Doors Open Day – Guided Tour App

In conjunction with our Main Library colleagues, the EDINA Mobile Internet project has developed a self-guided tour app using beacons for the main library.

The app has been specifically designed for the Doors Open Days on the 26th and 27th of September 2015. It will allow users to explore the University of Edinburgh’s Main Library through an interactive tour enabling you to learn about the history of the building, discover the exhibitions space and find out more about the library’s varied services and world-class collections.

The app uses beacons to pop up a series of videos as you explore the building(see screenshots below). It is available for download in iOS and Android versions from the Google Play store and the Apple app store :

Android : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fplan.edina.ac.uk.fplan&hl=en_GB

iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/main-library-tour/id1040515101?mt=8

Or visit the stores and search for “Main Library Tour”

iOS Simulator Screen Shot 17 Sep 2015 10.26.13          iOS Simulator Screen Shot 16 Sep 2015 16.28.08         IMG_0298

LitLong App launched as Palimpsest and LitLong feature in Edit

We are delighted to announce the launch of the LitLong iOS app, put together by the Palimpsest project team of researchers and literary scholars at University of St Andrews, EDINA, and University of Edinburgh.

The LitLong:Edinburgh mobile app allows you to use your iOS device to explore Edinburgh’s literary past, and it is free to download and use. Click on any of the download links in this post, or search the App Store for “Litlong” and, once you have downloaded a copy to your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad you can then use the app, as you move around Edinburgh, to discover how your location has been represented in literature.

Image of the LitLong app on an iPhone

The app shows you text extracts of books that mention place-names in Edinburgh. These extracts are shown with the title, author and year of the book, and can be found either by exploring books that are nearest to your current location, or by browsing the map and selecting pins to see how far that place is from you, and what texts are mentioned there.

The app contains over 47,000 extracts from 550 books across 1,600 locations in the city – so you are never going to be far from a relevant and interesting literary extract in Edinburgh! What better way could there be to explore the first ever UNESCO World City of Literature!

Download the app here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/litlong-edinburgh/id1004433531?mt=8

More details about the app and LitLong can be found here: http://litlong.org/navigating-with-litlong/download-our-app/ 

We welcome all of your comments and feedback on the LitLong app. Please do leave us comments here, tweet us @litlong or get in touch with the team. We would also love you to leave comments and ratings in the App Store, as this will help other potential LitLong App users to understand if this is the right app for them.

You can read more about the app on the St Andrews SACHI blog, in a post from David Harris-Birtill, who built the LitLong app: LitLong App now available to download from iTunes.

Meanwhile, the Palimpsest Project and LitLong have recently been featured in the Edinburgh University alumni magazine, edit, with their article “Literature with Latitude“. In addition to a great write up of the project, the piece also includes this video shot at the press launch on the day of the Lit Long Launch event. Keep an eye out for James Loxley as well as long-dead literary greats Walter Scott and Margaret Oliphant:

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you have any comments about the app, the project, or would like to find out more about future events and plans connected to the Palimpsest project and LitLong resources, please do get in touch with the project team.

 

Introducing the new MediaHub App for iPhone and iPad

Today we are very excited to announce the launch of the new MediaHub iOS App, which enables you to browse, search and save items on your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.

If you want to download the app and have an iOS device then head over to the App Store here. The app is free to download!

The MediaHub iOS App Featured screen for June/July 2015

The Featured screen in the MediaHub iOS App.

Who is the MediaHub App for?

The app is for any user of MediaHub based at a subscribing university or college and using an iOS device (an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad/iPad Mini).

In order to provide you with the appropriate search, preview and bookmarking functionality the app is limited to those from institutions that support UK Federation login.

When you first download and set up the app you will be asked to login with your username and password. Once you have been logged in – which may take a few seconds – you are ready to go and you will remain logged for several months before you will be asked to reauthenticate. This helps ensure that our licensed content remains secure, without compromising the speed or ease of browsing through the app.

