Data-driven, participatory fact-mapping
This is an almost complete rewrite of the Pattrn codebase, adding new analytical features and improving the app's UX.
Major new features for data editors:
The Google Sheets data source is still supported for the time being, for users who wish to try Pattrn using the often familiar interface of a spreadsheet to manage data, or who wish to use the prototype Pattrn Editor (see documentation: https://docs.pattrn.co/pattrn-on-gapps/). For advanced users, however, the GeoJSON source data format is now the preferred format, as most of the new features above can only be linked to the flexibility provided by GeoJSON.
As GeoJSON sources can be hosted on any HTTPS site, these could be generated dynamically through applications similar to the legacy Pattrn Editor, enabling to crowdsource event data.
Major new features for developers:
The Pattrn user documentation has been vastly expanded, and is now available at a dedicated site: https://docs.pattrn.co, with content generated from a dedicated repository (https://gitlab.com/pattrn/pattrn-docs).
Besides these changes, the Pattrn v2.0 release also builds upon parallel work done to develop and improve best practices for the preparation and packaging of data (see documentation: https://docs.pattrn.co/pattrn-data-packages/)
We hope that both users who have experience with Pattrn v1.0 and new users are as excited about this new release of Pattrn as the Pattrn team at Forensic Architecture is.
Although the list of new major new features is long, this release was mainly meant to constitute a stage of stabilisation for the Pattrn project, after the major undertaking of developing and releasing as free software Pattrn v1.0, which was a timely and new major data analytics platform for conflict monitoring, investigative journalism, human rights, citizen science and research.
Pattrn v2.0 is a major new milestone of a long future journey, whose next steps should hopefully rest on solid foundations thanks to the major code rewriting and refactoring efforts undertaken during the v2.0 development cycle.
We always welcome enquiries, critique, feature requests and contributions to the documentation and to the source code: if you use Pattrn, please also join the Pattrn discourse on Gitter to stay in touch with the Pattrn team!