December’s update to research.kent brought a variety of updates to several panels:
Minor changes
- Card panel
- We removed the requirement for a link to be set so now you can have more ‘decorative’ cards which do not need to link through to anything.
- Document panel
- The tracking functionality has been rebuilt and is now more stable. You will now receive an email for each file downloaded on the panel, although the code will detect multiple clicks on a link and only send one email.
- Feature panel
- Fixed an minor issue with the ‘Events’ option and the margins around the event title
- Introduced unique IDs for each panel based upon the title (if set) or a random number. This allows for anchor linking to feature panels
- Gallery panel
- Adjusted the styling of the images and text when in slideshow mode to stop text overlaying the image
- List panel
- You can now have multiple list panels on a page
- News panel
- Fixed an issue where if there was no ‘medium’ sized image was available the panel would break and display nothing
- Table panel
- Added in sticky header and fixed horizontal scrollbar support. This is to ensure larger tables are easier to navigate when scrolling vertically or horizontally
We also made more significant changes to the following panels:
KAR panel
As part of a project to integrate support for the Kent Web Tag the KAR panel has been extensively rebuilt. The panel now gives site administrators the ability the display publications for multiple authors, multiple Divisions, as well as Kent Web Tags, and Signature Themes. We also integrated dynamic listing of Divisions and Kent Web Tags, so as they are added to KAR they will become immediately available on the KAR panel.
Support for uncontrolled keywords has been removed as part of a drive to ensure that publications are categorised correctly under a division or Kent Web Tag.
All sites using the existing KAR panel have been updated to use the new panel.
We have more information about the updated KAR panel on our documentation page.
People panel & profiles
The people panel had a number of minor issues which needed resolving. First, updated the way groups are listed at the top. Where there area lot of groups present these are all now shown rather than requiring the user to scroll.
We also fixed the profile card which was not displaying the description field.
And lastly, whilst editing a profile we have simplified and improved the various field labels to make them easier to understand, we’ve also moved the first and last name fields into a new ‘Sorting criteria’ tab, and added in numerical sorting option. The numerical sorting option allows you to put in a number for each person which will define their order on the panel. this is useful when you wish to set a specific team hierarchy on the panel.
Research Projects
Whilst working with the Centre for Health Services Studies we identified that we needed a new way to add in research projects without bloating the normal ‘Pages’ section. We decided to create a new custom post type called ‘Research Projects’ and updated the card panel to support displaying these, including the ability to search and filter the list or projects.
The Research Projects post type has to be activated on a site by site basis. If you are interested in using this on your site please do get in touch via is-wld@kent.ac.uk.
We will have more documentation on research projects in the coming months.