Is there an Android version?

We know that MediaHub users have or access a wide variety of mobile devices and we are currently building an Android App at the moment to ensure more of you have access to MediaHub whilst on the move. We expect the Android App to be available later this year.

What can you do with the app?

As the MediaHub App will be of most use when you are away from your laptop or desktop machine, rather than include the full range of functionality available on the web service, the app has been designed to enable you to search or browse for content on the go. Use it on your commute, when filling time between lectures or meetings, or when you get that great idea and want to quickly save an item to look at or include in your presentation later.

The app allows you to:

  • Browse featured content – the highlights from our collection which also appear on the front page of MediaHub.
  • Browse the most popular items – this is always an interesting and entertaining way to explore our content, as readers of our Most Popular blog posts will already be aware.
  • Search for MediaHub content – with the option to filter by format (video, image or audio), and to search external collections. You can also choose how your search results are ordered, by relevance, title or distance from a location – either your own current location or a location you have selected on a map.
  • Preview and view MediaHub items – including being able to watch videos in full (although we recommend that you do this via a wifi connection to minimise possible data charges).
  • Favourite MediaHub items for later use –  when you favourite an item in the app, it will also be added to your favourites list when you next login to the MediaHub service website. And similarly anything you have previously favourited in the service, will be synced to the app. So, you can search, browse, and select items whilst on the move, then download and edit into presentations, lecture notes, student projects, etc. when you are next editing these on your laptop or desktop machine.
  • Share MediaHub items – via email and phone messaging.

To give you an overview of the MediaHub App and how it works we have created the following user guide video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

How can I provide comments, questions or feedback on the app?

We welcome all of your comments and feedback on the MediaHub app, and on any aspect of MediaHub.

There are a few ways you can share your thoughts on the app:

Leave a comment and/or rating in the App Store

This will not only help us, but will also mean that your fellow MediaHub users hear your comments, constructive criticisms or top tips about the app. We would really appreciate your comments and ratings in the App Store as these can really help other new users to find the app, decide whether it is the right choice for them, and get an idea of how it is being used by others.

Leave a comment on this blog post

We will be keeping an eye out for comments and, like the App Store, any comment posted here will also benefit your fellow MediaHub users who may well have similar questions. We can then reply publicly  – and may update this post with new information as a result.

Join us for a Webinar!

To mark the launch of the MediaHub iOS App we will be holding several short webinars on the app, what you can do with it, and how you might use it in your teaching, learning or research. We welcome your comments during the webinars – or send in your question ahead of time and we will ensure it is included.

We regularly run MediaHub webinars and you are always welcome to participate and comment.

Contact us privately via the EDINA Helpdesk

If you would prefer to ask your question in a less public place, or have a very specific problem, question, etc. then you can contact the MediaHub team via the EDINA helpdesk: email: edina@ed.ac.uk or by phone: +44 (0)131 650 3302.

Who built the MediaHub App?

The app was built by the MediaHub team, based at EDINA. Not only did they build the app, they also baked a MediaHub App cake to celebrate its launch!

Image of the MediaHub team with celebratory cake

The MediaHub Team, from left to right: Catherine Fleming; Lorna Campbell; Mark Allan; Tim Stickland; Viv Mayo; Nicola Osborne; Niall Munro.

Where can I find the Terms and Conditions?

When you download the app you will be agreeing to the terms and conditions for the MediaHub App. You can read these in full via the App Store, and you can also read and save a copy from the link below. At login we ask you to agree to terms and conditions for Grapevine, the MediaHub bookmarking and personalisation service. You can read these in full via the link below. As with the web service, all use of MediaHub content must comply with the MediaHub Terms of Service.

If you have any questions about how to use the MediaHub App, the MediaHub service in general, or how to use any image, video or audio item that you have found through the app or service, please get in touch with our colleagues on the EDINA helpdesk, who will be happy to answer your questions. You can contact us via email: edina@ed.ac.uk or by phone: +44 (0)131 650 3302.

