7.17 Release Highlights

About

The Release 7.17 of Pangea system will bring improvements to existing features as well as the new solutions based on a feedback from our users. We would like to present all components we have been recently working on.

Adaptive bitrate video on-demand using MPEG-DASH beta

To further improve video consumption user experience on our websites, 7.17 release brings the adaptive bitrate using MPEG-DASH technology. MPEG-DASH is a new adaptive bitrate delivery method that has already become an industry standard and its goal is to improve delivery of video content to our users with best user experience based on users network bandwidth. In practice, adaptive bitrate will help our users save their data plans as users watching video using high bandwidth network will receive higher quality video and vice versa.

​Keep in mind that delivery of video on-demand using MPEG-DASH is still in beta version and our team is cooperating with selected services for testing, before MPEG-DASH is fully deployed for all entities.

RFE/RL Contributors

In order to help RFE/RL finance department with keeping record of contributions done by RFE/RL freelancers and contractors, Pangea CMS is bringing a new feature called contributors. When a new item is created in Pangea CMS (Articles, Videos, Photogalleries, Liveblog ,Factcheck, Quiz, Poll, Audio Clips, Interview, Discussion).

If a contributor is selected, the name of contributor and title of the content is shared with finance department allowing for the proper calculation of payroll for that person. The list of contributors is based on authors and photographers that have a Contributor ID assigned in Pangea System. If you need a Contributor ID please contact RFE/RL finance department.

If you are a freelancer or contractor, you are required to to fill the contributor field.

Contributors are used only internally. A contributor is never displayed on the front end of the website.

Published video – notifications

The new notification for published videos allows users to get a better overview regarding the video production of a particular site. User will be able to choose to be notified whenever a video is published on their site, so they can have a clear idea about the site's video publications and promote the recently published videos on social networks. You will be notified both about published videos that are manually uploaded, and the ones that are recorded by Pangea (Live TV Shows). If you wish to modify this behaviour, please let us know, so that we can adjust the settings based on your needs.

To subscribe to these notifications, simply go to your user profile on the desired site (Administration -> User Management -> Manage Users), and select the method of notifications when Video is published. You can choose between email, Pangea message, or both. In the body of notification there will be: Title + Link to Site, Name of Uploader, Publication Date & Time. The notifications are disabled as the default option. Please note that the notifications are valid per user per site, so if you have access to multiple sites, you need to enable the notifications on each of them.

Poll improvements

In the Pangea 7.17 release we are continuing with improvements of the Poll content type, to make the use of Poll more flexible and satisfying.

We have enabled adding Poll to You May Also Like widget, as well as to Slide-In widget, so if you want to get your audiences opinion, it can be more interactive.

Another feature added to increase the accuracy of Polls is the option to display the number of votes, and the option to adjust the format of numbers for results (decimal points). If you would like to modify the way the numbers or percentage points display on your site, please let us know.

Live Stream in Live Blog

To make coverage on live ongoing events easier, we have improved the functionality of Live Shows in Live Blog. The combination of Live TV and blog posts should keep you up to date and give these events much needed context. Now you can even attach a live stream show from other site (providing previous agreement) as well as copy a Live Blog with live stream from other site.

To add a live event TV coverage to your Live Blog, a TV shows needs to be set up in your Video Scheduler. This show can be then attached to Live Blog via the "Add Live Show" functionality. When the show is live, the main image will be replaced automatically with the player streaming the show. After the live TV coverage is over, the main image will be put back on the top of the page – automatically as well.

RFE/RL: Add Sites by Region to the header as VOA

In the last release, we created the Site by region page (/navigation/allsites) which is used by RFE/RL. To make it more accessible to website visitors, we have moved the link to the page to the top left part of the header. The goal is to allow users to explore all the websites that the RFE/RL has and give an idea of the countries that RFE/RL covers.

Configuration Keys

Small images in article content types

Since the beginning of responsive design, all images have been displaying large even they were set up as small in CKEditor.

After Pangea Release 7.17 image size on the front end will correspond with the settings of all images put through CKEditor as Embedded content in an article.

In CKeditor, we have updated Image Settings Popup by setting large size as default value for a newly embedded image. We have also added a new drop down menu for setting images to be open in a new tab for any external link or in the same tab for a internal link.

Header layout in tablet view

There is a trend of services adding more social networks buttons to the header and crosslinks to other sites. We have therefore reviewed how the header will display on tablet devices and made some adjustments to make sure that the layout will work properly regardless of the number of items displayed.
If there are a lot of social follow-us buttons or toggle buttons with long text in a page header the items will display only if there is enough space. If the space is limited, some of the items on table view won't display in the following order:

1. Sites by region
2. Login
3. Toggle links
4. Social buttons

We strongly recommend that services double check their page header in a tablet view and evaluate whether to start using shorter names for toggle buttons (for example link to a Russian version of the site to use "RU") or shorter amount of social network in the header.

Social Share Counter

Based on the requests of our editors, we have implemented the counters for social networks.
The Social Networks that support counters are:

• Facebook
• GooglePlus
• VKontakte
• Odnoklassniki
• Pinterest

How the counter works? Once the item has been shared via one of the social network mentioned above, the page will display the number of shares per a social network. If there are more than thousand sharing, the page will display "K". The letter "K" can be localized.

