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Andornot Newsletter |
September 2013 |
Fall Greetings!We have a new website design, and a new newsletter to match. We hope you enjoy the larger font size and cleaner, simpler design. It was long overdue, but very welcome. If you're thinking about a re-fresh of your own website, you might enjoy our blog post about our experience. In This Issue
Challenges of using SharePoint for Library ApplicationsKathy has been working with a client to create a SharePoint 2010 site for a new resource library to manage codes, standards and related documents. While she succeeded and the resulting site was well-regarded, she encountered many challenges in using SharePoint for this project, rather than tools such as DB/TextWorks and the Andornot Discovery Interface, for example.
If your organization uses SharePoint or you're facing pressure to move your library resources into this platform, this blog post about Kathy's experience will be helpful. Please always feel free to call us to chat about SharePoint or any other technology you're unsure about. There are also ways for DB/TextWorks or Genie to co-exist with SharePoint, using the advantages of each without the disadvantages. We outlined some ways of doing this in this earlier blog post. Responsive Web Design and AccessibilityIn our web development work, two concepts have become increasingly important to our clients and to us over the past year or two: responsive web design and accessibility. If you're not familiar with these ideas, or your own web sites and applications don't meet current standards for both, read on! Responsive Web DesignResponsive web design is the practice of designing and developing a website that works as well in a desktop browser as on a tablet, smart phone or other size of screen. No matter how the user accesses the site, site elements and features rearrange themselves for best presentation at that size. This might involve hiding some elements or removing functionality that doesn't work well in one environment (such as removing pop-up windows on a phone view). The screenshots below show Andornot's new website as it appears in a desktop browser and on a phone.
As you can see, in the smaller view, the several columns of information are rearranged vertically for easier scrolling, the logo image is smaller, and the menu has collapsed, but is available with a click or touch. To reduce cost and speed up development time, we often use all or part of a framework such as Twitter Bootstrap or Zurb Foundation. Both are excellent, customizable, responsive web frameworks with all the CSS and javascript needed to quickly spin up a site or apply to a web application. ExamplesYou can experience responsive web design for yourself at any of these sites. If you don't have a tablet or phone handy to access them, just resize your desktop web browser to simulate one. As you make your browser narrower, watch how the site responds.
AccessibilityAccessibility refers to making web sites and applications usable by people of all different abilities. This includes people with visual impairments who rely on high contrast or screen reading software to access content, or who use only a keyboard or spoken commands for navigation. In all our web projects, we aim to meet Web Content Accessibility Guideliness (WCAG) 2.0, Level AA standards. Using tools such as the WAVE Toolbar, and careful use of CSS and HTML, it's not too hard to meet these standards, or to get very, very close. It's more challenging when integrating a web application, such as a library catalogue, with an existing website that doesn't meet these standards. Often, though, this is an opportunity to help upgrade the entire site to be accessible to all users. You can read more about a recent accessibility project in this blog post about the Canadian Conservation Institute library, and try out a fully accessible site here: http://library-bibliotheque.cci-icc.gc.ca/en/cci-icc/lib-bib/search-recherche/. Making your website accessible to people where, when and how they want to access it is no longer a luxury or "nice to do if there's time" part of a project. With the tools available, it's often less effort to make a responsive website than a non-responsive one, and with ever more users not sitting at desktop PCs, it's imperative! Andornot would be pleased to evaluate your current website, library catalogue or other web application and advise on how well it meets standards for accessibility and mobile access; just drop us a note and we'll set up a time. Inmagic NewsInmagic DB/Text for SQL and Inmagic WebPublisher PRO version 14 released
Following the release of DB/TextWorks version 14, Inmagic has released the SQL version of DB/TextWorks, as well as WebPublisher PRO version 14. New and enhanced features in WebPublisher PRO 14 include:
New and enhanced features in DB/TextWorks 14 include:
Complete Feature ListsAndornot maintains lists of the features added to each version of DB/TextWorks, WebPublisher PRO and Genie, so you can see what you'll gain by upgrading from your current version to the latest.
If you have a current maintenance subscription but have not received a notification email from Inmagic, please email advantage@inmagic.com with your serial number and email address so it can be resent. Please also remember to let us know if your contact information has changed so we can update our records and pass this on to Inmagic, and to contact us with any questions about upgrading. New Features Coming to Genie Version 3.6
We anticipate a Fall release for this version of Genie. Presto 4.2 Released and 4.3 On Its WayPresto for DB/TextWorks is a powerful and flexible solution for publishing your DB/TextWorks textbases to the Web. Presto for DB/TextWorks allows you to continue to build and maintain your textbase in DB/TextWorks, but publish that content to the Web (Internet or intranets) via a limited version of Inmagic Presto. Presto v 4.2 was released in August with the following enhancements:
Key features that are planned for the next release of Presto (v4.3) include:
If you haven't seen a Presto site before, here are some good examples: Inmagic Newsletter, Blog and WebinarAlthough Andornot shares news with you, there are several ways to keep up to date with Inmagic directly:
Tips and Tricks: Edit Validation Lists through WebPublisher PROOne of the features we're particularly interested in from the recent release of WebPublisher PRO is the ability to edit validation lists through a web browser. Validation lists are useful for fields such as Publisher and Subjects in a library catalogue, where it's faster and more accurate to select terms from a list than to type them in each time. Inevitably over time typos and incorrect terms get added to lists. In particular, with Inmagic Genie, it's quite easy to add new terms to lists as you save a record, but the only way to clean up the validation lists is through DB/TextWorks. As Genie is web based, many Genie users have limited access to DB/TextWorks, so we recommend that Genie users upgrade to WebPublisher PRO version 14 to take advantage of this new feature. The screenshot below shows the interface for editing the Publisher field in the Genie Catalog.
This new feature is available after upgrading to WebPublisher PRO 14, but must be configured - instructions are available in the ReadMe file included with WebPublisher PRO 14. Please contact us for help upgrading to version 14 and enabling this feature. Tweets: Round-up of Library, Archive and Museum News
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Key features that are being targeted for the next release of 
