Uwazi v0.3.0 released

Documentation Updates

Uwazi user guide is now available!

We’re very happy to announce that our first draft of the Uwazi user guide is now available in English on our Github wiki! If you find any mistakes, or parts that can be improved, please suggest edits to the wiki using your Github account. This guide will be a work in progress until we have a stable release. We’re currently working on translating this guide into Spanish.

New Features

Improvements to the uploads section

These improvements make the uploads section more similar to the library, including:

• Properties can be displayed in document and entity cards, just as they are in the library.
• Document and entity cards can be sorted, filtered, and searched, just as they are in the library.
• The right side panel behaves the same as the library: the user can view the table of contents, properties, connections, and attachments without opening the document.
• The Add New Entity button has moved from the bottom right corner of the uploads section, to the top right corner of the main window in this section.

Create multiple users and assign roles

Administrators can now create user accounts and assign one of two roles: administrator and editor. This feature is especially helpful if you have a team of users who are adding and organising documents and entities in your collection. More information on the permissions assigned to each role >>

What does this mean for you?

• For those of you who have an instance hosted with us, we have already deployed this upgrade to your Uwazi instance, so there’s no need to do anything.

• If you are hosting Uwazi yourself, you will want to upgrade by downloading the latest release and run the following database migration using terminal on the root directory of Uwazi:

  export DATABASE_NAME='name'

  by default the name is uwazi_develaopment.

  If the mongodb server is on a remote machine, then configure it by:

  export DBHOST='theHost'

  then run:

  node run_migration.js

• See all of our updates in our GitHub changelog

• We’re working on our user guide on GitHub and you’re invited to contribute!

• Contact us if you have any questions!

v0.2.0

New Features

Edit multiple items at once

Edit multiple items at once by selecting documents and/or entities in the library (on Windows or Linux, hold the CTRL key then click the items; on a Mac, hold the Command key then click the items), clicking edit, then applying the property field values you want to assign to all selected items. This also means you can delete multiple items at once.

Embed YouTube videos

Embed YouTube videos by adding a rich text property field to your document or entity template and then using the format: {youtube}(youtube video link). You could use the transcript of the video as the main document and attach the video for reference. This way, you can utilise our Uwazi features to connect the text to other documents, entities or paragraphs.

Improved display of entity connections

View your entity connections in the main window by opening the entity and clicking on the connections icon. This is an improvement on the previous connections display in the right sidebar. This new display is especially helpful if you have an entity with many connections, like country.

What does this mean for you?

• For those of you who have an instance hosted with us, we have already deployed this upgrade to your Uwazi instance, so there’s no need to do anything.
• If you are hosting Uwazi yourself, you will want to upgrade by downloading the latest release.
• See all of our updates in our GitHub changelog
• We’re working on our user guide on GitHub and you’re invited to contribute!
• Contact us if you have any questions!

v0.1.7

New Features

• Adopted PDF.js as document renderer. Rendering PDFs in a web environment is a great challenge. Fortunately, Mozilla has addressed this topic with their awesome library PDF.js. It is way faster and less prone to errors than our previous solution. This greatly alleviates the slowness of document reading and text selection.

• Multi-language support. Interface, metadata and content can now co-exist in several languages at a time. Currently this option lacks a front-end configuration option and requires manual setup from a developer. Please get in contact if you are interested in testing it out.

  

• Attachments tab. Now documentes and entities have a dedicated tab for files. This comes handy when we want to have several formats for the same document (Word, PDF, etc). Also makes the available documents for downloading more visible to users.

  

• Custom configuration for first order of filters. The first filters a user encounters is the list of the available documents and entities. Now this list can be configured from settings > filters, selecting which options to hide/display and allowing for the creation of groups of options. This improves the user experience for visitors, offering a rational first order navigation in the library.

  

• Now documents and entities can have an icon or flag assigned. This is very useful for countries, but also to give some records a special visual hint.

  

• Improved connections panel. Now connections are grouped by connection type which allows for expanding and collapsing groups of connections in the side panel. Also the connected cards display its metadata as in the rest of the library and can be sorted.

