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Avalon 7.2.1 provides a small set of dependency upgrades, including an update to resolve the MimeMagic library issue in Rails.

For the code and more details, please see the release page on Github.

Avalon 7.2 includes support for supplemental files, an improved authentication flow for restricted content, and the ability to merge items, as well as variety of bug fixes and updates for supporting libraries and components. See more and download at the Github release page.

Features

• Intermediate Page When Accessing Restricted Content
• Support for supplemental files
• Supplemental files of any type can be attached
• Supplemental files can be associated at the item or section level
• Merge multiple items together and combine sections

Updates

• Cron jobs now run through Sidekiq
• Dependency updates
• Structural Metadata Editor can be used when no audio data is present
• Added stereo mixdown to encoding parameters for video
• Added link to Sidekiq dashboard under the "Manage" menu

Bug Fixes

• Fixes for S3 transcoding
• Fix API issues with collection names
• Better aligned elements in the embedded media player

Avalon is looking for a skilled developer to join our team as a Lead Software Engineer, either to work onsite at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana or remotely.

For more information, or to apply, please see the job posting.

Avalon 7.1.1 includes a number of smaller updates and bug fixes.

Updates

• Email and website contact fields added for collections
• Added probe service for IIIF
• IIIF authorization added to manifests
• Dependency upgrades; Rails updated to 5.2.4.2
• Structural metadata editor updates
  • Play/pause using the spacebar
  • Finer precision available for time values
  • Bug fix for parent suggestions when adding a new timespan
  • Fix for save structure flash message remaining indefinitely
  • Disable drag and drop during inline editing

Bug Fixes

• Fixed issue with quality selection and volume levels being reset between sections
• Fixed autoplay functionality for Playlists
• Zero-width space characters stripped from form input
• Derivative files are deleted when masterfiles are deleted
• The "Become" feature in user management respects LDAP group membership
• Fixed a bug with the replay feature of batch ingest

Check out Avalon 7.1.1 on Github.

Avalon 7.1 includes default styling improvements, a variety of bug fixes, and updates for supporting libraries and components.

Changes

API Updates

• API keys now respect the permissions of the user associated with a key. Manager-level users, for example, can now use the API to get the full range of data for items in collections they manage
• Problematic string escaping in some JSON responses corrected

Styling and Visual Improvements

• Styling improvements and fixes for cards, tables and buttons
• Increased default resolutions for thumbnail and poster images

Other Updates and Bug Fixes

• Resolved issue where collection managers could not delete collections
• Encode settings have been changed to avoid unnecessary frame rate conformance and provide compatibility with legacy streaming servers
• Updated the Structural Metadata Editor in Avalon with fixes and dependency upgrades
• Resolved bugs with email setting for SMTP and AWS
• Playback issues resolved in legacy browsers
• Intercom improvements and fixes
• Remove ImageMagick dependency

Check out our GitHub for the release!

For Questions or Comments - please use any of the following modes of communication:

• email us using our contact page
• post to our discussion list
• join us on Slack

The Avalon team is proud to announce the release of Avalon 7.0. Avalon 7 is a major release with changes relevant to end users, collection managers and system administrators.

Check out our GitHub for the release!

Features

Collections Index and Collection Landing Pages

Avalon 7 provides two new ways to explore and display collections: the collections index, a listing that shows each collection accessible to a user sorted alphabetically or by containing Unit, and collections landing pages, which provide a unique page for each collection where users can view a description, thumbnail and a preview of items within. Collection managers can now set thumbnails for collections as well as items.

Transcoding Pipeline

With this release of Avalon, the transition from Matterhorn to a self-managed transcoding process has been completed. Using the latest version of active-encode and the FFmpeg adapter, transcoding tasks are faster, leaner, and more flexible. A new transcoding dashboard also provides administrators a way to manage jobs directly within Avalon. While Matterhorn is no longer supported, full support is available for Amazon's Elastic Transcoder service.

New Homepage Design

Avalon's homepage has been redesigned. In addition to the visual change, Avalon allows for easy configuration of the featured collections now displayed on the homepage. The Avalon 6.x-style homepage can also still be used if desired.

Local User Management

A new authentication configuration is available through Persona. This module allows for administrators to quickly create user credentials without relying on an outside authentication system (LDAP, Shibboleth, etc.).

Updates and Other Changes

Sidekiq

The performant, feature-rich, and better maintained Sidekiq replaces Resque as our default background job engine. This aligns Avalon with most Samvera applications, including Hyrax, which have already made this switch.

MinIO

It is now possible to use a MinIO object store to avoid a shared storage requirement and decouple Avalon, Worker, and Streaming services from each other in alignment with 12 factor best practices.

Avalon API

The Avalon API has been updated to allow for access to resources based on system role. API keys issued to users now gate requests to permissions a user has within the system, rather than providing superuser rights for each issued key.

Bug Fixes

• Multiple styling issues on mobile browsers resolved
• Structural Metadata Editor now properly handles certain timecode formats in existing structure
• Caption files with empty terminating time ranges display properly when enabled

For Questions or Comments - please use any of the following modes of communication:

• email us using our contact page
• post to our discussion list
• join us on Slack

Avalon Media System and Notch8 are proud to announce Persona, a user-management add-on for Samvera-based repositories. The module allows for a team of administrators who manage hosted systems to quickly create user credentials without relying on an outside authentication system (LDAP, Shibboleth, etc.).  Persona also allows those performing help desk tasks to view the system as those experiencing an issue see it, bypassing complicated communication exchanges and replicating the issue locally.  Developed with help desk staff and system administrators in mind, the Persona module solves many of the difficulties inherent in managing services for a diversity of organizations.  

Key features of the module include the ability to:

• Define a local login strategy for end users
• Securely log in as an administrator without logging in through an outside authentication system
• From a dashboard, add or delete users
• Assume the identity of any user, regardless of identity provider, via the “Become” troubleshooting feature if you are an administrator.

The Avalon team and Notch8 extracted and extended the functionality from work originally done in Hyku. Persona, released as an open-source gem, is now available as a component that can be used with Avalon, Hyrax, or other Samvera-based products.

Avalon 6.5 includes IIIF manifest generation, a new editor for structural metadata, and integration with the Timeliner tool for annotation of AV materials, as well as a variety of updates for supporting libraries and components.

Check out our GitHub for the release!

Features

Structural Metadata Editor

A visual editor for creating and modifying section structure available on an item's Edit page. The new editor features a waveform visualization and interaction much like audio editing software such as Audacity or Adobe Audition.

IIIF Timeliner

Integration with Timeliner, a reimplementation of the Variations Audio Timeliner annotation tool. Create, edit and share Timelines using media from items within Avalon.

IIIF Presentation 3.0 Manifest Generation

IIIF manifests are now generated by Avalon for all items and can be retrieved from an application endpoint.

Updates and Bug Fixes

• Support for Rails 5.2
• Web upload limit on file size has been increased to 2 GB
• Title attribute is encoded properly in HTML embed code (#2930)
• Type-ahead in username input field no longer overrides values of a very short length (#2896)
• Updating collection information no longer removes staff users (#2994)

For Questions or Comments - please use any of the following modes of communication:

• email us using our contact page
• post to our discussion list
• join us on Slack
• or drop in on Avalon Virtual Office Hours on Tuesdays at 2:00 Eastern 

for more info - jump to 13:37 in the video

Avalon has released 6.4.5.  This is a minor release with changes intended to address security vulnerabilities with Rails and dependencies.

GitHub link

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