Research Catalogue has had many new features and improvements since the last development blog post from the end of 2020.
In addition to less visible bug fixes, the following areas have been improved:

• Image resolution has been doubled to match the current high DPI screens of phones and laptops. This also applies to all existing expositions, as long as the uploaded original had sufficient resolution
  
• Audio quality has also been adjusted after we discovered a mistake in the transcoding settings, this change also works for older expositions.

Profile pages, metadata pages and RC front page

• A new option to Share window to prevent exposition appearing in RC Front Page / Recent Activities / Portal feed
• Added hover/tooltip to license options, reordered license options
• Exposition share status is shown more explicitly visible on your profile (as text)
• Advanced Search > Last modified date range
• Advanced Search > JSON > Abstract field
• Advanced Search > JSON > Includes a link to thumbnail (if the research has one).
• Long abstracts cropped at RC front page
• Thumbnails are retrieved in original quality

Accessibility

• Page detailing the accessibility aims of RC
• RC Front Page profile menu can now be reached through keyboard

Project Feature / Group Feature

General exposition improvements

• Added “copy tool link” to context menu in graphical and block editor, which makes hyperlinking much easier
• More font safety / prevention of copying in unsported fonts, font migration option
• SVG Improvements
  • SVG in block editor now has static size
  • SVG hyperlinks work
• Include “default page” in Table of Contents
• New pages automatically added to the ToC (unless you opt out)
• It is now possible to copy/paste a larger number of tools within an exposition
• Audio tool is now visible in workspace editor
• Audio tool > JW Player Volume slider
• Browser refresh should not change sidebar collapse status

Graphical Editor

• Improved real-time collaboration in the graphical editor
• Shape tools update more smoothly
• Adjustment in alignment options behavior
• Footnote weave can be resized directly by dragging the edges and corner
• Fixes and updates for Review note functions
• Dragging from simple media list or media set creates tool with more appropriate size 

Block Editor (New feature)

• Block/Text based expositions > Mobile friendly navigation bar
• Block editor: superscript footnote numbers bug fixed
• Block Editor: “style” tab now enabled for tools, allowing you to add padding, background, and borders.

Text-based Expositions?

• Headers can now have formatting, so you can have italic in your heading, for example.

Repository

• The date picker interface of search/filter has been made easier to use

Application system

• Character count
• Application programs can now also choose to allow limited-account users to apply

For portal admins:

• Reviewed expositions ordered in profile page
• Reviewing page: browser position kept after changes
• Reviewing page: exposition order is consistent

Over the last months we have fixed a number of smaller issues:

• Content using iframes can now use microphone and camera input.
• Footnotes of restored snapshots can now be edited.
• Allow full screen of embedded content.
• Improved republish reviewing workflow for already published expositions.
• We fixed a problem with large lists of footnotes not being scrollable.

For portal admins:

It will soon be possible to put an exposition that is being reviewed “in revision”. Once “in revision” this means the author can change the content, but the exposition remains in the list on the reviewing page (so the admin can keep track of the progress).

For complete documentation, go to revision entry in the RC extended guide

We have adjusted feeds, they now include DOI and issue number.

There have also been two changes in the connect to portal function:

Expositions which are private can no longer be connected to a portal, the exposition has to be shared in some manner (within the portal, RC or with the public). This to avoid the situation where a user tries to connect (by accident) a private exposition, which would not even be visible to the admin nor to anybody else. The share status is now visible to portal admins under “connection requests”, for better overview of who can see the exposition.

There is now an automated Word import for the Graphical Editor. The idea is, that one can upload a Word document and it will be automatically split between text and image tools, making it easier to then organise them in any way you like on the weave of the graphical editor.

More info and instructions how to use can be found in the RC guide.

There is now an RSS feed, which you can use to be notified when we post something here.

The link is: https://societyforartisticresearch.github.io/rcblogpublic/atom.xml

If you do not have an RSS tracker yet, I have listed a few (free) options below:

• FireFox FeedBro
• Chrome RSS-feed-reader
• Apple RSS Bot

We have enabled a new way of sharing research: link sharing.
It is similar to link sharing you may know from google drive.

When link sharing is enabled, anybody who knows the link has access to your exposition.
The exposition is not listed anywhere else, one can only reach it through the link.

The process is reversable: when the option is disabled, the link will no longer provide access to the exposition.

We have implemented a safer way of loading content, which appears to solve the empty load problem that some users experienced in Chrome.

Recently, in response to abuse by many other websites, Safari now blocks any automatic video playback with sound.
We finally have found a way to inform readers of expositions that rely on automatic playback to display a message to start playback manually, ensuring that they can experience the exposition as intented.

The saving system of the text editor has been improved. Before saving to the RC servers, the editor will check if a more recent version exists on the remote server. This for example can happen when two collaborators are working on the same exposition at once, or when a user is using more than one tab.

If a newer version is found, editor will ask user what to do, to minimize chance of unintentially loosing data.