Release Notes - Publications

Milestone: May 07, 2025

  • To remain in compliance with 508 web accessibility standards, changes were made to ensure tab order matches visual order: removed the #portal-advanced-search link, the hidden sitemap link in the navigation portlet header, and the hidden list on recurring Event pages.
  • Styling changes were made to ensure visual focus is present for all components, to remain in compliance with 508 web accessibility standards. select2 dropdowns will be updated in a future Plone upgrade.
  • Formatting on the Change Ownership page available to site administrators was modified to a sortable data table.
  • Button alignment and ordering was made more consistent on multiple forms and modals across the site (mainly those available to editors, event creators, and site administrators).
  • The user experience was improved for the create and edit forms for Groups.
  • In accordion headers, a bug that prevented spaces from appearing in the WYSIWYG preview in some cases was resolved.
  • Packages used for development were modernized: ruff, towncrier, pytest, and hatch.
  • A widget render template was added to use the Boostrap 5 input group.
  • In the ims.migrations requirement, replace plone.app.changeownership with ims.changeownership.
  • Added a script to verify all packages can be python imported.
  • Themes were updated with ruff/pytest/biome.
  • Upgraded imsplone to version 4.0.

Milestone: Apr 02, 2025

  • Changed the behavior of the Convert to Login.gov alert to send a regular re-link email, allowing the user to change the login service and re-activate their account in one action.
  • Added functionality to save data entered into forms in localStorage automatically before it has been submitted, to prevent work from being lost when a user's session has ended.
  • Removed the IMS Login Service Retirement warning, now that the IMS Login Service is retired and it should not show to any users.
  • Added more detailed and accurate information to the user feedback provided during the Import Multiple Users form dryrun.
  • Modified the import Contacts functionality to not add values for the groups or categories dropdown when the value to be imported is only associated with a user who will not be imported due to already existing in the Contacts.
  • For privacy, added an idle timeout warning when the user has not been active on the current screen for 20 or more minutes.
  • Added bootstrap styling to the buttons and inputs on the Publish and Delete Working Copy forms for the checkout portals.
  • In accordion headers, fixed a browser-specific bug where the placeholder text would re-appear in the WYSIWYG when the user-entered string ending in a space character.
  • Added member webscan to the ims.webscan package, disabled all emails using the setting in ims.users @@mail-protection, and created a whitelist to not delete developer/webscan users.
  • Updated the ims.contacts refactor.

Milestone: Mar 05, 2025

  • In the WYSIWYG editor, the user can no longer exit an accordion header without providing a text value for the header.
  • Color contrast was increased on form-scope errors lists to be in compliance with 508 web accessibility requirement standards.
  • Added information to the IMS user login service report.
  • Modified restrictions to access the Collaborative Help Portal so that site editors can also access the "Help" link from the toolbar.
  • Added the External Link Checker report to allow site administrations to scan their website for the response code of user-added links on the portal.
  • Changed the permission needed to unpublish content on checkout (public) sites from the Contents view of a folder from "Modify portal content" to "Review portal content". This was already in the checkout sites policy but was not being respected.
  • Modified the IMS Login Service retirement alert warning for IMS Login Service users to specify that the Login service will be retired on April 2nd.
  • When graylog is down, a notification will now be sent and will write to disk.
  • Images and SBOMs were added to harbor and Dependancy Track, respectively, for the Publications portals.
  • Added automatic versioning for internal releases and a robust changelog system.

Milestone: Feb 05, 2025

  • On public sites, show reactivate and disabled login warnings (hid them in the January deployment), because these show for linked users.
  • On Users never Logged In report, added wording when there are 0 users who have not logged in.
  • On the WYSIWYG content editor, added the "Help" modal as one of the options under the View menu.
  • Fixed a bug that caused some 404 pages to render incorrectly.
  • To remediate a minor issue identified in a routine security scan, validated the sort parameter passed into the URL on the sortable folder display.
  • Added help text to indicate the 3GB per file size limit on the Contents folder view Upload modal.
  • Added a parameter to imsplone to specify a date of a backup for recovery scenarios.
  • Updated biopython, upgraded cconf, cryptography, python-tss-sdk
  • Upgraded to Plone 6.0.14.

