This week, we upgraded older document embeds on MuckRock and released a small timesaver for DocumentCloud users.
For previous site improvements, check out all of MuckRock’s release notes, and if you’d like updates emailed to you — along with ways to help contribute to the site’s development yourself — subscribe to our developer newsletter here.
MuckRock document embeds get an upgrade
A few months ago, we upgraded MuckRock so that new incoming PDFs, Word files, and scanned documents started using the new DocumentCloud viewer. The upgraded viewer offered more responsive touch controls, advanced search, and high-resolution versions of the page images so that they look sharp on modern displays.
Today we’re migrating the rest of the documents to use the upgraded viewer as well, no action needed on your part. We’re excited to continue to roll out new ways to analyze and share your hard-FOIA’d documents as we integrate DocumentCloud and MuckRock services.
Easier WordPress embedding from DocumentCloud
A lot of DocumentCloud users are also loyal WordPress enthusiasts, so we wanted to make it easier to get the DocumentCloud WordPress shortcode right from the embed dialog. Note that you’ll need to have the DocumentCloud WordPress plugin installed on your installation, but if you do just drop the shortcode in and you’ll have your document nicely embedded right within your article.
Our integration with WordPress offered a lot of additional flexibility and options, which you can read more about here or check out our official plugin repository.
Fixed bug with editing some long DocumentCloud project names
If you had a very long project name on DocumentCloud, it didn’t wrap properly and the edit button was pushed off screen. You could still get to it if you scrolled sideways, but that long name was supposed to wrap towards the end of the line so the edit button was conveniently located.
Now it does!
Seeking feedback: Entity extractions
We’re currently wrapping up a very early version of entity extraction, and we hope to have a public preview in the coming weeks. One thing that’s really helpful is your ideas and thoughts on how entity extraction, which automatically detects names, places, dates, and more, would be useful to you.
If you’ve used entity extraction for reporting or analysis in the past (whether with DocumentCloud or another service), we’d love examples. Please get in touch at info@documentcloud.org or tweet us.
Reporting bugs and feature requests
We’re continuing to tweak and improve all our digital tools, including MuckRock and DocumentCloud. If you spot a bug or have a feature request, you can help by emailing us at info@muckrock.com.
It’s particularly helpful if you can provide more details about when the issue crops up or what you think is causing the problem, or if it’s a feature request let us know some specifics about the use case you have in mind or problem you’re trying to solve.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
