2.13.0

New Features

MetacatUI 2.13.0 introduces several new exciting features!

EML 2.2.0 support 🎉

EML 2.2.0 metadata documents can now be edited in the MetacatUI dataset editor!

EML 2.1.1 documents will be automatically upgraded to EML 2.2.0 when they are updated in the dataset editor.

Support for new EML 2.2.0 features (e.g. semantic annotations) will be introduced in later versions of MetacatUI.

Register dataset citations with DataONE 💬

Repositories that are registered with DataONE can now register citations in MetacatUI.

Easier markdown editing in the portal builder ✏️

The Freeform pages in the Portal Builder now show a button toolbar above the markdown/content textarea, so people can click buttons to format their Markdown text, rather than type Markdown syntax directly.

This also includes a handy image inserter button, which uploads an image to the repository and inserts it into the Markdown!

Static maps are now configurable 🌎

The style of Google maps on dataset landing pages are now configurable so you can match the colors to your repository branding and customize the zoom level for your data.

Configuration options:

• Bounding box fill color
• Bounding box stroke color
• Zoom level

Improved layout for repository profiles

The repository profiles now use the Portal layout. (This is primarily an improvement for the DataONE theme of MetacatUI.)

If a repository hosts replica metadata documents, the number of replicas will be shown in the profile.

Bug Fixes

• .csv files uploaded in Windows were incorrectly assigned an MS Excel format ID. #930
• Fixed dataset JSON-LD schema.org errors #1440
• Map filter was erronesouly applied to the search page sometimes, causing datasets to effectively be hidden unless the Clear All Filters button was clicked. #1455

Notes for developers

• New configuration options in 2.13.0:

  • dataoneSearchUrl
  • datasetMapFillColor
  • datasetMapPathColor
  • datasetMapZoomLevel
  • editorSerializationFormat
  • editorSchemaLocation

• The MetacatUI JSDoc documentation can now include the custom @screenshot tag, which will insert a screenshot image into the documentation HTML. This is useful for showing examples of Views. Example: RegisterCitationView

2.12.0

New features

Replace data files in the dataset editor

Click "Replace" next to any file in the dataset editor to replace a file in the dataset while keeping all of its metadata intact. (#653)

Improved app configuration

MetacatUI can now be configured by supplying an appConfigPath in index.html that points to a configuration file. The configuration file contains all of the custom options for your MetacatUI deployment.

Why is this better?

• Upgrading MetatcatUI is now much faster, since you only need to update the appConfigPath. Nothing else in index.html or loader.js needs to be updated!
• This new configuration option eliminates the need for AppModel overrides by themes.
• You can maintain separate configuration options for multiple deployments by creating a configuration file for each.

The full suite of configuration options can be found in the AppConfig documentation: https://nceas.github.io/metacatui/docs/AppConfig.html

Step-by-step instructions for the new configuration process: https://nceas.github.io/metacatui/install/#for-metacatui-v2120-and-later

Note MetacatUI will still support the old way of configuring index.html (i.e. setting the data-metacat-context, data-theme, and data-maps-key in the loader.js script tag HTML attributes). However, this will be deprecated in a future release.

(#281 and #1237)

Encoded identifiers in URLs

Identifiers in dataset landing page URLs are now URL-encoded by default. (#523)

Link directly to the entity/data file metadata section of a dataset landing page

Copy the URL from the "More Info" link to link directly to tthe entity/file metatdata section on the dataset landing page.

These entity section URLs look like:

https://your-repo.com/view/metadata-id#data-id

(#83)

Bug fixes

• Some portals had a loading spinner forever on the Metrics tab (#1346). Enable Solr Joins in the MetacatUI AppConfig to take advantage of this fix. (AppConfig.enableSolrJoins)
• Some invalid XML characters were not bbeing filtered/caught properly by the editor. (#1401)

Deprecation notes

Deprecated in 2.12.0

• The StatsView contained fallback options for browsers that don't support SVG/D3 (mainly, IE 8 and earlier). These fallbacks were removed, and the MetacatUI.useD3 attribute has been officially deprecated. D3 and SVG will always be enabled by default.

Soft-deprecated in 2.12.0

• MetacatUI will still support the old way of configuring index.html (i.e. setting the data-metacat-context, data-theme, and data-maps-key in the loader.js script tag HTML attributes). However, this will be deprecated in a future release.
• A new AppConfig option, enableSolrJoins is turned off by default for Metacat users who may be using a Solr version pre-4.0.0. In future releases, this flag may be removed and Solr Joins may be required for MetacatUI.
  • This includes functions in StatsModel which are now unnecessary with the Solr Joins feature. Note the list of functions marked deprecated in the StatsModel docs and make sure your MetacatUI theme does not rely on these functions, since they will be removed in future releases.