  

Improvements

• Title and document type in metadata side panel are now displayed with styles similar to those of the cards, this way users can quickly identify what kind of document they are looking at.
• Now entities and documents edition have a visible cancel button that will get the user out of edition mode. Previously there was only an "X" at the corner for closing which was not clear enough.
• When using an entity as a dictionary for a multi-select field, now its treated as a connection so it will appear in entities and documents connections panel.
• Sort by options have a better design now.
• Metadata titles are only shown on mouse over. This way we make better use of the space in the cards avoiding redundant labels in every card. If the users needs to know what that particular data means, a mouse over will display the label.
• Fields with blank value are no longer rendered in cards, side panel and entities. This way we don’t see anymore an optional field label without the expected value, which is misleading for users.
• Improved design of metadata forms. Better usage of the space in the screen and clarification of some functionality.
• Better styles for uploads section. While this section still needs a full revamp of its functionality, we’ve expended some time trying to make it more appealing. Particularly, this section now shows the document type when assigned, making it easier to locate, edit and publish pending documents.
• Better styles for pages and rich text fields.

Bug fixes

• Now entities do not show a "download" option in their actions.
• Default A-Z sorting in library is ascending (from A to Z) instead of descending (from Z to A).
• Now multiple option properties based in dictionaries are correctly filtered.
• Fixed a bug in text reference deletion that would prevent a reference from being deleted when the referenced text was too long.
• Now select options appear in alphabetical order. This was particularly annoying when working with longs lists in selects.
• Improved performance in metadata edition. A flaw in the implementation was causing the interface to consume too many resources rendering the metadata edition very slow.
• Improved performance of template configuration. Previously some server side processes were affecting the speed of the UI.
• Fixed a bug that would allow users to select text for tagging and cross-referencing when a subscript was present in the page. This was related to how the PDF to HTMl conversion worked.
• Fixed a bug that prevented uploaded documents from being saved when a required multi-select was present in the template.

v0.1.6

New features

• Custom navigation menus and pages.
  • Now administrators can create custom pages in settings > pages section. These pages support html like features using the Markdown standard.
  • In order to make these pages available to users, the navigation menu can be configured in settings > menu. This supports both internal and external links.

• Filters as URLs. When users run a search or filter content form the library, these params will also be expressed in the form of a URL in the navigation bar. This comes very handy when it comes to bookmark or share a particular search/filter combination. Moreover, this makes a great combo when used along with the navigation menu to point visitors of the site to particular subsets of information in the library.

• Display metadata in library cards. Now administrators can configure which metadata properties will be shown in library cards for both entities and documents. This is configured in each metadata property in settings > documents and settings > entities.

  

• Facet browsing. Filters now support faceted browsing style. This is automatically generated for "select" and "multi-select" metadata types. The behaviour is similar to most faceted browsing implementations:

  • Only options that will toss results are displayed (options with zero results are eliminated).

  • The amount of results under the option is displayed besides the option.

  • When an option is selected all amounts are recalculated, showing only the options that will match both criteria (the already selected option plus another option).

  • If the option list is longer than 5 items, its collapsed by default, showing a "Show more" button that will display all available options.

  • It has a handy search box to quickly locate options.

  • When an option is selected, it automatically launches the filtering request and updates the result list.

  • Options are sorted alphabetically, but when one is picked up and the list is collapsed, it will be moved to the top of the list so user can clearly see which options are active.

    

• Rich text metadata field. Based on the same Markdown implementation we are using for pages, now user can configure rich text as metadata properties for their entities and documents.

Improvements

• Several style and usability improvements have been performed in the search/filter side panel. Notably, moving the "reset" button from the top to a bigger and more visible button in the bottom of the side panel.

  

• Files converted from PDF to HTML are now stored in disk instead of in the DB. This has improved the performance of the database and fixed some glitches in the application.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a bug that tossed JS errors when reloading the application on any page other than library and then navigating to library.
• Fixed a bug that was making the application crash when attempting to display an entity that had a multi-select metadata field configured and values.

v0.1.5

New features

• Table of contents assistant. Now users can create table of contents for better navigation of their documents. You can find this feature at the document view while being logged in.

  To add an item to the TOC, select any text snippet, mouse over the floating "+" button and click on the "Add to table of contents" option. The assistant will automatically order the anchors in the TOC based on their order of appearance in the document.

  The assistant offers options to edit the snippet in case you want the TOC to display a text different to the selection, indent the elements of the TOC and delete them.

• Now we support the creation of entities. They may be used ie, in the context of a case law document collection, to manage persons (judges, victims, perpetrators) institutions (courts, ministries, governments), countries, companies, etc.

