What's new in Sophora?

Release 1.38 features many improvements for Sophora editors and two new add ons adressing large-scale installations.

Integrated Preview: Navigation and Skip to Teaser Changes

We added “Next” and “Back” buttons to Sophoras’s  integrated browser window so that editors can easily navigate the preview pages. Sophora’s preview now enables editors to use buttons to quickly skip to teaser changes. We also improved the overall user experience by automatically loading preview pages in the background.

Dynamic Tables: Fast Creation of Entries Helps Feeding Live Tickers or Writing News Blogs

We added a form to Sophora’s unique “Dynamic Tables” to quickly create new entries. This feature has been long awaited by editors who us Dynamic Tables to update live tickers or news blogs.

More features were added. The height of table rows can be configured. Also, Sophora-IDs can be put in textually (“reference fields”) and text can be linked.

And many more …

• Sophora automatically saves documents locally. If the DeskClient shuts down unexpectedly, saved versions of the documents can be recovered after restarting the DeskClient;
• Sophora IDs can be entered textually (not only by drag and drop), eg. when editing the website’s structure;
• enlarged tool tips for images;
• alternative to the view „Component Details“: edit the component’s details in a small dialogue to be opened from the component’s menu;
• text links in rich text field; eg. Teasers;
• use shortcuts to copy, cut and paste in the view “Component Structure”;
• handling of „Publish at“ In the dialogue “Publish with“ was improved;
• Bookmarks: improved usability by combining columns;
• DeskClient scripts can now change copy text too;
• document lock dialogue and breaking locks was updated technically to handle the increasing number of lock situations in a unified way.

Add-on „Teletext“: Creating Teletext Pages from any Sophora Document

We improved Sophora’s Add-on “Teletext”.  Now it is possible to use any Sophora document to create teletext pages. Editors can drag and drop (web) articles to the teletext slot range. The teletext page can be set up to update automatically, whenever the source document is changed. The new feature allows for more flexible options modeling documents and for enhanced multichannel-workflows. The feature is enabled by the means of server scripting. You’ll find an example script in Sophora’s documentation.

New Add-on „Data Store“

Sophora’s add on „Data Store“ efficiently stores images and other binary files in a central database or in the file system. The add on ensures that all files are stored only once, so that file space is reduced and backup is simplified. The add-on detects duplicates based on the binary file. As a result, cloned or copied image documents that remain unchanged are stored only once, even when their referenced in several Sophora documents.

New Add-on „High-availability Cluster“ (First Installment)

For large scale Sophora installations. The first installment of new Add-on „High-availability Cluster“ ensures the continuation of content creation in the case of planned updates or an unlikely crash of Sophora’s master server. With the add on „High-availability Cluster“ nightly updates are a thing of the past.

This is the first version of the add on that will be further tested and improved in upcoming minor releases. Please contact subshell, if you plan to use the Add-on in a live environment.

The scripts add functionality to the Deskclient’s toolbar. One of the first usages is the Deskclient script “Related Content”.  “Related Content” enables Sophora editors to easily select which documents should be displayed along with a document by automatically starting a search for related content. Criteria can be based on tags or other metadata.

Some other examples of what can be accomplished with Sophora's Deskclient scripts include: copy content from field X to field Y, word count, extract tags from copy text, and send text to a translation server.

Time Based Publishing With Cron Expressions

As of Sophora 1.37, documents can be published periodically at certain times or dates. Use cases include the scheduling of the daily publication (and de-publication) of documents at certain hours and the publication (and de-publication) of certain documents on each weekend in a certain month. Administrators use the well-known Cron syntax to configure custom life cycles.

New Document Statuses "Pre-published" and "Scheduled"

Sophora’s Release 1.37 features two new statuses "Pre-published" and "Scheduled". The status “Pre-published” is subshell’s answer to the growing demand of synching processes on several separate systems. For example, videos are often managed in Sophora by using proxy documents that refer to the actual video files on dedicated servers. Publishing a proxy video document in Sophora starts the staging of the video files to the streaming servers. This can take a while. During this time, the status of the proxy video document in Sophora is set to “Pre-published”, which cannot be changed by editors manually. Once the video files are available to viewers on the streaming server, Sophora automatically publishes the proxy video document and changes its status to “Published”.

Write-Protect Documents, Copytext, Dynamic Tables, and Components

Entire documents, copy text, dynamic tables and components can now be individually write-protected by editors so that write access must be activated before editing or changing content. This new feature can be used to make sure that critical content is not changed hastily by mistake and to exclude specific content from otherwise wanted automatic updates by Sophora’s importer.

Solr Inside

Apache Solr can now be used for Sophora’s internal search too. Sophora clients can choose between JCR search and the all-new Solr search. (JCR-based search will still be supported for a limited time.)

And much more ... 

• Timeline Scrolling just got more comfortable. Editors can use the mouse wheel to horizontally scroll in the view “Time Scheduling” by pressing (and holding) SHIFT. 
• Better preview handling! Editors can quickly reopen the preview via a new Deskclient toolbar button or the main menu. This is helpful when editors want to close Sophora’s built-in preview to temporarily make room for other applications on their desktop. 
• More information about components available. The DeskClient view “Component Structure” now displays the component’s attributes as well.
• Selecting values is more user friendly. Icons can, as of Sophora 1.37, be displayed in select values as shown by the following screen shot:

Release: 1.37 11/2012 | For more details, please refer to the official Release Notes in subshell's Extranet.

2. Multichannel Preview

While multichannel publishing is built into Sophora’s DNA, we still find ways to enhance the experience. Now Sophora’s built-in preview can be connected to an unlimited number of different preview URLs independently from any playout channel. So for example editors can easily switch between web and mobile previews.

3. Boxes in Boxes

Sophora is one of the few Content Management Systems that can handle “hierarchical” documents, meaning documents that include components. Now Sophora is even further ahead of the competition by making it possible for editors to manage an unbound number of nested boxes in the DeskClient's “Component Structure”. Furthermore it is possible to override nested boxes of a referenced document. 

Release: 1.36 10/2012 | For more details, please refer to the official Release Notes in subshell's Extranet.