​If you want to set up social share counter on all content pages, you should translate localization keys if needed and please, contact our Customer Care to set up the Counter for a site.

Localisation Keys

LINE for sharing

We have received requests from our services to provide them with the option to use LINE for sharing, which will now be available after this release.

If a service wants to set up LINE sharing, it needs to localize the keys mentioned below, the sharing option is available to all platforms (mobile/ tablet/ desktop).

Configuration Keys

Libertynet

We have launched the new responsive design for the LibertyNet site which serves as the RFE/RL Intranet. The page is only for registered members and we launched the LibertyNet site fully https.

Membership: new configuration keys for the Sign up page

A Sign-up page is for registration of a new page member. Currently, we use membership only for comments and for a RFE/RL intranet LibertyNet site.

We created new configuration keys for a sign up pages.

Configuration Keys

RFE/RL: Jobs Page for LibertyNet

RFE/RL is using a jobs publisher when promoting a new job position that is available in the radio. A few releases ago, we have introduced the new responsive pages which promote jobs positions for general public. In the Pangea Release 7.17 we are introducing a version of these pages which will be used for RFE/RL LibertyNet (Intranet) and thus accessible for employees only.

Configuration Keys

Calendar for no JavaScript Pages

There are some web users who visit pages on devices which use proxy or their devices do not support javascripts (js) . We have been improving the user experience of the calendar for devices that not support JaveScript.

Change font size of comments in the Latest Comments widget

We have received a request to decrease font size for comments in the Latest Comments widget. We changed the font for comments from "m" to "s" for all sites, excluding the Maghreb where we kept the font size "m".

Paragraphs in reader comments

Based on the requests from services that we received, we have improved the user experience when using comments. After the new release, if a user types an enter, we will display a line break </br>. If the user taps enter twice, this will display itself as a new paragraph in the comment. We believe this will help make the comments easier to read and thus improve the overall experience.

Broadcasting pages

We have some updates for Broadcasting pages. The primary changes are bringing the content from Waves, Satellite, Schedule, Programs to a new page called the broadcast page.
This page aggregates all information regarding broadcasting, making it easier for users to find information.
Administrators are also able change order of tabs by the very first key listed in the following table:

Related to Broadcasting pages is All site list

Due to adding more paths for our audience we also added shortcuts into All site list. In this list you can newly find Radio / TV links which are showing automatically based on primary config key for enabling the navigation menu Radio / TV. But we noticed that it might happen that some services do not want to promote broadcasting on All site list. In such a case that service can hide this offer on site through the following config keys.

HTTPS Status

Pangea Digital Team has been working to switch all sites to be fully https. We are switching the sites per entity and here is the list of entities with the current status:

• MBN – done
• RFE/RL - currently in process
• OCB
• VOA

Pangea Source

Pangea Source is a news agency aggregating tool designed for RFE/RL to help journalists to remain up-to-date on the latest news from prestigious agencies, developed with the latest technology so you can access it anywhere anytime. https://source.pangea-cms.com/.

One Login

Source works with Azure (Microsoft Technology), meaning that the same login you use for the RFE/RL corporate e-mail is the same login you will use to access Source, this means one less password to remember.

Updates in this release

• Better Performance: We have improved the stability and performance of the application, by new implementation of new search engine called Solar. Now search results display much faster and the load time of the page has improve dramatically.
• We have also implemented new date refiners so now users can search news with specific dates.
• Central Newsroom CNR source now supports Audio and Features content coming from Octopus

The application provides content from over 40 agencies around the world, it unifies all content parsed from emails, pdf, doc and HTML into a beautiful interface, where journalists can consume the content.

If you have would to provide us with any feedback on how to improve this product through any new features, please let us know by accessing our Customer Care portal.

Direct

Email notifications

The newest feature to be added after this release are the automatic email notifications which will be sent to affiliates during the registration or leaving process. All the newly registered will receive a welcome email after confirming the registration with proper Direct branding. This design was inherited also by other emails like Approval confirmation email (to be send after the affiliate was approved by Regional administrator), Declining email as well as the Deleted account email.

Administrator notes

In this release, we are improving the transfer of information among the administrators of Direct. After this release when an administrator disapproves a user or an affiliate, they will have an option to add comments with reasons as to why they were disapproved. This should lower the possibility of an unwanted affiliate being approve due to miscommunication between past and future administrators.

Re-approving disapproved users

Related to Administrator notes we have also added the possibility for administrators to "re-approve" user that were previously declined. Every administrator is now able to “re-approve” any firstly declined user in the Pending approval part. This will eliminate the need for the users to re-register again after being declined, which should improve the user experience.

Under “View detail” administrator can find the information about the reason of first decline. Notes from the declining step will be deleted after re-approval as there is no need to keep such information for a valid affiliate.

Graphics are live again

After the release of RFE/RL graphics as new content type on Direct we had to close this part for few weeks due to inconsistencies in graphics database. We are happy to announce that we were able to find another solution and this feature is functional again thanks to the fact that the Photo editors team are validating photos now. If users are interested in pushing photos to Direct, you can contact RFE/RL Photo editors team who have the rights to do it, provided the legal requirements are fulfilled.