  • They are very similar to documents and support the same options for metadata, filtering and searching.
  • They also support connections for cross referencing entities between them or with documents.
  • There is a new section in settings > entities where the entity types and metadata can be defined.
  • (temporarily) They can be created in the uploads section, clicking on the "+" floating button.
  • They have a different view design. Since they don't display a document text, we created a entity view that makes better use of the space.
  • They have a different icon besides the entity type tag in the library. This icon will be customizable in the future.

Improvements

• The side panel usability has been greatly improved:
  • Now many of the options that previously were accessed through the floating action button are quickly available at the new "side panel footer". Check it out =)
  • In the document viewer the side panel now has three tabs: table of contents, metadata and connections. Being able to quickly switch between that information while reading a document.
• Search and filtering have been improved:
  • Now the search bar is integrated in the side panel along with the filters.
  • The side panel for search and filtering is no longer opened by clicking on the floating button, now there is a special icon on the header to trigger this functionality.
• Now we have a general error feedback message that will let users know if there has been a server, connection or client error that is not being handled. This feature will need further improvement to better inform the user what the cause of the error may be, but for now is better than having an irresponsive application with no clue of what is going on.
• Now when creating a "target paragraph" connection, the "save" option will stick to the user scroll so there is no need to scroll back to the top to save the connection.
• Now we also display inbound connections (as in another document is pointing to the present document) in documents and entities, previously we were only displaying outbound connections.
• Better reference creation UX:
  • Now you don't have to close the connections side panel to create a new connection.
  • Now you don't have to reselect text to create a connection if you switch between panels.
  • Now you can just click on an existing connection, both in the highlighted text or the side panel, when creating a "target paragraph" connection, sparing you the burden of having to reselect the same text.
• Metadata section redesign. This section still had the styles of our previous UI, now it has been updated for a better look and feel.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a rendering bug that would break the header height with long title names.
• Fixed a bug that left all documents in "target document state" after abandoning a process of creating a connection to a paragraph.
• Fixed several rendering problems on mobile.
• Fixed a bug that prevented users from saving thesauri under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a rendering issue when there are overlapping connections in the text. Now they are properly highlighted.

v0.1.4

New features

• Improved connection to a paragraph experience. Now the target document is loaded as a fully functional document, allowing users to display its metadata and connections. Previously these panels were not available for target documents.
• Existing connections in the target document can now be easily reused as target paragraph by selecting them in the document body or the side panel, no need to manually highlight the target text anymore.
• Now documents will display also inbound connections (from other documents towards text snippets in the current document), previously it was showing only the outbound ones (from this document towards other documents or snippets in other documents).
• Added "date" metadata property. Now documents can have dates as properties and can be filtered by date ranges with a handy date picker.

Small improvements

• Metadata configuration has been moved to "Settings", freeing up space in the navigation bar and concentrating all settings into a single section.
• Improved metadata configuration section design to match that of the rest of the application. This section still had legacy styles.
• Changed some UI colours including background and other styles improving the overall design and readability.
• When downloading the original file, it will be named after the document's title property, resulting in better file names. Previously it was downloaded with the internal database unique id which was confusing.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a rendering bug in the sidebar height in mobile devices.
• Now collection name is properly saved.
• Filtering by thesauri is working again.
• Removed a misplaced link in the titles of the connection cards that was leading to accidental navigation to other documents.

v0.1.3

New features

• Logged in users can delete existing connections through the "delete" link in the connections side panel in the document viewer.
• All users can download the original file through the floating action button in both library and document viewer.
• Logged in users can delete documents through the floating action button in both library a document viewer.
• Document types are now displayed as a coloured label besides the document title easing type recognition.

Small improvements

• All connections within the text of a document are dimly highlighted while the connections panel is open, helping the user to better spot interesting connections.
• Alert messages are now displayed as a fixed floating banner so user can see them regardless of their current scroll position.
• Now we have a footer providing alternate navigation and helping users identify the end of content.

Bug fixes

• The top navigation menu will properly display in smaller viewports and automatically close when navigating between pages.
• Now only logged in user will see the buttons for creating new connections between content.
• Admin and metadata sections properly show scroll bars.
• Now only logged in users can access the settings page.
• Now recently published documents will show up in the library without needing to refresh.
• Fixed a glitch that was wrongly displaying a lateral scroll bar in document viewer.
• Now navigating to library while a filter is applied is properly showing results in the list.
• Now the browser auto completer in the search bar is disabled. Previously was conflicting with Uwazi's search suggestions.

v0.1.2

New features

• Login page has been redesigned. Now it supports password recovery.
• Admin page has been redesigned. Now it supports password change, collection title configuration, admin e-mail configuration and logout.
• Cards have been redesigned to better adapt to different viewport sizes and adjust to dynamic heights.
• Now clicking on a card in the library will display its metadata in the side panel instead of opening the document for viewing.
• Now connections are ordered in the side bar in order of appearance in the document, improving usability by evidencing the document structure.
• Added pagination to library. Now the counters properly express the amount of documents displayed/filtered. Also there is a button on the bottom of the library for loading more documents. It loads in batches of 12 documents each time the button is hit.

