OpenLab Development Updates: 2017-2018

This is the first post in what will become a monthly series highlighting any new features, functionality, or bug fixes on the OpenLab that are relevant for OER sites.

New Features and Functionality

• Improvement of OER identification and searching. This includes: creation of a system for the visual identification of OERs on the OpenLab, creating a functionality and procedure for designating courses as OERs so they will have a visual “badge” as well as an identification on the backend that will allow users to better search for OERs on the OpenLab
• Broadening the functionality of Course Cloning.  Faculty can designate their courses “shareable,” which allows any other OpenLab faculty member to clone the course.  Step-by-step instructions for shared cloning are included in OpenLab Help.
• Disable Discussion, Docs, and Files. Many OER sites don’t use these tools, located on a course or project’s profile page.  These can now be disabled by going to Profile > Settings > Settings, and then scrolling down to the section for Discussion, Docs, and Files Settings.
• Improvements to the Navigation Menu widget. The menu that appears in the widget no longer includes the Group Profile and Home links by default. This should be helpful for anyone who wishes to use a menu in the sidebar for sites with more complex navigation structures.

New Plugins and Themes

• Easy Table of Contents: This plugin improves upon the functionality of the older Table of Contents Plus plugin that is no longer being maintained by its developer. We recommend using Easy Table of Contents rather than Table of Contents Plus, but the latter does still work.
• PDF Embedder Premium: This plugin expands the functionality of the PDF Embedder plugin, including a download button for embedded PDFs, the ability to show active links in PDFs, and a better views on mobile. If you’re already using PDF Embedder, you can continue to use it, but in order to take advantage of the new features, you’ll need to deactivate it, and activate the premium version. It appears in the list of plugins on your site dashboard just below PDF Embedder, and is called PDF Embedder Premium.
• Easy Custom Sidebars: This plugin allows you to show a different sidebars, on different pages of your site. It replaces Dynamic Widgets, which had a similar functionality, but was more difficult to set up.
• OpenLab Twenty Sixteen theme and Breadcrumb NavXT plugin: OpenLab Twenty Sixteen is a child theme of Twenty Sixteen, and is quite similar, with the following changes: there’s no black border around the site, and some of the margins around the content are decreased so there’s less white space. The size of the site title is larger,  some of the heading styles are different, and bulleted and numbered lists are indented. Activating the theme also automatically activates the new plugin, Breadcrumb NavXT, which adds breadcrumb links to pages, making it easier to navigate sites that might have many different pages, like OER sites. The plugin may be deactivated if you don’t want to use breadcrumbs, but it can only be used with the Twenty Sixteen theme.
• Anthologize plugin improvements. A number of improvements were made to the plugin including:
  • When editing a project, you are now able to view more details about each page and post, including categories, tags, and author, as you’re choosing them to add to a project. In addition, when exporting a project to save as a pdf or other file type, the author is now generated automatically from all post and page authors included in that project.
  • Changes to the formatting and options available for PDF exports, including improvements in the way image captions display, and the way text wraps around images. There are also now options for including the author and date for a post or page being included in a project.
  • A number of accessibility improvements to the dashboard interface were also made.
• TablePress: This plugin provides a very robust but simple way to add tables to any post or page. The tables can be anything from simple to more complex tables that can be sorted or filtered, or split into multiple pages. The tables are mobile-friendly and accessible.
• WP Accessibility: This plugin makes a number of improvements to the accessibility of OpenLab sites. On the OpenLab, the main function will be ensuring that everyone remembers to add alt text to images. It also removes the target attribute from links so they do not open in a new tab.  This is not a good practice for both accessibility and usability, but if you feel it is necessary, you can find instructions to change this setting on the WP Accessibility help page in OpenLab Help.  You can also find out more about the plugin on the WordPress.org WP Accessibility plugin page.
• Accordion Shortcodes: This plugin allows you to add sections of text or other elements to their site that can be expanded or collapsed.  It is both mobile-friendly and accessible.
•  Cite: This plugin adds a box at the bottom of any post or page with citation information that readers can easily copy and paste.

Credits

This post is adapted from the monthly series This Month in the OpenLab, written and published on the Open Road blog by the OpenLab community team.