Posted by Vice Admiral Kat Dedul (Vice President) in Get your new library card!

Posted by Fleet Captain Nathan Miller (TECH Lead) in Get your new library card!
The day has arrived! We have publicly launched the new Library today. This will make updating the Library easier than ever. We have converted nearly all existing content to the new Library, with the exception of a few EDept related articles.

For those unaware, the previous Library required articles be written in DocBook, an esoteric XML schema for book and document layout. It required then running a build process to convert the documents into HTML for publication on the site. It was a headache to maintain, and hadn’t been updated in several years as a result.

The new Library is stored in the database and operates like a wiki. It uses Markdown, HTML, and CSS for design and layout. Some of the key features:

• The setup is similar to the previous Library: there are Books, which are composed of Parts, which contain Articles - the meat of the Library
• Built-in approval process flow - new or updated articles are automatically sent to the Librarian for approval before publication
• Group ownership - Books and Parts and can be assigned group owners - so the GMDept owns the Reference Manual, the EDept owns the Technical Manual, etc - and people in those groups can add and edit articles (which go to the Librarian for approval)
• Article editors - an Article can be assigned multiple editors, people who are allowed to revise the content of that document - so the GMDept can make a course tutor the editor for a course, or the CMMB can make a volunteer the editor for the Zoo
• A wider selection of allowed HTML and the ability to use CSS in a <style> tag for more control over layout and design (still subject to Librarian approval)

We are using existing groups already set up in Exodus, and most of the salient Books/Parts have been assigned ownership already - TM to EDept, RM to GMDept, Academy Courses to the Academy, STF Awards to CMMB, Histories to PDept, etc. Owners, if there are updates needed or new articles, you should be able to submit them for approval immediately.

Please update any links on MOTDs to ship specs/government documents/bylaws, etc.

The link to the Library in the Resources menu has been updated. Depending on when you last visited the old Library, you may need to do a hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R or Command+Shift+R) or clear your cache to load the new page.

As always, please use the Issue Tracker to report any problems!

Nathan
TECH Lead

Looks lovely, thanks to everyone involved in this project. A job well done. :)

-Kat

Looks fantastic :)

Ray Branch