What does the MediaHub iOS App Look Like?

The screenshot at the beginning of this post, and the images below, give an ideas of how the app looks on an iPhone.

The MediaHub iOS App Search Settings screen

The MediaHub iOS App Search Settings screen

The MediaHub iOS App Search results screen

The MediaHub iOS App Search results screen

The best way to find out how the app looks and works is by using it! So, please do download the MediaHub iOS App, try it out, and let us know what you think!

Exploring Data on your iPhone

This post describes a methodology for exploring the data on your iPhone/iPad that you have captured using Fieldtrip GB.  Why might you want to do this?  Well there are a couple of reasons:

  • You have cleaned your Dropbox account and deleted the records
  • Some of the data didn’t seem to upload to Dropbox*

* we have had 1 user report that some of their photos did not transfer to DropBox during “Upload Records”.  This is odd and may be as a result of a patchy data connection.

iExplore

iExplore

  1. Download iExplore – this is a free utility for your desktop that allows you to explore the file system on your iPhone
  2. Instal iExplore 
  3. Open iExplore – click continue with Demo
  4. Connect iPhone/iPad to your computer
  5. In the navigation on the left select Apps –> Fieldtrip GB –> Documents –> Edina –> Assets
  6. You should see a folder for each asset you have created.
  7. You can copy these to your Desktop or directly to Dropbox if you have a Dropbox folder on your Desktop

This should allow Apple users to find and retrieve data that they have collected using Fieldtrip GB without having to use the Upload Records function.  However, we would still strongly recommend using the Upload Records function and then access the data through the FtGB Authoring Tool.

 

Creating a transparent overlay map with mapbox-ios-sdk.

I am working on a historic map overlay, where the user can adjust the transparency of the historic map. The user can then see the how the land use has changed over time by using the slider.

opacity-map-overlay

I am going to use the map-box fork of route me. Looks like a good bug fixed version of Route-me and map-box do seem to have great some great products.

Unfortunately it doesn’t have an have an API to dynamically change the opacity of a tile source out the box. So I added it.

Its pretty easy to add. Each tileSource has a RMMapTileLayerView container when added to the map. Within that can manipulate the CALayer.opacity to get the desired effect.

I added a fork to github for testing

https://github.com/murrayk/mapbox-ios-sdk/

And example of use – the code is in github. Do a ‘git clone –recursive’ to install the submodules.

https://github.com/murrayk/mapbox-overlay-opacity-example

And example of use. In the  main view controller.

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];
        // Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.
    RMOpenStreetMapSource * openStreetMap = [[RMOpenStreetMapSource alloc] init];
    RMGenericMapSource * weatherMap = [[RMGenericMapSource alloc] initWithHost:@"tile.openweathermap.org/map/clouds" tileCacheKey:@"cloudCover" minZoom:0 maxZoom:18];

    self.mapView.tileSource = openStreetMap;

    [self.mapView addTileSource:weatherMap];

    self.overlay = weatherMap;
    // rough bb W = -30.0 degrees; E = 50.0 degrees; S = +35.0 degrees; N = +70.0 degrees
    NSLog(@"zooming to europe");
    CLLocationCoordinate2D northEastEurope = CLLocationCoordinate2DMake(70,-30);
    CLLocationCoordinate2D southWestEurope= CLLocationCoordinate2DMake(35,50);
    [self.mapView zoomWithLatitudeLongitudeBoundsSouthWest:southWestEurope northEast:northEastEurope animated:YES];

    [self.mapView setOpacity:0.5 forTileSource: self.overlay];

}

//hook up a slider to manipulate the opacity.  

- (IBAction)changeOverlayOpacity:(UISlider *)sender {

    NSLog(@"Slider value changed %f", sender.value );
    [self.mapView setOpacity:sender.value forTileSource: self.overlay];

}