Kollaborate Server 3.9 - File Tags, Global Search, Comment Tagging, View by Last Comment and more

A new major version of our self-hosted Kollaborate Server software is here, with many new features. Our goal in this update was expanding productivity by adding features that allow you to find what you're looking for faster.

File Tags

Add tags to files to give them new context. Click on a tag to view all other files with this tag.

Tags are also integrated with Workflows. You can have an Upload Workflow automatically add tags to a file if it meets certain criteria (e.g. adding a "vfx" tag if certain terms appear in its filename). File Workflows can add tags that can disappear when the file is assigned a different workflow, which is great for adding context-specific tags.

There are additional filters added to the Files page for viewing files with or without tags, which is useful for finding untagged files when you're tagging your entire project.

We've been testing this feature internally for a while and I can't overstate just how much of a game-changer file tags have been for my own projects.

Global Search

Need to find a file but don't know which project it's in? Global Search allows you to locate files in all projects you can access.

Comment Tagging

Team members can now tag other users in comments to get their attention and there is a new option in notification settings for managing mention alerts.

View by Last Comment

There is an optional Last Comment column that can be added to the Files page, allowing you to sort by the date of the most recent comment. There is also a filter on the Files page for files with unread comments (i.e. comments added since you last viewed the file). This filter is extremely useful for quickly catching up to activity on a large project.

New File Browser

We've created a new file browser which greatly improves performance over the old one, especially for very large projects.

Search and Sort by Duration

Advanced searches can now take into account the duration of a file, and a new Duration column can optionally be added to the Files table for sorting by duration.

Update Hold Timecode

When typing during playback, the comment area will "hold" the current timecode position. You can now move the playhead elsewhere, click the button next to the timecode and have it update to the new position.

Many more changes

Other changes include:

• Admin - Added a new Rebuild Caches tool
• Player - Hold is now reset if the user has only whitespace in the comment field
• Files - Allow filenames to span two lines if no status is set on the file
• Comments - Show link users when a comment is marked as "to-do" or "done"
• Uploaded AVIF images are now correctly recognized as images instead of generic files
• Saved Searches - Editing a saved search no longer requires you to do a Save As under the same name - now just click the Update button
• Projects - Project admins can now edit project tags
• Docker - Improved proxy performance
• Docker - Updated to Ubuntu 24.04
• UI - Overhauled multiple interface controls, most notably checkboxes, which now behave more consistently
• UI - Navigation links can now have sublinks for more easily locating important pages
• Alerts - Added a new alert when a file is uploaded to a File Request link
• Encoding - If more than one proxy type is set up and the workflow is set to remove the original file, the original file is removed only for the first proxy
• Sharing - Show name of link instead of original folder name to link recipients
• Sharing - Shared links are now removed when a file is moved between projects
• Player - Filters and searches are taken into account when showing the Next / Previous buttons
• UI - Show total storage space for all projects the user can access in the page footer (before this amount was project-relative)
• Sharing - Show search bar on folder links
• Permissions - Update terminology to clarify that the "access" permission corresponds to viewing others' files
• Uploads - Fixed an issue that was preventing uploads with matching filenames from automatically being placed in version stacks
• Uploads - Fixed thumbnail stretching on email alerts for file request links
• Player - Fixed an issue where video may be pillarboxed on wide displays
• Projects - Fixed an issue where deleting a project and then creating one with the same name would say the project still exists
• Sharing - Fixed an issue where Quick Share settings may not save when Quick Share is initiated from the player page
• Files - Fixed an issue where moving an empty folder might inadvertently move additional files
• Files - Fixed an issue where deleting a department with only an empty folder inside could delete additional files
• Encoding - Fixed an issue where encoding profile might not be sent to encoder
• Uploads - Bitrate now specifies Mbits instead of Mb, for clarity
• Uploads - Fixed filesize / bitrate being the wrong way around
• Files - Fixed an issue where making a change that causes a version stack item to update would incorrectly collapse the stack
• Trash - Fixed an issue where trash size would not be automatically updated when clearing out the trash automatically
• Tasks - Fixed an issue where editing or deleting a task could show an error
• Various UI tweaks and improvements
• General bug fixes, tweaks and optimizations

Kollaborate is an essential cloud workflow platform that allows you to share files with clients and team members while integrating with Digital Rebellion apps and services. Kollaborate Server allows you to host the platform in-house on your own servers and storage. To find out more, see the Kollaborate Server overview or register for the free cloud trial (Server trials are available on request).