July 2024 Release
- User Conference
- New Releases
- Content Editor Tool
- Existing Text/Graphic Editors
- How to Transition from Old Tools to New
- Food Menu Module Updates
- New Resources Links Tool
- Accessibility Widget & ADA Accessibility Compliance
As summer school wraps up and preparations are underway for the upcoming 24-25 school year, we are taking advantage of a slower user time in CMS4Schools to get a major update out. This update is chock-full of new and enhanced features, including moving our long-tested beta Content Editor to fully live, introducing a brand new page tool, adding nutrition, and more to the food menu and so much more!
Save the date for our User Conference, coming August 8th!
It’s been a few years since we’ve been able to host our once annual User Conference, but this year we are going for it! The user conference will feature sessions on new tools, technologies, changes in website accessibility, introduction to our new integrated mobile app, and more. Watch for information and registration links coming soon.
What’s in this Release
Content Editor Tool
Several months ago we released the new Content Editor tool in Beta Features, and thanks to all of you beta users, the Content Editor is now ready for its permanent place. Effective immediately, the Content Editor page level tool replaces the old Text/Graphic tool in both main body and side bar tool listing. If you are new to using the Content Editor, check out our support resources, or join one of our upcoming webinar training sessions. The Content Editor is feature-rich, including the ability to scale images, create columns and more.
What Happens to Existing Text/Graphic Tools?
First - all content is safe! If your school or organization has been with us for a few months or years, then all, or most, of the text based content is built in the deprecated Text/Graphic Tool. Any existing Text/Graphic tool on any page will remain available and displayed on your webpage, and will remain working for a transition period that we anticipate to be 12 to 24 months. You can even edit your existing Text/Graphic tools, but you cannot add any new Text/Graphic editor tools to any page. Instead, you’ll need to use the Content Editor tool.
How to Transition Existing Tools to the New Tool?
We’ve created a wizard to enable converting any existing Text/Graphic editor tool to the new Content Editor tool. The Migrate Tools wizard will walk you through the conversion process. It takes just a few steps and then your content is moved into the Content Editor tool! We recommend that anytime you need to edit an existing Text/Graphic tool, you first run the wizard. Not only will you be updating to the Content Editor tool, but you will also be able to use all the new features the Content Editor tool offers.
The Migrate Tools wizard is a beta feature, so your CMS4Schools administrator will need to enable the wizard in Beta Features (under the Utilities section in Studio). Learn more about the Tool Migrations wizard.
Food Menu Module Updates
The Food Menu module has received new features! With a growing requirement or desire to provide fully web accessible, as well as mobile app features, the Food Menu now provides:
- An integrated USDA database search! Search and add nutrition information right from the FoodData Central (FDC). Nutrition facts are displayed for the end user (student, family, etc.).
- Introducing Items & Lines, offering options to create daily, regular or frequent foods such as Build-A-Sub bar, pizza, etc. This offers efficiency in building monthly menus.
- Improved responsive display for the website.
- Coming soon! Full mobile app integration - deliver the breakfast and lunch menu right in your school app!
As always you can import data, and if your data has the exact UPC/GTIN included, the nutrition info will connect automatically. Watch for upcoming live training session on the Food Menu and learn more with our How-To Videos and Help Article.
New Page Tool: Resource Links
New in Beta Features is our brand new Resource Links page tool. This tool is designed to build links, components, or grid type of content. This tool also provides an optional RSS feed. Designed to fully replace both the existing Links and Resource/News tools.
The new Resource Links tool allows you to choose displaying content as a list or a grid, and then choosing the content type between Text, Link, and File. You can build a link, add description, image, and more. There’s also an icon function that allows you to create icon links with any icon image file you wish. The tool has many combinations of display and link or resource options, but is intended for small “containers” or snippets of content, creating visually organized lists of links or lists of forms / documents, and feed style (post, blog, update, release, etc.) content needs.
As the purpose of this tool is to provide users with links (typically 2 or more), the accessibility of any image or icon is designed to direct users to the link itself. Do not use this tool to build textual or image focused content, use the Content Editor instead. Learn more about the Resource Links tool here.
Remember that your site administrator must first turn on the Resource Links tool in Beta Features and then it is available throughout the account.*
Accessibility Widget & ADA Accessibility Compliance
In April, the Federal Register published final rulings that update regulations for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This update impacts web content and mobile applications (apps), and affects all schools and education organizations.
CMS4Schools has been regularly updating accessibility compliance and will continue to rollout changes working towards updated compliance. One of those immediate changes is to our Accessibility Visitor Toolbar, which is a toolbar widget that can be added to your website. Changes to the tool improved keyboard and mouse functionality, keyboard navigation, positioning, responsive behavior and several style elements.
If you are not currently using the Accessibility Visitor Toolbar, we would recommend that you explore the option of turning this widget on. The toolbar not only offers access to on-site tools, it shows that you value accessibility. However, it is important to be aware that the toolbar alone does not ensure an ADA-compliant website! It is one option that can be enabled that assists some disabled users.
For customers already using the Accessibility Toolbar no action is required as the updates will automatically be applied.
Watch for more updates, including an upcoming webinar on ADA-compliant websites, coming to our User Conference on August 8, 2024.
*Beta Features, new tools and modular updates are only available in the main CMS4Schools and not in the Faculty Pages. The Faculty Pages portion of CMS4Schools is undergoing a major update expected to release in 2025.