Milestone: Jan 08, 2025

  • Added .lead styling to introduction paragraphs on Site Settings pages where applicable.
  • Modified some <div>s and <span>s to paragraph elements for semantic meaning/better accessibility.
  • On the Add File form, added note about 3GB file size limit, instructions for uploading very large files, field level error when size limit is exceeded, and show a loading indicator modal while file is loading.
  • Fixed problem that was preventing the Group membership by User report from exporting.
  • Removed 'Log only' option from ims.squish, writing to preview.squishlist.com instead.

Milestone: Dec 11, 2024

  • Added an expand all/collapse all accordions control on any page that has an accordion.
  • Prevented a bug on public sites in which users who were logged in on non-Plone sites on the same domain received an authenticated-but-unauthorized warning when accessing public portals that do not require user authentication.
  • For the Import Multiple Users functionality: made email and last name a requirement for each valid user to be added, changed instructions/wording.
  • Changed the database cleanup section to keep at least two full backups and delete any others older than 14 days.
  • Added "has upgrade step" to deployment page.

Milestone: Nov 06, 2024

  • On the folder Contents view, simplified the options available under Columns.
  • Moved the unpublished links warning from the toolbar to an alert on the relevant page (with editor permissions needed to view the alert).
  • Added an Import Multiple Users feature to the Site Setup Users page.
  • Changed the portal type behaviors setting from the interface path to the behavior name.
  • Upgraded to Plone version 6.0.13.
  • Fixed ordering on multi-select fields on Contacts, Contact Folders, and Contact Displays, and fix searching on the contact folder "display fields" options.
  • Hid the byline when there is no creator value to display.
  • Improved formatting of the groups column when multiple groups appear for one user on the Group Membership by User report.
  • Fixed wording on the Add Contact form.
  • For pub.tools, add fall backs and warning emails when journals can't be accessed on startup.
  • Eliminated issues with certain dropdowns in which search items added are still shown as selection options.

Milestone: Oct 03, 2024

  • Improved user experience of the Sharing view with updated wording and spacing.
  • Updated sections of the Plone Help documentation: Reports & Analytics, Users & Groups, Site Setup / Site Administrators, Calendar & Events
  • Added functionality to allow IMS Login Service Users to convert their account to Login.gov by clicking a button and logging in.
  • Added functionality to handle users who authenticate with a Login.gov account that is not linked to a portal account. If the email address used to sign in to Login.gov matches an email address on an existing IMS Login Service user on the portal account, allow the user to link their Login.gov account to the portal account, thereby switching their authentication method to Login.gov.
  • Removed the "Add from contact" option on the Add New User form to make these types completely distinct and reworded instructions on the Contact form.
  • Added a new Content Statistics report under the Reports and Analytics section of Site Setup that allows filtering by state, to replace the existing content listing page which had misleading counts of items based on item state and type.
  • Correct "Delete comment and replies" warning condition so that it triggers when one or more replies exist, instead of two or more.
  • On the Events page, change the "View Calendar" subnavigation item to "Calendar".
  • Improve the layout of the Insert Image modal.
  • Minor alignment improvement of sort control arrows/column headers on data tables.
  • Modify Calendar view "Event Type" options to responsively change the number of columns based on screen size.
  • Modify the bylines for site-wide search results to be more readable and concise.
  • On the zip archive page, added an explanation of the Windows Path Size Limit.
  • On the Contents folder view, increased the width of the "Delete selected items" modal.
  • Added the "- disabled" label to users who haven't logged in for 2 years on the GroupSpace Roles, Local Roles, Group Membership by Group, Group Membership by User, and User Access Log reports.
  • Fixed the validation check for matching password and confirm-password on folder encryption.
  • Adjusted Member permissions on root for internal IMS demo site.

