We’re pleased to release a new Omeka plugin today: the MediaRSS plugin for the Cooliris image viewer. This plugin makes your archive browsable using the popular Firefox extension that “transforms your browser into a full-screen 3D experience for enjoying online media.” The ability to zoom into images and browse a visual wall creates a new way of navigating through your Omeka site.

Go ahead and download version 1.0, and follow the instructions on how to install the plugin in your theme.

Have you ever wanted to annotate your images on Omeka like you can on Flickr? 

Now you can with the beta release of Omeka’s Image Annotation plugin!  Using an adaptation of Chris Woods’ jQuery plugin, jquery-image-annotate, Omeka’s new Image Annotation plugin allows users to add textual annotations to images. To add an image annotation, users select a region of the image and then attach a textual description.  The plugin offers a searchable annotation page for admins, an image annotation gallery for item pages, and a configuration page that allows admins to specify plugin permissions for different types of users.

Download, install, and test the plugin. Start annotating your images on Omeka and let us know what you think.

We want to remind you that our OAI-PMH Harvester and Repository plugins are now available for last minute testing. The Harvester imports metadata from remote OAI-PMH data providers, while the Repository exposes your Omeka metadata using the OAI-PMH specification. Both plugins are release candidates (1.0RC), meaning we don’t recommend that you use them on your production sites yet; but we feel that they are almost ready for prime-time. If you’re interested in either plugin, this is the time to try them out on a test Omeka installation and give us feedback.

The MyOmeka plugin allows users of an Omeka site to create their own accounts and save items in the archive by tagging and creating personal annotations. Those annotations can then easily be shared with others by creating “posters,” which are simple, one-page exhibits incorporating those items and annotations into a single page. This plugin offers the possibility for your visitors to create their own personal collections of items, and can find a variety uses by the researcher, student, or enthusiast using your archive.

MyOmeka is currently being used on several popular CHNM sites, including the Bracero History Archive, and Making the History of 1989. We’d encourage you to try out these sites to see different applications of the plugin, and begin to plan how it can play a role in your own Omeka site. Click ‘login’ on the Bracero History Archive’s homepage, and you’ll be prompted to register for a new account.

Once a user is registered and logged in to your Omeka site using MyOmeka, they’re given the ability to add their annotations and tags to items. This will allow them to organize their own personal collections of items, as well as refer to their personal notes when building their own poster. The following image is of the notes and tags field in the Bracero archive on an individual item’s page.

We’ve also released a Terms Of Service plugin, which can be used in conjunction with MyOmeka and require users to affirm their understanding of your site’s TOS and privacy policy prior to registering a new user account.

So how do you get started? The first step is to download the latest version of MyOmeka 0.3.1, and TermsOfService 0.2.1. There’s also detailed instructions for installing MyOmeka on the codex. Once you’ve set up MyOmeka, you’ll likely want to add some CSS styling to make it look a little flashier.

As always, let us know how you’re using Omeka by either sharing on the forums, or adding it to our list of Sites Powered by Omeka.  We’d love to hear about it.

Jeremy has been building websites and multimedia for the better part of this century, and joins us as a guest blogger to announce the release of his Omeka plugin: Sort Browse Results. Spending several years at an institute of technology in New Zealand, Jeremy’s emphasis is on usability and accessibility and he has a keen interest in open source software. He also enjoys long walks on the beach and beer.

Being an interface developer, it helps to have an online personal portfolio of web sites to show off to prospective employers and the like. But just like the worst clients I complain about, I am constantly changing the design and requirements causing me to rebuild the site from the ground up, again and again. With a static site this was becoming quite tedious. I decided I needed an archiving system where I could keep and describe various assets such as web sites and interactive resources, a system that would allow me to change the interface without effecting my content. My search led me to Omeka.

With its semantic archiving and extensible MVC architecture, Omeka was perfect for the task. I wanted to create an interface where the user could manipulate the view to see the items they are most interested in. Omeka’s tagging and search features form the foundation to achieving this. I also wanted to give the user the ability to sort the items, for example based on the title, the date created or the item type. As this was not part of the Omeka core, I set about creating a plugin.

This screenshot is of items listed in Jeremy's Omeka archive. By clicking on 'title,' 'type,' or 'date,' you can sort items on the browse page of your archive.

The outcome was the Sort Browse Results plugin. Download the zip file. This is a simple plugin that allows items on the items/browse page to be sorted by any element in the site. Once installed and activated, see “Getting Started with Plugins” for more info, theme developers need to add just a few extra simple PHP calls in the /items/browse.php page and it’s all done. It’s flexible enough to be used how you wish. A drop-down list for example or a table with clickable headings. CSS class selectors are returned to allow unique styling of the selected element. For example you could use CSS background property to display an arrow next to the element the results are sorted by.