Adobe Flash for multi-uploader

[Russell McOrmond]

Documentation indicates, "The digital object multi-uploader requires Flash. This is a requirement that we are hoping to eliminate in future releases."

I'm wondering if there is a bounty set that organisations can contribute to in a crowd-source way for this development work.  I suspect it is something many people would like to have looked into, so we don't need to have Flash installed on staff computers.

[Dan Gillean]

Hi Russell, 

I don't think that we've yet produced estimates for the work required to replace this. From what I recall the developers telling me in the past, the current uploader is part of the YUI library tools that were used in the original development of AtoM. At this point, the entire library is deprecated, and no longer being maintained. Artefactual does monitor the plugin for relevant security issues, but at this point we need to replace the entire library, which I believe is responsible for certain other UI elements desperately in need of an update as well, such as the autcomplete lookup fields, for example. It doesn't really make sense for us to add a new component to replace one YUI element without replacing the whole library - we'd like to avoid that if at all possible. But we haven't yet done the analysis to determine the best replacement and figure out some estimates for the work involved in implementing it. 

Currently the video player in AtoM also requires Flash, so that's another element to replace. There's a great thread about this, and player accessibility requirements, here: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ica-atom-users/TWJz3fVAUDc/6wtICpjhjvsJ

We have previously spent a bit of initial energy looking into potential crowd-funding platforms in the past, but in most cases, what we heard back from our users was that many institutions would not be able to secure funding towards something that did not have a definitive deliverable, like a development contract. Contributing money towards a feature that may or may not receive enough support to be implemented was much less likely for institutions who generally have to go through strict purchasing requirements, so we stopped pursuing it as an active funding option. However, we have worked with institutions to connect them to other institutions so that features can be collaboratively funded, but via the standard development contract route - in this case, what we need is one person/institution willing to be the designated point of contact (who will take on coordinating development requirements, testing, feedback, etc for all the participating partners), so that we don't have to try to coordinate with conflicting feedback and unclear chains of communication during a development contract. 

I will speak to our developers and try to get some more information on what would they think be involved in replacing the YUI library elements - or at least all elements requiring Flash at present. We can possibly supply some rough ballparks / order of magnitude numbers and if there is serious interest, we can do further analysis to turn those into firm estimates. 

Regards, 

Dan Gillean, MAS, MLIS
AtoM Program Manager
Artefactual Systems, Inc.
604-527-2056

@accesstomemory

On Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 10:19 AM, Russell McOrmond <russell....@canadiana.ca> wrote:

Documentation indicates, "The digital object multi-uploader requires Flash. This is a requirement that we are hoping to eliminate in future releases."

I'm wondering if there is a bounty set that organisations can contribute to in a crowd-source way for this development work.  I suspect it is something many people would like to have looked into, so we don't need to have Flash installed on staff computers.

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[Russell McOrmond]

On Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 10:55 AM, Dan Gillean <d...@artefactual.com> wrote:

It doesn't really make sense for us to add a new component to replace one YUI element without replacing the whole library - we'd like to avoid that if at all possible. But we haven't yet done the analysis to determine the best replacement and figure out some estimates for the work involved in implementing it. 

This context is very helpful!

Currently the video player in AtoM also requires Flash, so that's another element to replace. There's a great thread about this, and player accessibility requirements, here: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ica-atom-users/TWJz3fVAUDc/6wtICpjhjvsJ

Great reading, even though we don't have any audio or video in our archive yet.

We have previously spent a bit of initial energy looking into potential crowd-funding platforms in the past, but in most cases, what we heard back from our users was that many institutions would not be able to secure funding towards something that did not have a definitive deliverable, like a development contract.

One of the many possible future changes at Canadiana is a merger with CRKN.  (Some of my thinking is here: http://mcormond.blogspot.ca/2016/07/canadianaorg-crkn-merger.html ).  It's outside of my department, but we (the new merged organisation) might be able to help with this type of thing if we (the DevOps team) are able to convince those in charge that it is consistent with the existing mandate.  CRKN already does "bulk buying" of licensed content, and will hopefully be allowing much of the content we (existing Canadiana) scanned to transition to Open Access, so it isn't a stretch to have this partnership used as a tool to help fund key Open Source infrastructure software as well.

Cart before the horse -- I'm just glad we are more seriously evaluating AtoM and Archivematica to possibly replace some of our existing unpublished custom software.

I will speak to our developers and try to get some more information on what would they think be involved in replacing the YUI library elements - or at least all elements requiring Flash at present. We can possibly supply some rough ballparks / order of magnitude numbers and if there is serious interest, we can do further analysis to turn those into firm estimates. 

Thank you.   It is more me as the systems person that flagged Adobe Flash as an issue, and not something that other parts of the organisation would have noticed.

-- 

System Administration and software developer, Canadiana.org http://www.canadiana.ca

Connect with our DevOps team https://github.com/c7a 

Public notes about work: http://mcormond.blogspot.ca/search/label/Canadiana.org