What have we done for you lately? The Catalyst team is always working to enhance and improve the Web Tools in response to the needs of our users.

April 2008

CommonView Enhanced -- Already!

Enhancements to navigation and messaging make a good thing even better.

Performance Improvements

Improvements to database transatcions at the Solstice level result in better performance for users.

Firefox Support

Enhanced browser support improves the experience of users posting to GoPost discussion boards with Firefox.

Database Maintenance

Upgraded RAM in the database server and performed regular maintenance on the Catalyst database.

March 2008

CommonView Released

Use CommonView to quickly create a course or project workspace and provide students and collaborators with online access to resources including files, links, images, announcements, and Catalyst Web Tools. Learn more.

February 2008

More Speed for GoPost

GoPost has been re-engineered behind the scenes for significantly speedier performance.

Web Tools Faster for Firefox

Enhanced browser support for Firefox means improved page load times throughout the tools and particularly when opening WebQ surveys.

WebQ Printable Results Improved

Printable versions of WebQ statistics views and print previews have been improved for users of Internet Explorer 6 and 7.

January 2008

Revamped Collect It Interface

The Collect It interface has been revamped with new icons, reorganized management options, and a drag and drop feature for reordering assignments.

Improved Search Performance

The search function available in GoPost and Sharespaces has been enhanced for speedier searches.

Our First Web Services

Web services have been added to a handful of tools to allow web applications outside of Catalyst to access data collected using Catalyst tools or to manage Catalyst items. Learn more.

December 2007

GoPost and ShareSpaces Made Searchable

With the initial search indexing process complete, these tools are both fully searchable.

EPost and E-submit Retired

The phase-out process for EPost and E-submit is complete and these tools are no longer available. If you haven't already, take a look at GoPost and Collect It.

November 2007

Enhanced Browser Support for File Uploading

Updates to the Catalyst tools upload widget allow Mac users with Safari to upload .c and .h files.

Improved Server Performance

Changes to the Catalyst server settings allow fast and snappy performance even at times of high user load.

October 2007

Enhanced LaTeX Capabilities

A number of new features have been added to LaTeX to further enhance your typographic options in the rich text editor of many Catalyst Tools. See examples of linguistic typesetting.

Expanded Access to GoPost

Anyone you like can join the discussion on your GoPost boards now that access to GoPost is available with a free ProtectNetwork ID. So far access is available only for GoPost, but expanded access to more tools is on the way!

Hidden Conversations in GoPost

Need a place for conversations in GoPost that only owners, administrators, and moderators can see? We have enhanced GoPost to allow you to make a discussion area "hidden" so that you can communicate behind the scenes.

Faster Page Loading for GoPost

To keep page loading speedier on even the largest GoPost discussion boards, we have added pagination for conversations with more than 20 posts.

Copy Features for GoPost

Ready to set up your next discussion board? You can reuse that GoPost board from last time. GoPost offers a copy feature so you can retain the structure of your board for reuse. GoPost also offers a download feature so you can get a copy of your board with all the conversation and post data.

Streamlined Collaboration in WebQ

When you copy a survey or quiz to another account the recipient no longer clicks into a second interface. They can accept or decline right from the home screen.

Faster Database Performance

The beginning of Fall Quarter brought record-setting usage to the Catalyst servers. To handle the high load and improve performance, we migrated to InnoDB, which allows our database servers to handle higher levels of concurrent use.

September 2007

New Updates to GoPost

In response to GoPost user feedback and our latest round of design studies, we have revised the board management screen and added more status messaging options to keep users better informed of what is happening on their boards.

User Interface Improvements for Portfolio

Following data on Portfolio user work flow and process gathered by the Catalyst research team, we have improved interface usability.

A Faster Solstice Framework

Catalyst developers have made improvements to our Solstice framework to increase page load speeds for Catalyst Web Tools users. Even more speed is on the way!

Enhanced Browser Support for WebQ

For users of less mainstream browsers, we have released improvements to the WebQ survey experience.

August 2007

Plain Text Editor for Faster Page Loading

All Catalyst Tools offer the option to turn off the rich text editor and use a plain text editor that loads more quickly.

GoPost No Longer in Beta

GoPost, Catalyst's new discussion board tool, is packed with features, highly stable, and ready for heavy use.

EPost Becomes Read-only

With GoPost in place for online discussions, we are in the process of phasing out EPost.

E-submit Becomes Read-only

With Collect It in place for paperless assignment handling, we are in the process of phasing out E-submit.

Expiration Notice for Timed WebQs

We have added a notice of expiration date and time that appears when users select the "save for later" option while taking timed WebQ quizzes and surveys.

Improved SimpleSite Upload Handling

We have enhanced the upload widget in SimpleSite so that it will replace invalid characters in file names and offer users a valid file name for approval.

Default Setting Change in WebQ

The "review responses" option in WebQ is set to "off" by default. We made this change due to the number of participants who mistakenly stop short of submitting a survey after arriving at the "review your responses" page.

Enhanced Browser Support for GoPost and Collect It

For Internet Explorer users, the attachment uploading widget in GoPost and Collect It no longer requires users to reload the page to attach files to consecutive postings.

July 2007

New Version of ShareSpaces

We have disconnected ShareSpaces from File Manager, made it faster, and added versioning, notification, and comments to the list of features.

Enhanced Browser Support for SimpleSite

For Internet Explorer users, the file upload widget in SimpleSite will disregard double clicks on "Next" to prevent unnecessary repeat uploads.

Improved File Naming in Collect It

We have improved file naming in Collect It to include assignment names in the zip files generated when users download entire assignments.

Interface Improvements for Collect It

Participant names listed in the Collect It assignment matrix will be truncated to keep the table readable.

June 2007

SimpleSite Style Editing Streamlined

The "edit style sheet" process in SimpleSite has been streamlined with the removal of an intermediary page.

May 2007

Collect It Released

Catalyst's new tool, Collect It, includes all the same paperless assignment handling features as E-submit and adds an enhanced interface, improved reliability, and new, user-requested features.

GoPost Editing Enhanced

We have enhanced editing in GoPost with the option of adding attachments.

Enhanced Browser Support for Group Manager

For Safari users, the Group Manager widget will display a scroll bar for long membership lists.

April 2007

Catalyst Servers Upgraded

The Catalyst Web Tools servers have been upgraded from Apache 1.3 to Apache 2.2 to enhance performance.

March 2007

All New QuickPoll Released

Completely redesigned on the Solstice framework, the new QuickPoll boasts a cleaner interface and new graphical formats in which to view results.

Enhanced GoPost Scheduling

Users can schedule multiple future events on a single GoPost board.