Ed-Tech @ DU

We made a small update to the DU Portfolio Community today that includes some enhancements in the TinyMCE WYSIWYG text editor used throughout the application. These changes were made to strip residual code from text pasted in from applications like Microsoft Word, or even other websites.

In the past, pasting text in from an external source could possibly retain a lot of extra formatting which would render the portfolio unusable. These updates tap into some of the new features of TinyMCE and should remedy this and related problems.

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One of the main issues we get called on regarding the DU Portfolio Community is in regard to text formatting. In 2007, we included the TinyMCE WYSIWYG text editor in biographical descriptions and item descriptions. While this does give DUPC users a lot of freedom in the way they style their text, it also opens the door for a lot of problems.

Basically, if a user is nor careful, text fields may end up with a bunch of formatting tags that will need to be stripped out:

The best way to do this is to just copy your text into something like Notepad first, then copy out of Notepad and paste into DUPC. Notepad (or an equivalent plain text editor) will definitely strip out these tags for you. There is also a plain text insertion button on the editor that may help in this:

This problem can also be a result of pasting content in from Microsoft Word or similar apps which will carry over a lot of extra data like this:

TinyMCE also includes a button to paste text in from Word which helps clean it up a bit:

There is even an option to edit the HTML if you really need to get in there deep:

This afternoon, CTL released a new version of the DU Portfolio Community. Most of the changes this release are all under-the-hood and would not be easily noticed by our users, but there is one important addition to Portfolio Preferences this time around: Google Analytics support.

Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you’re more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.

In order to use this feature, you must have a profile at http://www.google.com/analytics/ and generate a Web Property ID. You can then insert this ID into your Portfolio Preferences area as seen below. this will allow you to track pages and even individual item views in your Portfolio.