Milestone: Sep 11, 2024

  • Disabled users (users who have not logged in for 2 years) Groups, Sharing, and Groupspaces pages will be indicated to privileged users in with the note "-disabled".
  • Removed now-redundant whitelist check for ims.subscriptions.
  • Combined the Past Events, Upcoming Event, and Calendar links into a navbar on the Events page.
  • Added a confirmation modal when discussion comments are deleted, including a note that replies to the comment will also be deleted.
  • Added graceful error handling when there is an attempt to delete locked content by showing an alert instead of an error.
  • Increased font size in subscriptions emails.
  • Modified color of checkboxes to be darker for higher contrast and increased visibility.
  • On the folder Contents view, patched a bug that caused forms inside of modals to redirect within the modal, instead of redirecting the entire page.
  • Improved the alignment of Event Type checkbox options on the Calendar page.
  • Removed email address links from Groupspace members modal. These email links in their existing form were blocked by most browsers, and this information is available on the page under the "Email group" button.

Milestone: Aug 07, 2024

  • On the Users page, a loading indicator will display while user deletion is in progress.
  • After 7 hours and 45 minutes of being logged in to the portal, a user will be prompted with a modal explaining their login session is about to end with options to renew their login session or close the modal.
  • Protections to ensure emails generated during development are not sent to portal users were made more robust.
  • To meet 508 accessibility compliance, the default color of text, links, and breadcrumbs were adjusted to #142326, #006ebc, and #edeced respectively. This change does not impact portals with custom themes.
  • The responsiveness for tabs was improved, so they display better at smaller screen sizes.
  • Alignment of pagination controls was made consistent.
  • Instructions were rewritten for clarity on the Contents view of folders.
  • Combined the @@recent_modifications and @@recently_modified pages into one Modified Items paginated list.
  • Improved functionality of the Personal Subscriptions and Settings form.
  • Display the admin_cron and other "admin_" users as "imsadmin" in bylines.
  • Added a default accessibility policy page to be linked in site footers when applicable. Email address is the site "Reply to address", configured on the Basic Site Settings page.
  • Improvements were made to the imsplone recovery process.

Milestone: Jul 17, 2024

  • Updated the content byline and folder listing bylines to only show last modifier.
  • Bylines that included admin_* as the modifier or creator were replaces with IMS Administrator.
  • The contact search/filter options were updated to have a more compact layout.
  • Adding a single file now presents an info alert with instructions for adding multiple files.
  • Some minor help suggestions were added to the description of rich text fields.

Milestone: Jun 26, 2024

  • Upgraded to Plone 6
  • Upgraded to TinyMCE 5.10
  • Frontend converted to Bootstrap 5
  • Contacts look and feel slightly updated
  • A new Status field is used for user accounts to allow them to be active, inactive, or disabled. Accounts are automatically inactivated after 90 days and disabled after 2 years of inactivity. Site admins can also opt to disable accounts instead of deleting them.
  • The users overview page has been overhauled to implement the new Status field

Milestone: Mar 21, 2024

  • Made several small changes for accessibility

Milestone: Mar 08, 2024

  • It is now possible for users to be deactivated instead of deleting them. Additionally, accounts can be flagged as service accounts.The Users page has been considerably overhauled to support this.

Milestone: Mar 01, 2024

  • Links to files in user generated pages will contain extension and file size in the link, if they direct to a file in the site.

Milestone: Feb 16, 2024

  • Updated the design of several report pages
  • Minor design changes for all themes
  • Removed the content type info in File views
  • Display File size and extension in user created content Pages
  • Fixed the allowed roles in the Simplified Sharing Page

Milestone: Feb 09, 2024

  • Fixed a display issue with File view pages.
  • Minor visual changes to contact folder and display pages.
  • Added a "back to top" link when scrolling below the top of pages.
  • Changed the requirement for displaying the History page on content. This primarily affects a few cases where it was not previously displayed for Site Administrators.
  • The Album View for folders will now display non-images in a list beneath the gallery.

Milestone: Feb 02, 2024

  • Updated the interface for copy emails to clipboard buttons
  • Fixed an issue with deleting images in the editor

Milestone: Mar 21, 2023

  • Updated the WYSIWYG editor, incorporating a switch from LaTex to MathJax for rendering mathematical equations.

Milestone: Mar 08, 2023

  • Performed minor updates to features on the WYSIWYG editor and the content edit history.