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: support@fpcc.ca

New features

Physical distancing response banner and blog posts

In response to the ongoing physical distancing restrictions, the development team wants to communicate more with the communities we work with. To do this, we've added a small banner on our home page with a link to our development blog. Alongside these development update posts, we've been posting articles about working while physical distancing, activities to do at home with FirstVoices, links to Virtual Open House sessions, and more. More information about these posts can be found in the New Documentation section at the bottom of this page.

Unicode display on FirstVoices

In the alphabet section of each archive, we now display the specific Unicode strings attached to each letter in an archive's alphabet. If you want to learn more about Unicode, click here.

When developing tools for a language, like a keyboard or an app, it is important that the same exact Unicode characters for that language are used across the different platforms. If different Unicode characters are used in different places, features like search and alphabetization will not function as well as they should. Displaying these Unicode characters on FirstVoices will allow for additional clarity and transparency about which specific characters are used in each alphabet.

To find the Unicode character display, go to a FirstVoices language site and click on the Alphabet tab:

Then click on a character, and select "View Words and Phrases that start with" that character.

On this screen, you'll see the "Unicode String Literal". That string (in the example below, \u0113) is what the computer reads when it displays the character ē.

The 'Explore Languages' page now groups sites by language

• Users now have the ability to toggle back and forth between displaying archives in alphabetical order, or grouping them by their language.

• All 34 languages in B.C. are listed in the Explore Languages page, with archives listed under them.

• If a language doesn’t have any associated archives, it is still listed but it has the message: “No language archives available at this time.”

• Archives from outside of B.C. are listed at the end of the list, under “Other FirstVoices Archives”

• This view also works well and is responsive on desktop, mobile and iPads.
  
  

Bug fixes

The filter menu has been removed from the top navigation bar to improve search

The top navigation bar on FirstVoices previously had issues when trying to filter searches. The defunct filter menu has been removed, and this update now allows the top navigation bar to search more accurately across the FirstVoices website as a whole.

Do you use search FirstVoices using the top navigation bar? Let us know how well this search area works for you, and how we could improve it by emailing support@fpcc.ca. 

New documentation

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

• Working on a FirstVoices project while physical distancing
• Two upcoming FirstVoices virtual open house sessions
• Family-friendly activities for at-home learning
• Consult Your Community

Contact us

Send us your questions, concerns, ideas, bugs and feedback at support@fpcc.ca!