EMu 6.0

Details

Release Date: 02 July 2018

Requirements

  • Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10
  • Texpress 9.0.001 or later
  • TexAPI 6.0.012 or later
  • Perl 5.8.8 or later  (excluding 5.10.0)

User Interface Update

The EMu User Interface has been updated while retaining and, in some cases, expanding existing functionality. Changes include:

  • Updating the style and colour of controls.

    All user interface elements have been updated with a modern, flat design. This includes the removal of “3D” elements such as drop-shadows and bevels.

  • Adding a configurable Favourites section to the Command Centre.

  • Increasing the base module window size to make better use of larger/higher resolution monitors.

  • Replacing the main menu and toolbars with a Windows ribbon interface.

  • Moving the tabs list from a horizontal list at the bottom of the module window to a vertical list on the left of the module window.

  • Replacing icons.

  • Increasing the white space between controls.

  • Changing the default font to Tahoma.

A comparison of some EMu 5 and EMu 6 user interface elements is available here. Notable changes to the user interface are outlined in more detail below.

The Command Centre

The styling of the Command Centre has been updated and a Favourites section has been added. Users can add, remove and reorder modules within the Favourites section. All available modules are always displayed in the Modules section and both sections are collapsible. For example:

command centre

All customisations are saved and restored again on login.

Note: The Command Centre can now only be displayed in a vertical orientation with images and text displayed.

For more details see the Command Centre EMu Help page.

The Ribbon

A Windows Ribbon control has replaced the menus and toolbars previously in use in EMu. A Ribbon provides a user experience that is similar to a combined menu and toolbar. Commands are organised into a series of tabs at the top of the window similar to a menu interface. Each tab contains multiple commands grouped by functionality and with an associated image similar to a toolbar. For example:

ribbon

The EMu Home and contextual Multimedia ribbon tabs.

A Ribbon has a number of advantages over a menu/toolbar combination, including:

  • Better command discovery. Using a ribbon makes commands easier to find and understand by having self-explanatory labels, grouping of related commands with a common label and, particularly, tooltip help for each command.

  • The Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) provides a simple user-configurable toolbar. Any function or group of functions can be added to the QAT.

  • Contextual tabs provide access to functionality that can only be used in specific circumstances thereby reducing unnecessary visual clutter.

The Ribbon interface allows for basic customisation. Users can:

  • Customise the QAT position: locate it above or below the ribbon.
  • Customise the commands or groups of commands available in the QAT.
  • Set the ribbon state: expanded or minimised.

For example:

ribbon qat

The QAT above the ribbon, the QAT below the ribbon and a minimised ribbon.

All customisations are saved when the user closes the module and restored when the module is reopened. For more details see the Ribbon EMu Help page.

Tabs

Module tabs now appear as a vertical list on the left of the module window instead of a horizontal bar running across the bottom of the module window. Functionality has been added to allow users to reorder tabs within the list (by dragging and dropping a tab name to a new position) and the Shortcuts View facility is now available at all times in the same pane as the tabs list.

This has a number of advantages:

  • It is easier to navigate as most tab labels can be seen without scrolling.
  • The tabs list is visible in all screen modes.
  • The length of the label text is not restricted.
  • It provides more vertical space on the tab window.

For example:

tabs on left

For more details see the DETAILS ABOUT TABS section of the EMu module window EMu Help page and the Shortcuts View EMu Help page.

Field Level Help

The module window Field Level Help has changed position so that it is now the last element within a tab instead of appearing beneath the module window. For example:

field help

For more details see the Show a field’s description in a module window EMu Help page.

Archive and Thesaurus Browse

The Archive and Thesaurus Browse Views now display in a separate window. The Browse View functionality is unchanged. For example:

archives browse view

New Features

Tab Reordering

It is possible to rearrange the list of tabs by dragging and dropping a tab name to a new position in the list.
GeoLocate Web Client Interface

The GEOLocate embedded web client provides an interface for Georeferencing natural history collections data.

This facility adds a new tab, GEOLocate, to the Site module. The tab displays the GeoLocate web client interface:

geolocate

Geolocation in progress.

