Release Schedule
- Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.:
- Tue, 5th October 2021 07:00 am Prague time (01:00 am D.C. time)
- LibertyNet:
- Tue, 5th October 2021 08:30 Prague time (02:30 am D.C. time)
- Tue, 5th October 2021 08:30 Prague time (02:30 am D.C. time)
Table of contents
- Video Upload BETA in Pangea CMS 8
- Video Edit BETA Page in Pangea CMS 8
- The New Player on the Manual Stream Page
- Change Position and Time of the Snackbars Notifications in Pangea CMS 8
- CMS 8 Article Edit Page - Comments and Preview Improvements
New Features
1. Video Upload BETA in Pangea CMS 8
A new video upload BETA page in Pangea CMS 8 is being introduced in this next release.
All users in Pangea CMS 8 who have rights to work with videos will be able to use the new video upload BETA from any page in Pangea CMS using the primary navigation.
Last year an experimental video upload page was created and enabled for those RFE/RL services which had been experiencing problems with uploading videos using the old video upload page to improve their upload speed and performance.
In this release the experimental option of the video upload is being discontinued and the new video upload BETA page in Pangea CMS 8 is brought in its stead.
Once an editor clicks on the Video BETA item in the navigation, a dialog for the the video upload BETA opens and it is then possible to upload one or more videos to Pangea CMS. Editors can select which videos are uploaded by browsing their files, or simply drag-and-dropping them to the upload dialog.
After a video file is selected, the upload starts and a video edit page is created and opened in the same modal. It is possible to finish filling out all needed metadata through this new dialog window and the video page will be published once it is successfully uploaded.
Depending on the preferred workflow of any given service, it is also possible to leave the page without any change, in which case the upload will continue and the video edit page will be created in a draft status with the basic metadata taken from the file itself.
In case multiple video files are selected, they will be uploaded in the background and the editor can track their progress via the Upload Status manager and notifications in Pangea CMS 8.
The upload status manager is displayed only for the editor who uploaded the video files. There it is possible to track the upload status and, if needed, enter the video edit page, cancel the upload, or remove the file from the list, provided the upload has not started yet.
Once all selected video files are successfully uploaded, the Upload Status Manager disappears and all files can be found among regular main search results' page. This allows an editor to see the status of all their videos that are being uploaded in the moment directly on main search results' page in Pangea CMS.
2. Video Edit BETA Page in Pangea CMS 8
Along with the new video upload BETA, the new video BETA edit page for Pangea CMS 8 is also being introduced in this Release 8.11. An editor can access the video edit BETA page when uploading a video file using the new video upload BETA page or from the main search result page, in case they wish to edit an already created video edit page.
The left hand menu of the new video edit BETA page is split into Settings and Preview options, each of which has its individual parts. The Settings section is divided into 9 parts: Video; General; Multimedia Distribution; Website Teaser; Social Media; Authors; Tags; Comments; and Encoded Files.
Editors can easily navigate through the sidebar navigation by clicking on the particular item they wish to edit.
Video Settings
In the Video Settings part of the page, it is possible to work with the video settings such as the new preview player, apply watermark (previously called logo), set the screenshot time, or select, whether to use a teaser image as a poster instead. This is also the part where an editor can choose, whether to have a download link available on the published version of the video.
If upload fails or the editor needs to reupload the file (e.g. change it for an update version of the video), they can can do so by clicking on the Replace button and the new video upload BETA will open.
When an editor wishes to share a video, they can click on the Embed button and the embed code will be copied to their clipboard. It is then possible to share the embed code of the video anywhere that is needed.
General Settings
In the general settings part is where editors can add all necessary metadata for the video to be published.
All of the standard metadata information is included in this part: Title, Status (Published/Draft/Edited), Publication date and time, Introduction, Slug, selection of Categories to which the video should belong, as well as Content.
Multimedia Distribution
Similar to the previous video edit page, the new video edit page will also have the possibility to distribute a video file to any of already setup social media accounts linked to Youtube or Facebook.
To distribute the video file, the video edit page needs to have all the mandatory fields filled in, be published (or in the publish status before publishing) and the video has to be successfully uploaded. Once all of this is fulfilled, the editor can select the account to which they wish to distribute the files, and then confirm it by clicking on the Save button.
Once the video file has been distributed to the account, a list of available playlist options will be appear. The editor can select a playlist from the drop down menu and confirm by hitting the Apply button.
It is also possible to cancel the distribution, as well as update or remove the file from the social account in case there is any change in the video edit page.
If an editor makes some changes in metadata or replaces the file, they can replace the file also on the his accounts by todo
Encoding Files
For those editors who have the sufficient rights and wish to have all the relevant information about the encoding of the video file encoding, there is the encoding files table, which bring this information on the video edit page. There is it possible to review the status, dimensions, size, and ID of different encoded versions of the video, as well as select the download or play the versions stored on both local storage (i.e. Pangea servers) and Akamai (what the public will see).
Miscellaneous
In order to send a video to Direct for it to be shown on a direct application https://www.usagmdirect.com/, one can go to the Miscellaneous and choose from the drop down menu.
In this part, it is also possible to find the URL of the video page, which you can grab and use anywhere to share at any webpage.
Preview
If an editor makes changes and wants to know how the content will look after saving and publishing, they can go to the Preview and see how the content will be presented to viewers and readers. It is possible to preview different device types based on whether the content will be displayed on desktop, tablet, or a mobile device. When in the preview mode, a editor is not allowed to make any changes to the content.
For the time being, the new view edit BETA page does not yet have the following features:
- multimedia sharing
- video trimming
- video cloning
- autosave
- related content
Pangea Digital continues to work on these features and we aim to bring them in upcoming releases.
3. The New Player on the Manual Stream Page
The new player that is implemented in the new video edit BETA page has also been utilised on the manual stream page. It's possible to play and stop a video, change volume, mute, and use a full screen.
4. Change Position and Time of the Snackbars Notifications in Pangea CMS 8
With the new video upload BETA, the snackbars notifications started to overlay the header with upload manger icon and notifications. Due to this, the notification have been moved to the right corner for the desktop users and to the bottom of the page for tablet and mobile users.
To keep the notification in place for longer time, one only needs to click the mouse over the notification (snackbar). When that happens, the notification remains in place. Otherwise the notifications disappear after 5 sec.
5. CMS 8 Article Edit Page - Comments and Preview Improvements
Comments Improvements on the Article Edit Page
As part of the user experience improvements there is a new approach for comments on the article edit page. In case Pangea Comments are not enabled, the whole panel becomes disabled.
If an editor closes commenting on a content edit page in Pangea CMS, system should set the expiration day to the day and hour of closing, and disable the ability to change the expiration date for the editor.
The order of the comment settings has also been re-ordered to make the setting of the expiration date easier.
Preview Improvement on the Article Edit Page
Same as with the Video edit Beta page, there are improvements to the preview functionality on Article edit page.
In case an editor makes changes and wants to know how the content will look after saving and publishing it, they can go to the Preview and see how the content will be presented to viewers and readers.
It is possible to preview different device types based on whether the content will be displayed on desktop, tablet, or a mobile device. The default version of preview is set to desktop.
When in the preview mode, a editor is not allowed to make any changes to the content.