2.11.5

Bug fixes

This patch release includes fixes to two bugs when searching in portals:

• A filter value that is a number only (e.g. '2000'), can never be removed #1279
• If the value of a text filter is a date range, the date range was wrapped in quotes, when it shouldn't be, causing a Solr syntax error #1399

2.11.4

Improvements

• You can now easily add a temporary message to any part of the application by configuring a few AppModel settings. This is useful when you need to show an important timely message to your users, such as a warning about a planned outage, an announcement about new features, etc. You can specify a start and end time during which the message should appear, a container element in which to insert the message, and additional HTML classes to assign to the message element.

https://github.com/NCEAS/metacatui/blob/8b93d5835155385c5b76c56877541cc3264648c8/src/js/models/AppModel.js#L47-L81

      /**
      * Add a message that will display during a certain time period. This is useful when
      * displaying a warning message about planned outages/maintenance, or alert users to other
      * important information.
      * If this attribute is left blank, no message will display, even if there is a start and end time specified.
      * If there are is no start or end time specified, this message will display until you remove it here.
      * @type {string}
      */
      temporaryMessage: null,


      /**
      * If there is a temporaryMessage specified, it will display after this start time.
      * Remember that Dates are in GMT time!
      * @type {Date}
      */
      temporaryMessageStartTime: null,


      /**
      * If there is a temporaryMessage specified, it will display before this end time.
      * Remember that Dates are in GMT time!
      * @type {Date}
      */
      temporaryMessageEndTime: null,


      /**
      * Additional HTML classes to give the temporary message element. Use these to style the message.
      * @type {string}
      */
      temporaryMessageClasses: "warning",


      /**
      * A jQuery selector for the element that the temporary message will be displayed in.
      * @type {string}
      */
      temporaryMessageContainer: "#Navbar",

2.11.3

Bug fixes

• The "Submit Dataset" button now displays as soon as someone start typing in the editor. Before, it would only display typing and then moving focus to another editor field. #1378
• If a resource map failed to serialize correctly (using the RDFlib JS library), the resource map would fail to save, causing the package to "break". Now resource maps are serialized before any models are saved. #1377 #1381
• Nested data packages were showing many incorrect links to parent packages.

Improvements

• The AppModel has a new configuration for reserving/blacklisting portal labels. Add any string to this array that no one should be able to use as a portal label. #1349

     /**
      * The list of labels that should be blacklisted while 
      * @type {string[]}
      */
      portalLabelBlacklist: []

https://github.com/NCEAS/metacatui/blob/33c4445c7bfd2591ad2bebe2744cffec41cec793/src/js/models/AppModel.js#L424

• New and improved installation, theming, and configuration documentation: https://nceas.github.io/metacatui/

2.11.2

Bug fix

• Some queries were not working, in particular the "My Portals" query.

Responsive navigation in default theme

• Responsive navigation was not being used in the default theme, so the mobile-friendly navigation styles were added there.

2.11.1

Bug fix

This patch release includes a fix to queries sent by the Portal view, when used with Solr 8.5+ (#1374)

2.11.0

New features

Reordering parties in the dataset editor

People and organizations can now be reordered using "Move up" and "Move down" buttons. This changes their order of appearance on the dataset landing page and in the underlying metadata XML. The order of creators is also reflected in the citations shown for the dataset throughout the app. (#521)

New publish button configuration options

• The "Publish with DOI" button can now be hidden completely or only display for certain users or groups, using two new configurations options in the AppModel - enablePublishDOI and enablePublishDOIForSubjects:

https://github.com/NCEAS/metacatui/blob/22e54dc70cba2dc55bc84438243d30b5d004e9cf/src/js/models/AppModel.js#L239-L254

      /**
      * If true, users can see a "Publish" button in the MetadataView, which makes the metadata
      * document public and gives it a DOI identifier.
      * If false, the button will be hidden completely.
      * @type {boolean}
      */
      enablePublishDOI: true,


      /**
      * A list of users or groups who exclusively will be able to see and use the "Publish" button,
      * which makes the metadata document public and gives it a DOI identifier.
      * Anyone not in this list will not be able to see the Publish button.
      * `enablePublishDOI` must be set to `true` for this to take effect.
      * @type {string[]}
      */
      enablePublishDOIForSubjects: [],

