Blog from October, 2020

October 16 (v.3.5.1) Updates — New Tasks & Dashboard system, new layout for Songs and Stories, and more!
Bridget Chase (Unlicensed) posted on Oct 16, 2020

The FirstVoices development team has been working hard on the new release, which sees the launch of new features, as well as solutions to bugs and glitches on the site. In addition, we’ve also published new information on our blog. All of these updates have been prompted by the hard-working Language Teams and community members, whose valuable feedback, ideas and suggestions have been crucial in making FirstVoices a better platform.

If you have questions about any of the updates listed below, or have ideas for ways to improve FirstVoices, please contact us at: hello@firstvoices.com

New features

The new Tasks & Dashboard system is live

The Tasks and Dashboard system on FirstVoices makes it easy to work together on a language team to edit, review and publish entries collaboratively.

New "Request Review" and visibility buttons

Previously, requesting that a language admin review and approve a word required recorders to use a toggle system to enable, disable, publish or unpublish words. Now, the process has been simplified!

  • As a Recorder, click the "Request Review" button and select which level of visibility you think the word should have: Team, Members or Public.
  • Additionally, you can also add a comment if needed. For example, “This is a new word, please check that I spelt it correctly.”
  • That request will be sent to the Language Administrator's Dashboard, for them to accept, ignore or request further changes.
  • As a Language Administrator or Recorder with Approval, click on the drop-down next to "Who can see this?" and select which level of visibility you would like the word to have: Team, Members or Everyone.
  • If you decide to make a change to an entry after submitting a request for review, you will need to resubmit a request for review. When there is a review request pending, you cannot submit another request without first clearing the existing request.

For more detailed information, see the video below:

New Dashboard with detail view for Tasks

As a Language Administrator, you now have access to the new "My Tasks" page, now known as the Dashboard, which has a massive increase in functionality including:

  • Both a widget view that shows general information about your tasks, and a detail view that shows specific details of your tasks with buttons to approve, ignore or request further changes
  • The ability to view entry details, such as definition, literal translation, audio, etc. without leaving the page
  • The ability to view more information about who made the request
  • The ability to select what level of visibility the entry will have, and approve, ignore or request changes
  • The request will clear from the list once approved or rejected
  • Additionally, there are easy access links to key admin pages including: User requests, reports, categories, phrase books and media browser

For more detailed information, see the video below:


The Songs and Stories layouts have been updated

Updates have been made to the way Songs and Stories are displayed on FirstVoices. Major changes include:

  • Pages are all listed on one page once the song or story is opened, so multiple pages don't need to load in order to view the whole song or story
  • The layout changes depending on whether you include a translation and/or a photo, in order to maximize page space
  • Page numbers are listed at the top, in case you want to jump to a specific page in the song or story

For more detailed information, see the video below:


BC Sans is now on FirstVoices

If you've noticed that special characters render better than ever, it's because the BC Sans font has been added onto FirstVoices. Whereas Aboriginal Sans was previously the primary font used, we've updated it so that special characters, diacritics, and accents will look cleaner and more accurate across all archives.


New apps and keyboard updates

We're excited to announce that there are three new FirstVoices apps available on both the App Store and the Google Play store:


As for keyboards, the following updates have been made:

  • Haisla: There is a brand new Haisla keyboard that includes updated orthographical changes
  • Kᵂak̓ᵂala: The mobile Kᵂak̓ᵂala keyboard now showcases the proper special characters and diacritics
  • The FirstVoices keyboard app is now up to date and all keyboards will function on both iPhone/iPad and Android


Bug fixes

Admin Menu showing up properly for Language Administrators

After resolving a few issues, the Admin Menu where Language Administrators can access reports, the media browser, phrase books and categories is now accessible again.


Browsing for media no longer returns a blank turquoise screen

Clicking the filter button when browsing for audio or images used to display a turquoise screen. This screen no longer appears, and the media browsers work properly again!


Phrases and words sections now display properly on small screen mobile devices

If you are looking at words or phrases on your cell phone, you may have noticed that sometimes the FirstVoices website wouldn't display correctly. Now, the words and phrases sections will work on any device you want – phone, tablet or computer!

Clearing text in a field will now let you save changes to an entry

An error was occurring when someone filled in a field while editing an entry (for example, the pronunciation field), saved the entry, and then cleared that field and tried to save the entry again. That is now resolved, and you can delete text in fields and save without an issue.


New documentation



Looking for support, or to learn something new? Here is the new documentation that has been added to our Blog & Knowledge Base:


Contact us

Send us your questions, concerns, ideas, bugs and feedback at hello@firstvoices.com!