LibGuides 2.1.5 is coming soon, and it’s all about the little things that have big impacts…and a pretty big thing for good measure! 😉
We’re aiming for Friday, March 20, 2015 Monday, March 23, 2015 starting around 4pm U.S. PDT.*
There will be no server down time nor disruption in functionality when the update occurs.
Language Options
It’s here! ¡Es aquí! C’est ici! Det är här! To je ovdje! 它在这里!
(My apologies if Google Translate failed me… 😉 )
With this update, you’ll be able to set your system to display all labels on public pages in other languages! So far we have a Spanish translation and we’ll be working with some fabulous customers to get other translations in the system as quickly as we can.
It’s as simple as going to Admin > Look & Feel > Language Options, choosing a language from the dropdown list, and clicking Save.
Boom – all of those English labels on your public pages are now in the language you’ve chosen! 🙂
I know what your next question is already. “Well, that’s great and all, but what if we want to change the wording? We don’t want that option on the homepage to say ‘BY OWNER’ – in any language. We want it to say ‘BY LIBRARIAN'”
You know what we say to that? AWESOME. 🙂 Click the Language Customization section and tweak away!

If you have LibGuides CMS, you can set languages / tweak specific wording at both the system and group level, too! There are some pages that are only system level, like subjects and search results, but you can change the homepage, guide pages, and global labels within a group.
Don’t see your language in the list? No problem! Click the Support tab and write in to let us know you’d like to help us create a new language file. We’ll write back with instructions on how to make it happen (and thank you for your help)!
Important Change to “Help is Just a Click Away” Homepage Box
In order to maintain consistency in where language is used / updated, we’re moving the “Introductory Text” and “Button Text” options for the “Help is Just a Click Away” homepage box from Look & Feel > Homepage to Look & Feel > Language Options.
We are going to automatically migrate any customizations in these fields over to the appropriate fields in Language Options, so you don’t have to do a thing!
The “Button URL” field will remain in the Look & Feel > Homepage area.
Important Changes to Templates
As a result of creating Language Options, we did have to make one tweak to all templates and an additional tweak to the Subjects page template.
It will not have a negative impact on any existing customized templates!
We will also be emailing this information to LibGuides Admins this week, but here’s the deal.
Footer Template Change:
Currently, the footer information (Powered by Springshare. All Rights Reserved. Log into LibApps. View this page in a format suitable for printers and screen-readers. Report a problem.) is hard coded into the templates. So if you want to change it, you have to change it manually in every template.
- If you’re using default templates (or wherever you’re using a default template), you can start using Language Options to customize that language in the footer immediately following the release.
- If you’re using customized templates:
- Since it’s hard-coded, as mentioned, this update will not affect the wording of that area. It will continue to display as it has been and you’ll have to manually update it everywhere if you want to change it.
- If you want to take advantage of Language Options to make changes globally, you’ll need to replace that hard coded information with the keyword {{system_footer}}.
Here’s the change, should you choose to make it:
Replace: |
With: |
<!-- BEGIN: Page Footer -->
<div id="s-lib-footer-public" class="s-lib-footer footer container s-lib-side-borders">
<div>
<div id="s-lib-footer-brand">
Powered by <a href="http://www.springshare.com">Springshare</a>.
</div>
<div id="s-lib-footer-rights">
All rights reserved.
</div>
<div id="s-lib-footer-login-link">
<a href="{{login_url}}">Login to LibApps</a>.
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div id="s-lib-footer-print-link">
View this page in a format suitable for <a href="#">printers and screen-readers</a>.
</div>
<div id="s-lib-footer-support-link">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<!-- END: Page Footer --> |
<!-- BEGIN: Page Footer -->
{{system_footer}}
<!-- END: Page Footer --> |
Or, for Guide Pages… |
Replace: |
With: |
<!-- BEGIN: Page Footer -->
<div id="s-lib-footer-public" class="s-lib-footer footer container s-lib-side-borders">
<div id="s-lg-guide-header-meta" class="pad-top-sm pad-left-med clearfix">
<ul id="s-lg-guide-header-attributes" class="">
<li id="s-lg-guide-header-updated" class="s-lg-h-separator">
<span class="s-lg-guide-label">Last Updated:</span> <span class="s-lg-text-greyout">{{guide_updated}}</span>
</li>
<li id="s-lg-guide-header-url">
<span class="s-lg-guide-label">URL:</span> <span class="s-lg-text-greyout">{{guide_url}}</span>
</li>
</ul>
<div id="s-lib-footer-login-link" class="pull-right pad-right-med">
<a href="{{login_url}}">Login to LibApps</a>.
</div>
</div>
<div class="pad-bottom-sm clearfix">
<div id="s-lib-footer-support-link" class="pull-right pad-right-med">
<a href="mailto:support@springshare.com">Report a problem</a>.
</div>
<div id="s-lg-guide-header-subjects" class="pad-top-sm pad-left-med pad-right-med pull-left">
{{guide_subjects}}
</div>
<div id="s-lg-guide-header-tags" class="pad-top-sm pad-left-med">
{{guide_tags}}
</div>
</div>
</div>
<!-- END: Page Footer --> |
<!-- BEGIN: Page Footer -->
<div id="s-lib-footer-public" class="s-lib-footer footer container s-lib-side-borders">
<div id="s-lg-guide-header-meta" class="pad-top-sm pad-left-med clearfix">
<ul id="s-lg-guide-header-attributes" class="">
<li id="s-lg-guide-header-updated" class="s-lg-h-separator">
{{last_updated_display}}
</li>
<li id="s-lg-guide-header-url" class="s-lg-h-separator">
{{guide_url_display}}
</li>
<li id="s-lg-guide-print-url">
{{print_url_display}}
</li>
</ul>
<div id="s-lib-footer-login-link" class="pull-right pad-right-med">
{{login_url_display}}
</div>
</div>
<div class="pad-bottom-sm clearfix">
<div id="s-lib-footer-support-link" class="pull-right pad-right-med">
{{support_url_display}}
</div>
<div id="s-lg-guide-header-subjects" class="pad-top-sm pad-left-med pad-right-med pull-left">
{{guide_subjects}}
</div>
<div id="s-lg-guide-header-tags" class="pad-top-sm pad-left-med">
{{guide_tags}}
</div>
</div>
</div>
<!-- END: Page Footer --> |
Subjects Page Template Change:
The Subjects page template change is just like the footer change – if you want to take advantage of changing this via Language Options, you will need to make the following update to any customized Subjects template(s):
Replace the words in red: |
With the keywords in red: |
<ul class=”nav nav-tabs margin-bottom-med”>
<!– Guide tab –>
<li class=”active”>
<a href=”#s-lg-sb-guides” data-toggle=”tab”>Guides</a>
</li>
<!– Databases tab –>
<li class=””>
<a href=”#s-lg-sb-databases” data-toggle=”tab”>Databases</a>
</li>
</ul> |
<ul class=”nav nav-tabs margin-bottom-med”>
<!– Guide tab –>
<li class=”active”>
<a href=”#s-lg-sb-guides” data-toggle=”tab”>{{guides_tab_label}}</a>
</li>
<!– Databases tab –>
<li class=””>
<a href=”#s-lg-sb-databases” data-toggle=”tab”>{{databases_tab_label}}</a>
</li>
</ul> |
On to the Little Things That Aren’t So Little…