(#1366)

Metadata assessments

• The "Metadata Quality" features have been renamed to "Metadata Assessment"
• The citation for the dataset is now shown on the Metadata Assessment Report (#1180)

LDAP sign-in configuration option

• The LDAP sign-in option, which usually is displayed under the ORCID button as "Have an existing account?" can now be disabled using the new enableLdapSignIn configuration in the AppModel. LDAP sign-in will be disabled by default

https://github.com/NCEAS/metacatui/blob/22e54dc70cba2dc55bc84438243d30b5d004e9cf/src/js/models/AppModel.js#L164-L170

      /**
      * Enable DataONE LDAP authentication. If true, users can sign in from an LDAP account that is in the DataONE CN LDAP directory.
      * This is not recommended, as DataONE is moving towards supporting only ORCID logins for users.
      * This LDAP authentication is separate from the File-based authentication for the Metacat Admin interface.
      * @type {boolean}
      */
      enableLdapSignIn: false,

Other

• Misc. style improvements to the Stats view and metrics charts (#1290, #1296, #865, #1291, #1292, #1293)

Bug fixes

• Navigating to a dataset landing page via a data object seriesId would sometimes show an "A newer version of this dataset exists" message, even though the latest version of the dataset should be shown. (#1365)
• The browser back button was not working right when used in the portal editor. (#1364)
• Saving the provenance editor was not working (#1325)
• In the dataset editor, when an EMLParty had only an organization name, is was flagged as invalid and prevented a successful save, even though organizations are valid EMLParties. (#1220)
• The Copy Token button was not working (#1320)
• Misc. CSS issues (#1329, #1272, #1331)

2.10.0

New features

Unsaved changes to EML are saved as local drafts, for emergency retrieval

When changes are made to an EML metadata document via the editor, a local draft of the EML document will be saved to the user's browser. These drafts can be downloaded or copied from a new view, /drafts.

This tool is useful for repository user support teams, who can direct users to that view to download and email their drafts for manual upload. This is the first phase of the MetacatUI drafts feature. The second phase is to make these local drafts editable in the UI. (See #1228).

Custom keyword thesauri

The EML editor can now be customized with any keyword thesauri. Configure the AppModel emlKeywordThesauri attribute to specify thesauri with a label and value.

Bug fixes

• Sign In in Safari was not working sometimes. Safari (and possibly other browsers) were sometimes using cached versions of the DataONE /portal/token response. MetacatUI now sends a Cache-Control header to disable cached responses. #1311
• EML documents with spatialReference elements were causing submit errors #1303
• The Submit Dataset button would stay as "Submitting..." forever. #1314
• Clicking "Submit Dataset" does nothing, sometimes #1313

Changes to browser support

Internet Explorer

• As of MetacatUI 2.10.0, Internet Explorer 11 and earlier are officially deprecated as supported browsers. Most functions of MetacatUI will still be functional in IE 11, but fixes to future bugs in IE 11 will not be prioritized. IE 11 users will now see a dismissable message that they should update their browser.

Safari

As of Safari 13.1, third-party cookies will be disabled by default, which is required for sign in via DataONE. MetacatUI will now display a help message on the Sign In page for Safari 13.1+ users.

2.9.0

New features

Metrics for data portals

DataONE Plus data portals have new charts of aggregated usage metrics and metadata assessment scores.

Note: These aggregated metrics are only available to DataONE Plus subscribers. They may be visible in MetacatUI for a temporary period as DataONE Plus is still in development.

Total citations

Monthly counts of downloads and views

Monthly FAIR metadata assessment scores

Share portal access for easier collaboration

All data portals (even non-DataONE Plus portals) have new sharing options for granting your collaborators view, edit, and ownership access of your portal.

Create a group for your team to easily organize access levels for multiple people.

Keep your portal private until you are ready to publish with a simple privacy toggle.

Misc.

• Added a link to view the last saved version of a portal, when in the portal editor. #1219
• A message is displayed on the portal page if it is likely still being indexed. #1221

Bug fixes

• EML entities were being duplicated, deleted, or messed up when the entity was edited. #1246, #1217, #1095, #1172
• Citations button was not working sometimes - #1254
• The image uploaders in the portal editor were not working in MS Edge #1195

Notes

• MetacatUI developer documentation is now live at https://nceas.github.io/metacatui/docs. The docs are not complete yet, but will be added to over time.
• The downloads bar chart was removed from the profile pages and replaced with the aforementioned DataONE Plus downloads chart.