An additional display mode is now available in the Flickr Slideshow element - you can switch from the standard embedded Flash player to a Lightbox viewer. See the tutorial page for examples.

A page has been added to the Web Publishing site where we've assembled the various elements available to Commonspot sites for social media integration, including Facebook 'like' and 'share' buttons, the 'ShareThis' widget, and a Twitter Profile widget.

The RSS elements available for the content well and right column now support including more than one RSS feed.  Blog posts from multiple sources can be combined in a single display, organized by publication date.

The Commonspot 5.1 upgrade includes some fixes for web browser conflicts when using Commonspot for authoring.  Web browsers may retain cached versions of some of the upgraded javascript files in the upgrade, and so it's recommended that you clear the browser cache.

(from Paperthin's upgrade documentation)

For supported versions of Mozilla Firefox, you can access these options through Tools -> Clear Private Data or Tools -> Options -> Privacy.  Review browser Help for more information.

For Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, click F12 -> Cache -> Clear Browser Cache or click Internet Options -> General ->Settings ->View Files -> Delete .js and .css files  Note: For IE8 CTRL-R will not clear .js or .css files.

For Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, use CTRL-F5 or click Tools -> Internet Options.  Under the General tab - Browsing History, click Delete. Review browser Help for more information.

We're installing the Commonspot 5.1 service pack 1 on the cms server this morning.  Authoring will be offline briefly, and there will likely be some delays in Commonspot replication during the morning hours.  Updates will be posted on this blog.

Update 8:28 am: The upgrade has been installed on the cms server, and authoring has been restored.  We're now beginning the upgrade process on the production servers.

Update 9:37 am: The www servers are now upgraded to CS 5.1 SP1, replication has been tested successfully and it is back on the hourly schedule.

We've had a few reports of problems with Commonspot pages that aren't displaying the menus associated with the main toolbar (Tools & Information, Page VIew, Properties).  This can occur when a page cache file is not completely assembled.  To fix this, you'll need to clear the subsite cache using the Subsite Administration forms on the cms server:

[your subsite path]/admin.cfm

Expand "Subsite Properties" and click the 'configure subsite properties" link, expand the "Caching" section, and then click the Clear Cache button.

If you then refresh your view of the page that had been missing the menus, they'll be available.

We're planning on transitioning to the new Commonspot Profile element on Tuesday morning, June 15th.  During the transition we'll experience an interruption in authoring access to Commonspot.  Authoring access will be offline starting at 5am, and will be restored once this installation is complete and tested successfully.  We anticipate that work being complete by noon.  It's likely that we'll have authoring restored earlier than that, but for planning purposes anticipate noon on Tuesday for authoring access.

Update: Commonspot authoring and replication are back online, and the new Profile system is in place.

Site administrators who have used the Profile element have started reviewing proflle content prior to our transition to the new Profile system.  If you haven't yet reviewed your profiles, please visit the Profile Transition page.  This will list any profiles that you can author, and allow you to decide whether to keep or delete each profile.

The 'captcha' image control used in many online forms in Commonspot has been updated to enhance accessibility.  The 'recaptcha' system is available to users who aren't able to read the image text.

If you're using the survey, blog, event rsvp, simple form, or other elements that permit users to submit form data, you may notice a change in the appearance of the 'captcha' image - that's the image with random text that we use to ensure that the form is not submitted via an automated process.  The new image and its related validation routine have enhanced security, compared to the original version.

When uploading an image file to Commonspot, try to avoid file names that include characters such as accents, apostrophe, and commas.  Commonspot won't provide a warning about the file name (that should be fixed in the next release), but it will cause problems in the replication process.  If you rename the file on your local system prior to uploading it, removing any non-standard characters, that will avoid the replication problems.

The Profile element, and a few others in Commonspot, allow you to re-use existing content in other pages by selecting data with a custom filter.  Find out more about using filters to select data for display in this overview and tutorial.

The database server used by Commonspot is scheduled to be upgraded on Thursday morning (3/25/10), beginning at 6 am.  During the upgrade, Commonspot pages that rely on dynamically-generated content from the database will not be displayed.  We expect that the upgrade process will take less than an hour.

We've removed access to the Profile Element temporarily - this element contributed to the cms server problems we experienced this week.  We will be working with this element early next week, and expect to have access to it restored fairly soon, although it may be a few days.  Please contact Russ or Brian if you have questions or concerns about this change.

We've been able to resolve the Commonspot authoring and replication issues - replication just ran, so anything published on cms between 3:15 yesterday and 2:15 today should now be represented on www.scu.edu.