I. New Features/Improvements
A. Custom Qwidget code now available for use in recalcitrant CMS or external vendor products such as Sirsi/Dynix, and Proquest.
In August 2013 we introduced the V4 Qwidget, re-architected with a new look and feel, along with the new ability to place more than one Qwidget on a page. In the ensuing months, as other vendors also upgraded their products, the standard issue V4 Qwidget became incompatible in some cases, and could not be embedded in those products.
Those users who requested assistance in getting the Qwidget working on their incompatible 3rd party products occasionally altered the code of the V4 Qwidget themselves, sometimes with success. Others consulted QuestionPoint personnel, and we suggested that they revert to using the older Qwidget until a work around could be engineered.
We will now make available, by request, a custom Qwidget code snippet that should allow for the newest V4 Qwidget (optimized for a greater number of mobile devices and tablets)to be embedded in Sirsi/Dynix catalog and Proquest databases. It is also compatible with LibGuides V2.
We recommend that you replace the altered Qwidgets with our new custom code. To request the custom Qwidget code for these interfaces, please contact [email protected], and a QuestionPoint administrator will contact you with the correct code for your library website.
B. Support for older versions of the Qwidget now being retired
Please be advised that after this release, we will no longer support technical issues arising from use of the older (non V4) Qwidget. The V4 Qwidget is now 11 months in production, and is the only Qwidget that supports both Apple and Android mobile/tablet devices, as well as Chrome, Firefox, IE and Safari for desktops.
If the Qwidget on your library pages does not resemble the interface shown below, we strongly recommend that you upgrade your Qwidget. If after attempting to use the standard code available from your Administration module, you cannot see the Qwidget on the embedded page, or if the page upon which you embedded the Qwidget stops working properly in other ways, please contact [email protected] in order to get the custom code from us.
(Please note that there are a variety of colors and sizes of the V4 Qwidget available. This representation is shown to illustrate the general nature of the V4 Qwidget with its crisp corners and larger graphics. Your library’s Qwidget may be a different color or size and may include a request for an email address before the question may be submitted, depending upon how it was configured in the Administration module.)
II. Fixes
A. Ask Module
1. Hotlinks in Answers now preserved when sessions are moved/copied to KB.
It was discovered that hot-linked URLs contained in librarians’ Answers in Ask sessions were not clickable after moving the session to a Knowledge Base entry. The URLs were intentionally expanded when moved, so that no URLs are hidden by anchor text, but the expanded version was not clickable when saved in KB. Now the hotlinks are expanded and the actual URL is now clickable. Note that if the URL was not hot-linked in the original Answer, it will not automatically be clickable when moved to KB, but users can easily transform any URL into a clickable link by surrounding the URL with < > carets when they are in the edit mode.
2. Lengthy URLs caused display issues in the Ask module
In our last install, we attempted a fix for lengthy URLS in the Question field in Ask module. Unfortunately, that fix caused other more obvious layout problems in the rest of the Ask module, causing words to break unnaturally at the end of the line, as well as disrupting the table format in the Review Transcripts screens. We have rolled out that initial unsatisfactory fix. Now, regular text will properly format in the Ask lists and Review Transcripts tables now format properly.
When patron questions or librarian answers contain extremely long URLS, the Question lists and/or Full Question detail displays will again be affected, causing horizontal scroll bars on the page. We will continue to investigate ways to fix this long URL issue without you having to truncate your Question Lists using your personal Settings link on the QuestionPoint Home page.
3. IE 10 users can now add and edit Email Partner addresses in the Ask Module
After the introduction of IE 10, it was discovered that those users could not add or edit Email partner Addresses in the Ask module Settings. That bug has now been fixed, and users can add or edit those addresses.
B. Qwidget
1. Qwidget offline message length restriction now lifted.
When the V4 Qwidget was introduced, the Qwidget offline message capacity was limited to 127 characters to preserve formatting. This restriction unintentionally affected the previous version Qwidgets with the result that users who had not upgraded their Qwidgets to the newer V4 experienced truncation of their previous offline message despite the presence of enough space to see a longer message.
We have now removed the 127 character restriction from the offline message box, thereby restoring previous Qwidget messages to their full view in older version Qwidgets.
We continue to recommend 127 characters to new Qwidget builders on the Qwidget creation screen, as that is the amount of space available in the design of the V4 Qwidget.
2. Qwidget warning improved
While testing the newly compatible Qwidget in Proquest, it was discovered that if an embedded Qwidget chat session was in progress, any attempts to refresh or click on another link on that page could cause the existing chat session to disconnect. Although some pages had a warning about whether or not the user really wanted to refresh, there was no specific reminder that this would affect the current Qwidget chat session. We have now added an additional cautionary warning to the stock browser refresh warning when a Qwidget session is progress:
Here is an example of the message used in a Chrome browser:
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