Release schedule:
The Pangea CMS 8.32 release is scheduled for June 4th 2024 at the times listed below:
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
- Prague time: 06:00 am - 07:30 am
- DC / Miami time: 00:00 am - 01:30 am
Voice of America
- DC / Miami time: 02:30 am - 04:00 am
- Prague time: 08:30 am - 10:00 am
Office of Cuba Broadcasting
- DC / Miami time: 04:00 am - 05:00 am
- Prague time: 10:00 am - 11:00 am
LibertyNet
- Prague time: 07:30 am - 08:30 am
- DC / Miami time: 01:30 am - 02:30 am
What's new?
- CMS updates:
- Features to CMS 8:
- Site updates:
New workflow for defining video thumbnails
It's now quicker and easier to define a video thumbnail.
Choose from the following options:
- Video frame: Use a frame from the video file as the thumbnail.
- Website teaser: Use the horizontal website teaser image as the thumbnail.
- Upload image: Upload an image to use as the thumbnail.
The Upload image option is new. Using this option, quickly upload an image from your device to use as the video thumbnail. It is not necessary to manually provide the metadata (such as the Source and Caption). The uploaded image is not searchable in Pangea CMS and cannot be used on other pages.
For more information and detailed instructions, see the following article:
Immediately select a YouTube playlist
If you use the Multimedia distribution tool to send on-demand videos to YouTube, you can now select a YouTube playlist immediately after you select the YouTube account for distribution. The video will be added to the selected YouTube playlist automatically, after it has been processed by YouTube.
Previously, it was not possible to select a YouTube playlist until after the video was processed by YouTube.
See which Video shows will stream to social media
When you manage a video tube using Scheduler & Template week, all shows that will stream to YouTube / Facebook are now highlighted in blue.
This makes it easier for services to check the statuses of up-coming streaming requests.
Instantly switch all widgets on one page to Manual mode
We have brought back the option to instantly switch all widgets on one Section page to Manual mode. This saves time, as you do not need to switch each widget manually.
To instantly switch all widgets to Manual mode:
- Open the Section builder.
- Go to General.
- Select Manual mode.
All widgets that were previously in Auto or Semi-auto mode are now in Manual mode. In Manual mode, the widget content is "frozen" and does not update automatically. This option is useful if your site is no longer producing new content on a particular topic.
Live stream widget to CMS 8
We have migrated the Live stream widget builder to CMS 8.
The Live stream widget lets you stream live video / audio content on the public site. This widget receives input from the Scheduler & Template week tool in Pangea CMS.
For detailed information, see the following article:
Azure Cognitive Search
All public-facing Pangea sites include search functionality, which lets visitors quickly find specific content.
We are currently migrating the search functionality on all public-facing Pangea sites from SharePoint to Azure Cognitive Search. This change is required to comply with FISMA regulations.
Review the sections below for details:
Rollout plan
The rollout will be separated into two waves:
- First wave: Will come with the 8.32 release.
- Second wave: Will come approximately 2-3 weeks after the 8.32 release.
NOTE: The second wave will be release-independent and will not require an outage of Pangea services.
The first wave will include all Pangea services that use the following languages:
- Amharic, Burmese, Chinese (Simplified), Dari, English, Korean, Pashto, Persian, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Urdu
The second wave will include all remaining Pangea services.
Functionality
After migration, you should not notice any significant changes to the basic search functionality. However, small differences are unavoidable when moving to a new search engine. For example, you might notice a slightly different structure for snippets in search results.
If you encounter a major issue that seriously impacts the accessibility of your content, contact Pangea Customer Care. We will do our best to resolve the issue.
Improved layout for the FactCheck widget
We have improved the design and layout of the FactCheck widget. Below, you can see the new and improved layout for LTR (Left-To-Right) sites:
You might notice the following improvements:
- The Verdict icon and Verdict title are now aligned on the left side of the verdict box. This better connects the elements on the widget and makes the content more scannable for the eye.
- The verdict box is now surrounded by a subtle border, which matches the background color for the statement box. This ties the content together and gives the widget a more "complete" look.
These improvements have also been implemented on RTL (Right-To-Left) sites. However, on RTL sites, the Verdict icon and Verdict title are aligned on the right side of the verdict box.