What’s new or currently rolling out

Utility classes for content width

A new set of utility classes are available in our standard themes that will allow you to control the width of the content within a widget. This can be combined with a utility class that adds a solid background color to achieve a full-width component with narrow content. For more info see Customizing Theme Elements

Visible “Edit” tab

We’ve enabled “Edit” tabs at the top of content types and publications to make it easier to edit the main page content. Previously, the edit function was available by clicking the pencil icon positioned at the top right of the content area. Sometimes this icon was hard to find, especially on pages constructed primarily of widgets.

Clicking the main “Edit” tab for a content item or publication will allow you to update the main content on the page and change settings specific to the page like menu placement, path alias, and SEO metatags. You can continue to edit widget content by clicking the pencil icon at the top right of the specific widget that you want to change.

More services in Follow Me widget

Github and Google Scholar are now supported services in the Follow Me widget.

Media listing improvement

You’ll notice a small change in the media file list at Site Content > Browse > Files. We now include a column for the media type, to make it easier to tell what type it is when you scan a long list of media.

Maintenance, security, bug fixes and enhancements

We fixed some bugs and optimized settings to make the platform even more accessible and user-friendly. Our development team updated dozens of Drupal modules this month and a few server packages (Drupal is the content management system underlying OpenScholar). We take care of the hosting and software, so you can focus on managing your content.

What’s coming soon

More improvements to the media system, an integration with ORCID, and new welcome pages are still on the horizon. For more details, see the August 2024 Product Update.

What’s being retired

The Dataverse widgets are used by a small number of customers. We will be hiding them in the widget list on installs that do not have an active integration with the Dataverse Project.

Reminder that legacy themes are not actively developed and support for them is limited. Users are encouraged to transition to one of the fully supported standard themes. To learn more about the difference between standard and legacy themes, please see our page on Theme Life Cycles.

Thanks for reading

Questions or comments? Please reach out to our product team at support@theopenscholar.com.