When the tab is displayed locality information from the Sites module record is automatically supplied to the GEOLocate client for georeferencing. Georeferencing information supplied by the GEOLocate service can be saved back to the Sites record and viewed on the Lat/Long tab.

For more details see the EMu Help TYPICAL SITES TABS AND THEIR PURPOSE section of the Sites module page.
EXIF Orientation tag support

The EXIF Orientation metadata tag is now respected when displaying images.

When generating resolutions, EMu automatically orients them correctly and updates the EXIF Orientation tag for the resolution to reflect the change in orientation.
New EXIF tags supported

Support has been added for the EXIF BodySerialNumber, CameraOwnerName, DateTime, InteroperabilityVersion, LensMake, LensModel, LensSerialNumber, LensSpecification, PrintImageMatching, RecommendedExposureIndex and SensitivityType image metadata tags.

Issues Resolved

  • Fixed an issue where the Thesaurus module Browse View would not display or load correctly when the Thesaurus module was cached.

  • Fixed an issue when changing Default Values (the Edit>Default Values>Change menu option) where the error message “Class TListView not found” was displayed.

  • Added support for Unicode characters to the Login Message dialogue box.

  • Fixed issues where Unicode characters were not displayed correctly for the Default Values, List Setting, Page Setting, and Shortcut Setting default item.

  • Fixed an issue where accented characters in the List View header that are pasted to another application are replaced by the Unicode replacement character “�”.

  • Fixed an issue where Unicode characters did not display correctly in the Image Display tooltip.

  • Fixed an issue where Unicode characters did not display correctly in the Sort Summary output.

  • Fixed an issue where changes to the Exhibit Objects module Notes field could not be saved.

  • Fixed an issue where the Thesaurus module would be launched twice when inserting a value into a Thesaurus-controlled field using a lookup list.

  • Fixed an issue where more “out of licence” warning emails were being generated than necessary.

  • Fixed issue where Extended Data (displayed when you select the View->Thumbnails menu option) did not display in the Trap and Trap Events modules.

  • Fixed issue preventing IMu server from starting on older Perl releases.

  • Fixed an issue where the Scan Image option displayed when right-clicking on a multimedia field was not disabled when appropriate.

  • Fixed an issue where the List View row numbers did not display correctly in right-to-left language display mode.

  • Fixed an issue with the emumediacheck utility where multimedia file names containing non-ASCII characters would be incorrectly reported as “missing from Server”.

  • Corrected support for the EXIF GPSIFD image metadata tag.

  • Corrected the name used for the IPTC tag with id 62 when generating Multimedia image metadata; the name should be DigitalCreationDate not DigitalCreationTime.

  • Fixed an issue where media resolution information (i.e. width x height) did not display in the Launch Media or Save menus options available from the Multimedia menu or when right-clicking on media.

  • Fixed an issue when running in EMu Search mode where the quotes surrounding the values inserted by the Edit > Insert > Current Date and Edit > Insert > Current Time menu options were not escaped when running against Texpress version 9 or greater.

  • Fixed an issue in List View mode that allowed the user to move past the last row of a matching set when the matching set contained false matches. This resulted in an “End of File” error.

  • Corrected an issue where the Merge Scheduled Operation could affect more records than intended if the list of “Records to be Merged with Target” included a blank row.

  • Fixed an issue where an “Invalid date format” error occurs when recalling (via the Record Recall facility) a value from a double nested date column.

  • Fixed an issue where the Scheduled Exports “Secure transfer to another host (SFTP)” After Export facility could fail with the message “Connection closed”.

  • Fixed an incorrect column name for Gallery clients only that resulted in the error: Unknown column name “RefBibliographicNotes_tab”

  • Fixed an issue where a duplicate value could be saved to a unique field after initially being rejected.

  • Fixed an issue in Search mode where values in lookup list hierarchies were not being correctly filtered for multi-lingual clients when displaying all languages.

  • Fixed an issue where the Locations module Summary Data was not including the Location Code field value.

  • Resolved an issue where generated multimedia images could be incorrectly oriented.

Upgrade Notes

See Upgrade 5.1 to 6.0 for details.