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e-codices newsletter


The e-codices newsletter provides information about the latest updates, highlights, and activities of our project and appears about 4-5 times per year.
We are delighted to count you among our readers!

The e-codices team

 
In this issue
  1. New application e-codices v2.0
  2. New design - mobile devices — responsive design
  3. IIIF
  4. New viewer
  5. Different sequences
  6. Sidebar
  7. Improved search
  8. CMS
 
 
December 2014
Issue N° 16
 
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application
 
New application e-codices v2.0
 
With todays update, the new web application e-codices v2.0 goes online. It replaces the old web application e-codices v1.29 (from December 2008). We decided to not only thoroughly revise the old web application, but to reprogram it entirely to ensure that new needs and new ideas can be realized with sufficient opportunities for future development. Over the past two years, this new web application was programmed for e-codices by the internet company text & bytes. We asked Rafael Schwemmer, founder and director of „text & bytes“ and former project manager and lead developer of e-codices, about the main idea behind the new web application: „The new version will have a more modern, responsive design that works well on tablets and smartphones. But a redesign is not just about visual appearance. It is about functionality, usability, interoperability and generally about rethinking what it is that we are trying to achieve.”
 
 
 
New design - mobile devices — responsive design
 
The new web application gives e-codices a new visual identity. In addition to the new logo, which was introduced in a previous newsletter, the visual appearance of the navigation and of all static and dynamic pages was revised. e-codices v2.0 was optimized for mobile devices, so that users can now browse manuscripts on a tablet or a smartphone with a simple swipe gesture. By means of responsive design, the page display adjusts to the respective device, so that desktops, tablets or smartphones with different screen sizes each display with optimal visualization.
 
iPhone
 
 
 
IIIF
 
The new web application implements the IIIF Image and Presentation APIs, making e-codices more interoperable and accessible. IIIF is driven by a group of research libraries, national libraries, and nonprofit image repositories. By exposing our content via the IIIF APIs we can share and disseminate our content with partner institutions and anyone interested. The IIIF Image API offers an easy to use, standardized and highly customizable way to request images. We use it internally in the new web application but it can also be used to consume e-codices manuscript images. The IIIF Presentation API allows us to expose manuscript metadata together with the images.
 
iiif
 
 
 
New viewer
 
The new viewer uses OpenSeadragon, an open-source, web-based viewer for zoomable images, implemented in JavaScript. The images are delivered to the viewer with Loris, an open source, Python-based image server that supports the IIIF Image API. For the new application, all images were converted to JPEG 2000. With the Loris image server, the IIIF Image API and OpenSeadragon we can now offer our users an improved viewing experience with continuous zoom. Other improvements include a thumbnail bar that can be shown or hidden and images that can be downloaded in four different sizes. For printing, a PDF is generated on the fly.
 
viewer