Small improvements

• Bigger side bar: better usage of space for a better legibility of metadata and connections.
• Displaying and creating connections between content has been enhanced for better usability.
• Smaller drag&drop area for document uploads for better space usage.
• Now full text searches will give more relevance to document titles for better location on title searches.
• Now the document viewer will display a loader to inform the user that the document is being loaded.
• Now the upload date is displayed in the card body with a preceding label "upload date", clarifying the meaning of this date.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a bug that would allow users to create duplicated metadata (documents, connections, dictionaries).
• Added close button to connections panel.
• Now the router handler will refresh the content if the URL params have changed.
• Fixed a glitch after publishing a document from uploads to library, it wouldn't appear in the list unless refresh. Now it shows up without refresh needed.
• Now native browser autocompletion on the search bar won't be triggered when attempting to search, interfering with the search box.

v0.1.1

New features

• Connection displaying has been greatly improved:
  • Improved design
    • The side panel now has a title and close button.
    • Connection card design has been improved.
    • Connections are not highlighted on the document body by default so no noise or visual stress is introduced in the text.
    • The side panel will always show all connections for the current document.
  • Improved navigation:
    • Hovering or selecting a connection card on the side panel will highlight the matching text in document body.
    • Connections are highlighted on the document body and side panel on mouse over the connection card or the text snippet. So even if its invisible, it will react to a mouse over event.
    • Clicking on the text snippet in the document body will scroll the side panel, focus and highlight the matching card.
    • Likewise, clicking on the connection card will scroll the document body, focus and highlight the text snippet.
  • Improved connection creation:
    • Added numbered steps to better guide users through the process.
    • Now users can effectively select the connection type on creation.

Small improvements

• Changed the behaviour of text selection in document viewer so it allows for text copying. Previously the copy function was blocked by the “connection creation” feaure.
• Now the sidebar will render in a smaller size for mobile devices so it won’t totally cover the background content, improving the user experience.
• Improved the message in the upload area so users have better understanding of the functionality.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a bug in “metadata > document types” where hitting save repeatedly on a newly created document type will lead to duplicate document types.
• Fixed a bug in “select type” when rendering metadata will toss a javascript error.
• Fixed a bug in “select type” where the current value wasn’t being displayed.
• Fixed an incorrect padding in the scroll bars in the document viewer that will display scroll bars in the middle of the content.
• Fixed a layout glitch where the sidebar was wrongly overlaying part of the content.

v0.1.0

Notable changes

• Full revamp of metadata > document type section:
• Now it will display a "Duplicated field" feedback error when trying to create fields with equal names within the same document type.
• When marking a property as "Use as filter", now it will display a visual map of properties from other document types with equal names and also marked as filters, allowing for better understanding on filter coincidence across different document types.
• "Use as library filter" relabeled to "Use as filter".
• "Required field" relabeled to "Required".
• "Save template" relabeled to "Save".
• Added several tooltips explaining filtering and filter coincidence.
• Now scrolling is independent for main view (search results, document view) and side panel (metadata and relation view) making navigation easier.

Small fixes

• Fixed a bug when adding a "select field" to a document type and leaving the default dictionary, actually it was being saved with no dictionary causing a cascade of errors.
• Now the "edit metadata" option in floating action button will only be visible if the user has permissions (is logged in).
• When stacking filters in the public library sidebar, feedback properly shows "Filters for [document type]" when selecting only a document type and "Common filters for [document type 1] and [document type 2]" when selecting more than one type.
• When closing the "Edit metadata" side panel, a confirm message about loosing changes will be displayed and if accepted, the form will be reset to its initial state an close. Previously it would close and keep the state of the form.
• Now the confirm deletion message for documents that failed to upload and the confirm deletion message for regular documents display different messages. Previous message was misleading.
• Fixed a bug that prevented saving document metadata when the document was large. The text of the document was wrongly being sent to the server overflowing the allowed payload.