Delete Summary Example – Click to enlarge
- Support Site Access: Now you can log in with your LibApps username / password right at the support site (if you’re not already logged in). So if one of our super cool support cats sends you a link to a guide, you can just click it, log in (if necessary), and learn!
- Delete Summaries: Ever delete something and then realize…oh no, that was reused in all of these other places?!? Well, now our delete screens are going to show you the impact of deleting that original guide, page, box, or Asset. (If you have to scroll a lot, you’ll want to rethink that delete action. 😉 )
- Database A-Z page fixes:
- The back button now takes you…well, back.
- The alphabet links now wrap properly for smaller screens.
- The dropdown plugin has been updated to ensure accessibility.
- Last Update now updates when any part of the guide is updated, not just the guide information (title, etc.).
- HTML Guide Backups: Last release, we gave you XML Exports of guides – this time it’s HTML Backups! Go to the Guide Tools menu – the middle button in the guide toolbar – and select Create HTML Backup. This saves your guide in “Single Page” mode, meaning your tabs & relative links still work in your saved version!

- CSS Change for Toggles: We added a checkmark to the toggles on the admin side of the system to make it clearer which option is selected.

- Admins Can Set Passwords: When creating accounts, you still don’t have to set a password for the user, but now you can if you want. We recommend allowing users to set their own password – just leave the password field blank and they will receive an email with a link to set their own password! 🙂
- LibApps Admins: We have a new designation for accounts: LibApps Admin! This designation is associated with the “main” admin for each site. For new sites, this is the initial admin. For existing sites, this is the admin listed in the System Settings > Admin Email field. What can the LibApps Admin do? Glad you asked!
- From the LibApps Dashboard, you’ll see a new Admin menu with Customer & Accounts options.
- Customer allows you to see the descriptive information we have in our database about your institution and allows you to make some changes, like your time zone setting.
- Accounts allows you to see all accounts for all of your v2 Springshare subscriptions. You can:
- Reset Account Passwords (though we always recommend users initiate the reset password process themselves by clicking “Reset Password” on the Login page);
Note: For security reasons, you cannot change the password for an account that is associated with more than 1 customer. This will not be an issue in most cases, but if you cannot change a user’s password, the reason is because they are associated with multiple customers.
- Make another user a LibApps Admin.
We’re amped to bring you these updates and can’t wait for Friday Monday* to share them with you! 🙂
* Date subject to change. We will post again if we need to change the release date.