvar in #5053
• SME with IIIF manifest by @Dananji in #5051
• Increase ruby stack size limit by @masaball in #5072
• Bump iiif_manifest to latest version by @masaball in #5076
• Fix missing code in SME IIIF PR (#5051) by @Dananji in #5077
• HLS captions for iOS by @masaball in #5082
• Fix two bugs in JSON update API by @mbklein in #5081
• Use old namespace for bibframe property to align with pre-existing data by @cjcolvar in #5083
• Ensure MODS data is indexed when media object is indexed by @cjcolvar in #5085
• Fix bug for expanding filename and hover text by @masaball in #5093
• Use active-fedora branch and update faraday to 2.x by @cjcolvar in #5088
• Override SearchService#count to ensure it uses the preferred http method… by @cjcolvar in #5102
• Improve hls caption implementation and add tests by @masaball in #5104
• Add timeout to waveform ffmpeg process by @masaball in #5105
• Upgrade dependencies for security patches by @cjcolvar in #5107
• Set id/uri translation lambdas for ActiveFedora::File by @cjcolvar in #5109
• Prevent reification when requesting manifest by @masaball in #5094
• Strip out childless paths from structural metadata to ensure valid manifest by @cjcolvar in #5113
• Enqueue media object indexing job when media object and children are reindexed by @cjcolvar in #5111
• New SME build by @Dananji in #5114
• Prepare for release by @cjcolvar in #5115
• Avalon 7.6 RC 1 by @cjcolvar in #5116
• Fix no-icon thumbnail height in browse by @Dananji in #5122
• Player exception bug fix by @Dananji in #5125
• Add executable bit to scripts by @cjcolvar in #5131
• Use bugfixed browse-everything by @cjcolvar in #5132
• Bump BE again by @cjcolvar in #5133
• Fix player controls getting hidden while scrubbing by @Dananji in #5134
• Fix player toolbar icons in Android when auto advancing to next section by @Dananji in #5135
• Pull in ActiveEncode patch version to fix google drive browse-everything case by @cjcolvar in #5138
• Fix for video player aspect ratio change when switching between sections by @Dananji in #5139
• Fix flashing error message in player when scrubbing by @Dananji in #5142
• Remove special handling of childless divs by @cjcolvar in #5145
• Override ActiveFedora and HydraAccessControls to ensure AccessControl… by @cjcolvar in #5144
• Bump rails version for latest security patch by @cjcolvar in #5146
• Avalon 7.6 RC 2 by @cjcolvar in #5147
• Avalon 7.6.0 Release by @cjcolvar in #5156

Full Changelog: v.7.5.1...v7.6

Avalon 7.5.1

Avalon 7.5.1

Avalon 7.5.1 includes a variety of updates and bug fixes.

Updates and Bug Fixes

• Fix for issues selecting newly created segments in Timelines
• Timelines with custom scope on media files render as expected
• Transcript viewer now renders as expected when Controlled Digital Lending is disabled
• Fix for a track selection issue when the player is paused
• Long filenames can now be viewed in full in the Manage Files edit page
• Structural metadata now properly passed in API responses
• Filename handling improved for media files
• Updates to Rails and other dependencies

What's Changed

• Necessary update of dependencies by @cjcolvar in #5011
• Resize XML editor window to make space in the editor by @Dananji in #5010
• Create collection page by @Dananji in #5006
• Add structural metadata param to additional endpoints by @masaball in #5021
• Fix bad refactoring by passing missing parameter by @cjcolvar in #5029
• Enable rendering of transcript viewer when CDL is disabled by @masaball in #5030
• Fix for broken timeliners with custom scope by @Dananji in #5035
• Bump ActiveEncode and update FileLocator by @masaball in #5042
• Allow file uris to include ? or # in filename by @cjcolvar in #5043
• Bump rails for security fix by @cjcolvar in #5045
• Force encoding of IndexedFile original_name to UTF-8 by @cjcolvar in #5046
• Fix track selection issue when player is paused by @Dananji in #5044
• Use latest build of development image by @cjcolvar in #5012
• Add ability to display full filenames on the media object edit page by @masaball in #5049
• 7.5.1 Release testing by @cjcolvar in #5050
• Fix timeliner bug when splitting segments by @Dananji in #5061
• Add timeliner splitting bugfix to 7.5.1. release candidate by @cjcolvar in #5064

Full Changelog: v7.5...v.7.5.1

Avalon 7.5

Avalon 7.5

Avalon 7.5 includes a Controlled Digital Lending feature and a variety of updates and bug fixes.

Controlled Digital Lending

• When enabled, authenticated users must borrow an item to stream media streams
• Items can only be checked out to a single user at a time
• A new Checkouts page presents a table of a user's current checkouts
• Lending periods are configurable per item and via collection defaults
• CDL functionality can be enabled or disabled for each collection

Updates and Fixes

• Greatly improved performance for item view pages
• Video support in the Timeliner
• Unicode support for filenames
• Updated version of MediaElement.js player
• Fixes for login page redirect errors
• Fix for date sorting in tabular displays
• Fix for dynamic fields in resource description form
• Fix for access controls on API requests
• Updated CORS configuration for cross-domain requests
• Better handling for common application errors
• Bugfix for caption rendering in a specific case
• LDAP group-based permissions work with API requests

Release 7.4

Avalon 7.4

Avalon 7.4 provides significant updates to keep current with supported releases of core libraries and a small set of additional changes and bug fixes.

Dependency Updates

• Rails 6
• Bootstrap 4
• Blacklight 7

Updates and Fixes

• Greatly improved performance for the Manage Users page
• Removing a user in Manage Users now removes the user from all system groups automatically
• Google Drive can now be used as a source alongside other filesystem options
• Increased sanitization and sanitization options for filenames during post-processing
• Remove Structure button now prompts for confirmation before removing structure data
• Default user session length reduced

Release 7.3

Avalon 7.3

Avalon 7.3 includes support for uploading files from Google Drive, a new component that allows users to view and download transcripts on the item page, and a variety of dependency updates and bug fixes.

Features

• Upload files directly from Google Drive
  • Google Drive can now be added a source for the Avalon Dropbox file picker
  • Update settings.yml with your Google OAuth 2.0 Client ID and secret to enable
• Transcript file download and viewer
  • Transcript documents can now be added to item sections
  • A transcript component will render on the item when a transcript document is present
  • Upload in VTT or or DOCX format to view the transcript on the item page
  • Users can download transcript files and click VTT timestamps to seek in the viewer
• Support for Google Tag Manager values for enhanced Analytics data

Updates

• Ruby 2.7 support
• Updated Docker build
• Dependency updates
• Better User Experience When Removing Captions
• Better resizing for the Advanced XML editor

Bug Fixes

• Fix for broken copy functionality on playlists
• Fix for file handling when a collection folder is missing or misnamed