As AUT students Heath Behrens and Vibhu Patel prepare for their final exams after a year working on the UpStage project, they have uploaded to SourceForge the beta version of UpStage 2.4.1 – congratulations and thank you! The new code will be implemented on the UpStage server after the 11:11:11 festival.

This version gives us a major improvement in the media management system – the interface through which files are uploaded to UpStage, and through which artists using UpStage can find, edit and manage their media files. This is going to make the “back stage” processes a whole lot easier, plus we will be able to tag, search, filter and find specific media files much more quickly. Some of the many other improvements include the player/audience counter being visible for audience members; numerous small bugs have been fixed; and there are more administrative features.

The new media management system is something that the AUT student teams have been working on since early 2010, so it is exciting to be finally starting to use it. Thank you very much to all of the students who have contributed to it.

And, we’re really delighted that both Heath and Vibhu are staying involved with the development of UpStage beyond their AUT studies. They join Paul Rohrlach, who has stayed on board since being part of the 2010 team, in helping to strengthen the documentation and continuity of the AUT student teams’ work, as well as contributing to the ongoing maintenance and development of UpStage. Welcome, Heath and Vibhu!