Release 2.2
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Release date: July 10, 2015
Download link atom-2.2.0.tar.gz (TAR)
Release 2.2 is the first major release since September 2014, and includes a number of new features, usability enhancements, and bug fixes. We've closed well over 150 issue tickets as part of this release - you can view more details on each ticket in our issue tracker at the following links:
Visit the Downloads page to download the most recent release, and consult the 2.2 Upgrade and Installation guides for further information.
Important
There are new dependencies in the AtoM 2.2 release - please follow the upgrade and installation guides carefully. Note especially the new section on asynchronous jobs, which is required for the new Finding Aid generation and PREMIS rights inheritance features in 2.2. If you have questions, why not make a post in our AtoM User Forum?
An overview of some of the major changes is included below.
Contents
- 1 Security enhancement: HTML escaping to prevent XSS exploits
- 2 New feature: Generate PDF or RTF finding aids from archival descriptions
- 3 New feature: Actionable PREMIS 2.2 Rights module
- 4 New feature: Job scheduling support and management page
- 5 OAI-PMH exposure - returned!
- 6 Usability enhancements
Security enhancement: HTML escaping to prevent XSS exploits
Sponsored by the World Bank Group Archives
Comprehensive penetration testing has been done on AtoM, and various security improvements have been made to the application, including automatic HTML escaping within form fields, to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities (learn more about them on Wikipedia). Additionally, a configurable option to enable escaping of potentially risky elements on static pages, using a tool called htmlpurifier, has been included (and is turned OFF by default, to avoid affecting existing static pages).
- Related issue ticket: #7647
- Related documentation: Static pages and security configuration
Important
This will affect all edit and view pages in AtoM. We have long urged our users not to be adding HTML content into form fields. Now, that content will be escaped, and will not render as HTML:
Artefactual will be sharing a script that users can run, to remove HTML content from the database (except in static pages). Note that unless users turn on htmlpurifier, static pages will not be affected by the HTML escaping - it is limited to edit forms where users input content.
New feature: Generate PDF or RTF finding aids from archival descriptions
Sponsored by SFU Archives and Bombardier
Now you can provide researchers and staff with a PDF or editable RTF finding aid of hierarchical descriptions arranged and described in AtoM. You can choose between the two formats, between two different stylesheets for lower-level descriptions, and whether draft descriptions are included in the finding aids you generate. At present, this feature formats the finding aids according to the Canadian RAD standard - but we hope to see the functionality expanded to other standards templates!
Related tickets:
- #7462 - Add ability to generate PDF finding aids from EAD XML of archival descriptions
- #7615 - Include ability to select RTF or PDF as finding aid formats
- #7723 - Include ability to select full details or inventory list for lower levels in finding aids
Related documentation:
New feature: Actionable PREMIS 2.2 Rights module
Sponsored by SFU Archives
PREMIS Rights were first introduced to AtoM in the ICA-AtoM 1.2 release. In this release, the PREMIS module has been redesigned, upgraded to PREMIS 2.2, and associated with an actionable digital object permissions policy, so that your PREMIS rights statements can be applied to digital objects to disallow access to the master, reference copy, and/or thumbnail, depending on your settings. Administrators can also customize user-friendly access restriction statements that will appear in the place of restricted digital objects, and manage how Rights are inherited by lower levels of description.
Related tickets:
- #7463 - Update PREMIS template user interface in AtoM
- #4293 - Upgrade PREMIS implementation to be 2.2 compliant
- #2714 - Add digital object access control
- #4937 - Set access restrictions based on PREMIS rights
- #4938 - Translate PREMIS rights to user friendly access statements
Related documentation
New feature: Job scheduling support and management page
Sponsored by SFU Archives
To support PREMIS rights inheritance and finding aid generation in a way that will not time out when the action is requested via the browser, we have introduced a job scheduler into AtoM, that can perform tasks asynchronously in the background. To allow users to view and manage the status of jobs, we've also introduced a Jobs page. At present, the job scheduler only supports the 2 listed tasks, but in the future, further development using the job scheduler will allow for large-scale and bulk operations to be performed via the user interface, such as bulk or large delete, move, import, export, publish, and edit requests.
Related issue ticket:
- #239 - Job scheduling support
Related documentation:
OAI-PMH exposure - returned!
In an early version of ICA-AtoM, the ability to expose Dublin Core metadata via OAI-PMH was introduced, but not maintained. Thanks to a combination of sponsored development, community pull requests, and public participation, the OAI exposure module is back and better than ever!
Related issue tickets:
- #8144 - Add digital object URLs to OAI-PMH response
- Sponsored by the Mills Archive
- #8143 - Add API key for OAI-PMH authentication
- Sponsored by the Mills Archive
- #8158 - Improve OAI resumptionToken implementation
- Submitted via community pull request from Teaspoon Consulting
- #8159 - Improve OAI-PMH implementation of dublin core (oai_dc)
- Submitted via community pull request from Teaspoon Consulting
- #8238 - Support virtual sets in OAI implementation
- Submitted via community pull request from Teaspoon Consulting
Related documentation
Related User Forum thread
Usability enhancements
We've also made a number of fixes to improve the overall usability of the application, including:
- #7722 - Reorganize Settings page for greater usability
- Sponsored by Bombardier
- #5614 - Improve Institution holdings browse on the Archival institution page
- Sponsored by the University of Witswatersrand
- #7651 - Include "Part of" information with hyperlink to top-level parent description in results stubs
- Sponsored by the United Nations Archives and Records Management Section
- #5966 - Add "Top-level descriptions" filter and make default for Browse > Archival descriptions page
- Sponsored by the Council of Nova Scotia Archives
- #7644 - Add an approximate count of records below to treeview when results are truncated by " ... "
- Sponsored by the United Nations Archives and Records Management Section
- #6376 - Add search icon, create space before browse button for global search box
- Submitted via community pull request from The University of Saskatchewan
- #8077 - Display only applicable / available reports under "Select report" options
- Submitted via community pull request from Teaspoon Consulting
- #8223 - Improve sort options for Accessions browse
- Sponsored by the City of Vancouver Archives
- #8464 - Add dates of creation / accumulation to accessions template
- Sponsored by the Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of Yorik
And more!
For users curious to see the 2.2 features in action, we have a webinar recording available: