Release Notes

New

• Questionnaire Builder 2: Upload your Qualtrics .qsf files and have your survey automatically imported into Gorilla
  To help users coming to Questionnaire Builder 2 from Qualtrics, we've created an import tool that allows you to upload your Qualtrics survey (file extension .qsf) and automatically recreates it for you in Gorilla. Visit our Qualtrics importer support documentation for more information on how to import your Qualtrics survey into Questionnaire Builder 2.
  

Improved

• Questionnaire Builder 2: Improved range of features can now be imported with the Qualtrics .qsf importer
  Following several months of user interaction and feedback, we've made a number of updates to the Qualtrics .qsf importer to address issues researchers have found as well as expand its capabilities. Gorilla should now be able to import a wider range of more complex surveys from Qualtrics, even those that include bindings to the Qualtrics store. Now that we have a more fully formed and tested .qsf importer, it will soon exit beta and we'll remove the feature flag - which means anyone will be able to use it!
  

• Task Builder 2: You can now score multiple responses on one screen
  In the Scorer (Multi) component, we've added the ability to specify a specific response tag with each correct answer. This allows you to score a response against specific correct answers only, rather than the whole set of correct answers.
  

• Questionnaire & Task Builder 2: When creating a new questionnaire or task, you can start editing straight away
  To make the process of creating a new task/questionnaire simpler, new content created in XB2 tools will now begin with an open edit, ready for you to immediately start making your task!
  

Fixed

• Task Builder 1 & 2: Webgazer's eye tracking calibration now works in Firefox
  Gorilla's eye tracking is built on a third-party package called Webgazer. We identified a flaw in the underlying Webgazer.js package that prevented calibration from running correctly on Firefox. We've addressed that problem within our own code and will soon be submitting a fix directly to the Webgazer Github as well to address the issue for all Webgazer users outside of Gorilla.
  

• Task Builder 1: Fixed issues with videos loading in TB1 in Chromium browsers
  Following a report from a user that their videos were consistently failing to load/experiencing "missing src" error message, our researcher identified a few underlying bugs/shortcomings in the Chromium suite of browsers. These specifically affect longer experiments with a large number of video stimuli in TB1. We've made some speculative changes that we hope will circumvent these Chromium issues.
  

• Questionnaire & Task Builder 2: Safeguards implemented to avoid problems with content not saving correctly between commits
  A few users have experienced their changes in XB2 content failing to save correctly between commits. While we're still trying to determine the root cause for this, we've put in some proactive, speculative error logging and a browser alert letting you know that Gorilla is having difficulty saving your changes. You'll be guided to refresh that page, which means that you shouldn't be in a position where you've made lots of changes that aren't being saved. If you see this alert persistently, please contact the support desk.
  

New

• Task Builder 2: The Eye Tracking (Webgazer) component is now available!
  Whilst we've offered eye tracking in TB1 for several years, we'd yet to bring it over to TB2 despite it being one of our most heavily requested features! That wait is finally over, and it's now available in TB2! This is the same technology we already had in TB1 using Webgazer, but with some additional improvements. You can now customise the colour of the calibration points, and use our subsystems to request permission from the participant's camera to start tracking. To hit the ground running, check out our detailed guide to Eye Tracking (Webgazer) on the support docs. If you have any questions, our our fast and friendly experts on the Support desk are always happy to help.
  

• Experiment Builder: Try our new beta mode on the Data tab! Explore our latest enhancements to the Experiment Builder
  Gorilla's Experiment Builder tool is unique in the world of online study building, as it provides a visual interface for constructing your participants' journey through your study, allowing you to implement counterbalancing, randomisation, redirects to external sites, and more. As a core part of Gorilla, and as part of our ongoing modernisation work on the backend of the platform, we thought it was high time the Experiment Builder received the same 2.0 treatment that Task Builder and Questionnaire Builder have had. However, we also didn't see the need for a whole new Experiment Builder tool.
  That's why the new look Experiment Builder isn't a new tool, it's the existing Experiment Builder that you're used to but with a fresh user interface (UI), better performance, and more user friendly guidance. Today we released the beta version of the Data tab, to go alongside the updated version of the Design tab. From any experiment, you can try the new Data tab and explore the new features and capabilities. Any changes you make will be recorded and available in the original Design tab, and you can switch back and forth between the new and classic views as much as you like.
  You'll also find a Feedback button in the lower right of the canvas - please do use this (as many times as you wish!), as every bit of feedback helps us improve.
  

Fixed

• Experiment Builder: Data generated with our early access 'Data Hamster' will now pull in all the correct data from TB1
  We identified an issue in Data Hamster that meant content from the spreadsheet in TB1 wouldn't be added to your metrics file during data generation. We've upgraded the Hamster's perception of time and space just enough for it to correctly find and generate all the data (but not so much that the Hamster is no longer fun at parties).
  Is this the first time you're hearing of the Data Hamster? Download all your data in just two files, by combining your data files across all experiment versions, tasks, and questionnaires. You can read more about the new data options on our support documentation.
  To register for the feature (codename: Data Hamster 🐹) to be added to your account, you just need to get in touch via our Support contact form, choose 'My Account' and ask for the new data feature/Data Hamster. You'll be able to use it on any data you already have if you just want to try it out but aren't planning on data collection for the moment.
  

• Experiment Builder: You can now add and edit Live Gate and Live Branch nodes to your experiment tree in the new look Experiment Builder
  The Live Gate and Live Branch nodes are currently behind a Feature Flag. We identified an issue in the new look Experiment Builder that meant, even if you had this flag, you still couldn't add these nodes to your experiment tree. If the nodes were already added via the classic Experiment Builder, they weren't able to be edited fully. These issues have now been resolved!
  

• Task Builder 2: Task performance is now improved for older iPads and iPhones (iOS 16 or older)
  We identified an issue within the Task Builder code base that was preventing TB2 content from running correctly on iOS 16 or older. We've put in a fix for this issue, so your tasks should now load correctly on older iPads and iPhones. NB: The nature of the issue and the current fix means that the Reading component will not function correctly on iOS 16 or older. We are looking into ways to resolve this, without harming the functionality of the reading component on newer devices - look out for future updates on this!
  

• Questionnaire & Task Builder 2: Improvements to our warning messaging system when trying to delete stimuli as a collaborator
  In certain niche cases when collaborating, if you tried to delete all stimuli when the open edit belonged to someone else you'd get a warning letting you know you're not the one with editing rights. But you'd get that warning for every single stimulus...which is fine if there are, say, 10 or less, but if you had a large number of stimuli you'd get the warning once per file. We thought that was excessive, so we've reduced it down to just one warning. We think that's enough to get the picture! Additionally, despite the warning(s), the UI would still show the stimuli as deleted even though they were still there. Although refreshing the page would show you that the content was all still there it was unnecessarily confusing, so we fixed that too.
  

Improved

• Task Builder 2: Default values for colour-based components have been updated for accessibility
  Previously, all colour-based components were using black as the default values (even when there were three colour options i.e. Normal, Hover, Selected). They should now have sensible defaults when you first create them. Additionally, the default colours have been chosen with enhanced accessibility in mind - win/win! Specifically, this change affects the following components and any prefabs that contain them: Border Color, Border Color - Hover, Text Color, Text Color - Hover, Background Color, Background Color - Hover.
  

Fixed

• Task Builder 2: Colour-based components will now show the same colour in the task as in the settings UI
  Default values for colour-based component settings weren't getting implemented correctly for some components. This meant that the colour would appear in the UI as black and then appear in the task as white! This isn't very helpful, so we've reviewed the components where this was happening and resolved the issue. Specifically, this change affects the following components and any prefabs that contain them: Border Color, Border Color - Hover, Text Color, Text Color - Hover, Background Color, Background Color - Hover.
  

• General: We've updated the scope of allowable characters when naming your content in Gorilla (e.g. task / questionnaire names)
  To address a few potential issues with names and descriptions for tasks / questionnaires / experiments / projects we'd implemented some restrictions on allowable characters. However these restrictions were initially a little too conservative, which caused problems for some users trying to rename their content in Gorilla. This has now been resolved. This does not affect any content that you can place within your questionnaires and tasks for the participant to see.
  Task / Questionnaire / Experiment / Project names in most editors are now restricted to the following characters: any numbers, any letters (including diacritical marks such as umlauts and accents), spaces, hyphens, underscores, full stops, single quotes, and parentheses.
  Task / Questionnaire / Experiment / Project descriptions in most editors are now restricted to the following characters: any numbers, any letters (including diacritical marks such as umlauts and accents), spaces, hyphens, underscores, full stops, commas, question marks, exclamation marks, colons, semi-colons, single quotes, and parentheses.
  

Fixed

• Subscription management/Teaching tools: If you're using the 'Teacher' role within your subscription, you can now find and add teachers within the Module search tools
  A while back we made an improvement to Gorilla Department/Teaching Subscriptions, where we allowed managers to assign the 'Teacher' role to a member directly (allowing them to access, create, and administer teaching modules through Gorilla's teaching tools). This required a few changes to how the Teacher role gets created in Gorilla and we completely forgot to copy these changes over to the Module -> Teachers search tools. This meant that you couldn't find new Teachers to add to modules, but we've resolved this now!
  

• Questionnaire & Task Builder 2: The UI for bindings will now only reflect correct bindings instead of incorrect bindings
  We identified a few situations where the Gorilla UI would highlight an incorrect binding as though it were correct. It would look like a duck (it would be orange with an F for 'Field' next to it)...it would walk like a duck (clicking on the binding would look legit-ish)...but it would scream like a goat (you know, the one from that Taylor Swift remix). We've resolved this issue now - only real bindings will look like real bindings. Unreal bindings can apply to their local Disney outlet for the appropriate quest to make them real bindings.
  

Fixed

• Experiment Builder: We've reinstated the ability to delete participants from your experiments
  Ooof! While restructuring some code for better performance yesterday we... er, kinda hosed the ability to delete participants from your experiments. If you tried within the last 24 hours or so, you would've been met with an unending 'Working...' message. Apologies for that, and thank you to the diligent users who alerted us on the Support desk which enabled us to fix the problem quickly. You can now delete participants again!
  

Fixed

• Questionnaire Builder 2: Changing the source of a bound value will now immediately update related settings
  In QB2, we identified an issue where changing the source of a bound value (e.g. from a 'Response' to a 'Field') would not immediately update other related settings. They would keep their existing value and would only update after navigating way from the menu and back again. We've resolved this issue now - on changing the binding type, the other settings should update immediately.
  

• Task Builder 2: Microphone and camera subsystems are now clearer about which device the browser is requesting access to
  The microphone and camera subsystems will now correctly specify whether it's specifically the camera and/or microphone that is being requested, rather than use the generic term "device". Additionally, we resolved several instances where the subsystem would incorrectly state that the camera was being requested when in fact only the microphone was being requested.
  

• Task Builder 2: The debug panel contains more information to help you identify components with a missing 'response' setting
  We noticed a few users struggling to debug issues caused by a component's 'response' setting being blank. We've added some more information to the debug panel, that will highlight when a response value is empty and direct you to the component where the issue originates so that it's much easier for you to fix.
  

• Experiment Builder: Data generated with our early access 'Data Hamster' feature will now blind the data appropriately
  The Data Hamster, in its eagerness to chew through your data requests, was missing one of the critical settings in a data generation request - whether or not you want the data to be "blinded". That is, should it include the participants' Public IDs or not? This has been resolved now - if you choose for the data to be blinded, Data Hamster will remove the Public ID column from your generated data.
  Is this the first time you're hearing of the Data Hamster? Download all your data in just two files, by combining your data files across all experiment versions, tasks, and questionnaires. You can read more about the new data options on our support documentation.
  To register for the feature (codename: Data Hamster 🐹) to be added to your account, you just need to get in touch via our Support contact form, choose 'My Account' and ask for the new data feature/Data Hamster. You'll be able to use it on any data you already have if you just want to try it out but aren't planning on data collection for the moment.
  

Improved

• General: We now calculate the total time the participant spends on each task/questionnaire and add it to your data files
  We've introduced a feature that was previously in the older tooling (TB1, QB1) but hadn't yet been carried across to our current tools. When a participant finishes a task, questionnaire, game etc. built using our newer editors, the final line of their data will include the total time they spent on the task, questionnaire etc.
  For Task Builder 2, Game Builder and Shop Builder, the duration will appear in the Reaction Time column of the metric that has Response = "END".
  For Questionnaire Builder 2, the duration will appear in the Tag column of the metric that has Response = "END".
  

• Task Builder 2: We've improved the look of a disabled HTML button (Button component) when using Trigger - Enabled, to conform to web standards
  The Button component in TB2 wasn't visually disabling in response to a Trigger - Enable component being set to 'disable' which was confusing for participants as, across the web, disabled buttons usually appear greyed out. Now, when a button is set to be disabled, it will be greyed out and the mouse cursor will change to indicate it can't be clicked on.
  

Fixed

• Questionnaire Builder 2: The UI should accurately reflect changes you've made to page names and ordering
  In QB2, we identified some situations where the UI wouldn't update correctly after making high-level changes to the pages, such as reordering, changing their names, or deleting them. This meant that other parts of the UI (such as the binding modal) wouldn't have the latest information about the pages and show old page names or pages that no longer existed. We've resolved this issue so that all other aspects of the UI should have the latest information!
  

• Questionnaire & Task Builder 2: We've improved the allowable characters in page and display names to protect against knock-on effects in the editors
  We identified an issue where page and display names containing quotes and double quotes could cause the editor to break. To protect against this, as well as some other edge cases, we've changed the allowable characters for display and page names to be restricted to alphanumeric characters, spaces, underscores, or hyphens.
  

• Task Builder 2: The support documentation link in the Mouse Button Response component now goes to the correct URL
  The support documentation link for the Mouse Button Response component was incorrect - it will now link to the right page!
  

Improved

• Purchasing: Invoices can now be requested directly through Gorilla for payment by bank transfer
  When making a purchase through Gorilla you have several options based on whatever might work best at your institution with your finance teams. If you need to pay by bank transfer you can now automatically request an invoice to be sent to you by using the 'Request an invoice' button. Our Sales team will follow up with all the details!
  

Improved

• Experiment Builder: A host of quality of life improvements have arrived in the new look Experiment Builder's Design tab
  As part of our ongoing improvements to the Design tab in the new look Experiment Builder, we've made a whole host of updates (too many for an individual release note per change)! Some highlights:

  • We've improved the consistency of our terminology and iconography across different UIs
  • Incorrect links to our support documentation are now fixed
  • Browser alerts will no longer close the side panel
  • Adding a new Branch node will automatically pre-populate with one branch
  • We're resolved a number of issues with Lobby nodes and Live Gate/Branch nodes that meant they couldn't be created or edited in the new look Experiment Builder
  • Various other small bug fixes and design/UI tweaks
    

• Task Builder 2: We've improved the consistency of the UI when dragging to re-order content
  When reviewing the consistency of our UI we found that, over the years, we'd accumulated multiple different icons for indicating that something can be dragged for re-ordering. We've resolved this now, so that all re-orderable UI elements should have the same interaction symbol.
  

Fixed

• Task Builder 2: Rating Scales are now compatible with the Scorer component when case sensitivity is off
  We found an issue in TB2 where the unique combination of using a Rating Scale and a Scorer with case sensitivity turned off would cause a participant's response to be missing from the data output because the rating scale was being parsed as a number (which can't be converted to lowercase). This is now resolved.
  

• Task Builder 2: We've rolled back last week's change that improved alphabetical ordering of stimuli
  We're temporarily removing the logic that was sorting files (stimuli and script files) alphabetically, as this introduced at least one breaking change within the editors. For example, some users reported being unable to make changes to their scripts in TB2 (see next release note). As soon as we've found a better way of handling this sorting, we'll restore it!
  

• Task Builder 2: Scripts created in the Task Builder will now save automatically again
  Despite our stringent testing and Quality Assurance processes, an update last week (see Task Builder 2: Better alphabetical ordering of stimuli in the 26th September 2024 release notes) inadvertently broke the logic that allows scripts in Task Builder 2 to automatically save, and changes were being lost when tasks were committed or the page was refreshed. We rolled back that change (see previous release note) so scripts will save automatically again as before.
  

• Questionnaire Builder 2: Multiple Choice Grid component now correctly scores unselected and selected checkboxes as 0 and 1 respectively
  In the Multiple Choice Grid component we found that an empty checkbox (unselected) would score a 1 and a clicked checkbox (selected) would score a 2, rather than the expected behaviour of 0 and 1. We've resolved this now, so unselected is marked as 0 and selected is marked as 1.
  

• Questionnaire Builder 2: The scoring tab initialises correctly when first loading the editor
  We've resolved an issue where the scoring form wouldn't be initialised correctly when first loading the editor, meaning that some scoring items would be visible/invisible when they shouldn't be.
  

• Questionnaire Builder 2: Newly created scores will now appear in Debug preview
  when using Debug preview, newly created scores wouldn't appear in the Debug display. This is now resolved so they'll appear when expected.
  

• Questionnaire Builder 2: The pages and questions in the branching / conditional logic response dropdowns now appear in the correct order
  In a recent update (13th August 2024), we added the page names to the responses dropdowns in branching and conditional logic to make it easier to find the droids— ... I mean, questions you're looking for. However, this uncovered an issue where the pages appeared in a different order from the rest of the UI. We've resolved this now.
  

Improved

• Task Builder 2: Better alphabetical ordering of stimuli
  In the Stimuli tab of the Task Builder, files are ordered alphabetically. However, default alphabetical order does a few things that look a bit... unexpected. For example, if you have a set of stimuli that end with numbers i.e. myImage1.png, myImage2.png ... myImage10.png etc., in the stimuli tab myImage1.png and myImage10.png would appear next to one another. This counter-intuitive ordering was making it difficult for some users to find the stimuli they were looking for. We've changed the sorting algorithm now to obey numerical ordering as well as alphabetical, so stimuli should be ordered as myImage1.png, myImage2.png etc.
  

Fixed

• Task Builder 2: Trailing spaces in spreadsheet columns will no longer interfere with binding
  A number of users reported that while the UI would look like a component setting was bound to the spreadsheet, the task wouldn't behave as expected. It turned out that a trailing space in the column name would prevent the binding from working correctly (even though the UI would suggest the spreadsheet was bound correctly). On further investigation, we found that spreadsheet columns added by uploading a spreadsheet from a file weren't being trimmed of trailing spaces correctly. We've resolved this - errant spaces should no longer interfere with binding to the spreadsheet.
  

• Experiment Builder: Task Builder/Questionnaire Builder 2 content no longer duplicated when in Repeat node loop
  The Repeat Node in the Experiment Builder allows a participant to repeat a block of tasks/questionnaires and other nodes. A few researchers reported that when looping Task Builder 2 or Questionnaire Builder 2 content, participants were finding that task/survey content was getting duplicated on screen. The first screen of the next iteration was getting placed on top of the last screen of the previous iteration. We've resolved this edge case now, making sure that the screen properly resets between repeat loops.
  

New

• Task Builder 2: There is now a Reading component, plus paced and self-paced (keyboard and mouse) prefabs
  Hurrah! At long last, the Reading component makes its debut in Task Builder 2. Alongside this are three prefabs with special configurations of the main component that are all set up and ready to go: Reading (Paced), Reading (Self-Paced, Keyboard), and Reading (Self-Paced, Mouse). As well as allowing you to replicate all the existing functionality from Task Builder 1, we've included a number of quality of life fixes. These include customising the delimiter, better handling over how the content displays on the screen and... drum roll... helpful, in-app tooltips to guide you in setting up the new component!
  

• Task Builder 2: Tooltips! Tooltips everywhere!
  As part of our improvements to the Experiment Builder we've brought in the core functionality needed to start implementing tooltips on various settings across Gorilla. In our ongoing quest to improve the user experience more broadly, we've implemented tooltips on some of the settings that we receive frequently asked questions about. Hopefully this will help users get to grips with some functionality more quickly. More to come!
  

Improved

• Task Builder 2: Spreadsheet columns will now remain bound even when the column name is changed
  Previously, when changing the name of a column in the spreadsheets, any content bound to that column would no longer function as it would remain bound to the old column name. They would need to be manually rebound to the new name. To make it easier to make changes to the spreadsheet, we've changed this behaviour - now, content bound to that column will automatically update and therefore remain bound to the column.
  

Fixed

• Task Builder 2: The Fullscreen subsystem is now fixed
  At some point in the recent past, the Fullscreen Subsystem stopped working. Thank you to the diligent researcher who got in touch this morning to let us know. That's been fixed now!
  

• Task Builder 2: Spreadsheet columns with certain punctuation are now highlighting green again
  As part of the ongoing saga of "spreadsheet columns not highlighting green when bound", we noticed the column names including underscores and hyphens weren't highlighting correctly. This has now been resolved!
  

• Task Builder 2: The loading icon will no longer erroneously appear when editing the spreadsheet
  A few researchers noticed that after editing a cell in the spreadsheet, a loading spinner would briefly appear which made it look like something was struggling to load even though everything was actually fine! Our developers identified that this loading spinner was appearing erroneously so now it (and the accompanying screen flash) will no longer disrupt you whilst working.
  

Improved

• Task Builder 2: The debug pane will now distinguish action response types from general responses
  Some users noticed that, in the debug pane of TB2, responses were being listed that...weren't actually responses, they were actions (a subclass of response e.g. the Slider component's continuous polling). The debug pane will now include some text to list these as actions.
  

Fixed

• Task Builder 2: Fixes to inconsistent behaviour with the Section Time Limit component
  A number of researchers have reported inconsistent behaviour with the Section Time Limit component; time limits would either not start, stop at 'random', or display unexpected numbers. Through investigation, we've identified one potential route for this set of issues to occur and have implemented a fix. We'll be keeping a close eye on things and will investigate further should the issue resurface.
  

• Questionnaire Builder 2: The Email Entry object now links to the correct support documentation
  Our ever-vigilant Materials lead noticed that the support link for the Email Entry object in QB2 was incorrect. This has been resolved now!
  

Improved

• Shop Builder: The 'basket subtotal' text has been added to the localisation spreadsheet
  We've improved localisation capabilities within the Shop Builder, allowing you to localise the Basket Subtotal wording.
  

Fixed

• Task Builder 2: Spreadsheet-related loading issues are now resolved
  After receiving reports from users that their tasks were being strangely slow to load and edit, we uncovered a bug in TB2 where Gorilla was incorrectly importing hundreds, sometimes thousands, of seemingly "empty" columns from an uploaded spreadsheet. We believe this was occurring because of how the spreadsheet had been initially encoded. Regardless, Gorilla will now only import spreadsheet columns that have a header row and name. This should resolve any spreadsheet-related problems with task load times if you re-upload the spreadsheet.
  

• Task Builder 2: Redundant settings have now been removed from the 'Trigger - Response' and 'Trigger - Response Window' components
  There were some settings in the Trigger - Response (setting: Target) and Trigger - Response Window (setting: anything to do with responses) that didn't have any effect, due to the nature of the trigger component. We've removed these irrelevant settings, to reduce confusion and improve transparency on how a component operates.
  

New

• Questionnaire Builder 2: We've added a new Height Entry component
  As part of our ongoing efforts to bring all the Questionnaire Builder 1 widgets into Questionnaire Builder 2, we've just added the Height Entry component.
  

• Questionnaire Builder 2: We've added a new Weight Entry component
  As part of our ongoing efforts to bring all the Questionnaire Builder 1 widgets into Questionnaire Builder 2, we've just added the Weight Entry component.
  

Improved

• Experiment Builder: When an experiment recruiting via Prolific is full, we will now send a message to the project owner and collaborators
  We've been working hard on improving the integration with Prolific to reduce the number of instances where there's a mismatch in spaces available on Prolific and Gorilla (namely, there are more spaces on Prolific than the researcher has made available in Gorilla). These instances mean Prolific participants see an 'Experiment Full' warning after reserving a place on the study in Prolific. Whilst we've managed to significantly reduce the instances of this happening, we're adding in an automatic notification to the research team of a Gorilla project (the owner and collaborators) to inform them that participants are still trying to access the study even though it's full. We hope that this will alert researchers to the issue earlier, so that they can increase the number of spaces on Gorilla or decrease the spaces available on Prolific.
  

Fixed

• Task Builder 2: Spreadsheet columns should now correctly highlight in green when successfully bound
  In the spreadsheet we use green highlighting to indicate whether Gorilla has successfully found a corresponding display name, stimulus filename etc. It's also meant to do this when it finds a column that is successfully bound to a component in your task, but a bug meant that this wasn't happening as expected. This should now be fixed!
  

• Questionnaire Builder 2: Question numbers will now work properly in Markdown formatted text
  Previously if you tried to specify a question number in the question text using markdown (e.g. "1.") the question number would disappear completely from view. This is fixed and so question numbers will now show up.
  

Improved

• General: We've added a feedback section when previewing your questionnaires / tasks / experiments
  Next time you preview something in Gorilla, you'll see the option to give a thumbs up or thumbs down as to whether your preview worked how you expected. We're using this data to help get you - our users - to successful previews faster in future!
  

Fixed

• Task Builder 2: The visible settings now correctly reflect the set behaviour of the 'Trigger' and 'Save' components
  Whilst everything was still working correctly with the Trigger and Save components (e.g. Trigger - Visible, Save Data), the settings appeared to reset themselves when you navigated away (even though this wasn't actually the case!). This was quickly resolved!
  

New

• Subscription management: You can now re-send invitations in bulk for all pending subscription members
  We received reports that for large subscriptions it was proving cumbersome to manually re-send invitations to large groups of students one-by-one. We've introduced the ability to now send invitations in bulk so you can send them out to all of your pending subscription members in one go.
  

Fixed

• Questionnaire Builder 2: Questions with HTML in them will now render correctly in the dropdown in the binding menus
  Following on from an improvement in the last release which added page grouping to dropdowns in QB2 whenever you needed to pick a specific question from a dropdown (e.g. branching, conditional logic), we realised that if the questions had HTML formatting in them it broke the way the dropdowns look. This is now fixed, and the dropdowns should look much nicer!
  

• Experiment Builder: Default node settings will now be correctly set in its configuration data
  There was an issue in the new Experiment Builder where, when configuring some nodes, settings left at their default values weren't getting correctly saved to the node's configuration data. This meant that while visually the node appeared to be set up correctly, it would not behave as expected when previewed. We've resolved this problem now - the settings you see displayed in the UI should now reflect the actual behaviour of the node!
  

• Subscriptions/My Account: When requesting tokens from your subscription, the link to the support docs now goes to the correct page
  Because of some problems with redirects, the link wasn't going to the most useful part of the support documentation. It now goes straight to the page that it should!
  

New

• Purchasing: You can now buy multiple tokens packs at once
  A number of researchers asked to able to buy multiple token packs in one go, rather than needing to make separate purchases. We've implemented this capability now so that next time you want to buy token packs you can do it all in one transaction!
  

Improved

• Questionnaire Builder 2: All objects now have default settings when you add them to your questionnaire
  We've added some simple defaults to each question type in the Questionnaire Builder. This means when you add a new question, you can immediately see in the window what the question will look like and can interact with it via the debug or live preview.
  

• Questionnaire Builder 2: When using branching and conditional logic, you'll now be able to see which page each question came from
  To make it easier for you to find the right question when setting up page branching and conditional logic to show and hide individual questions based on previous responses, questions will now be sorted and presented in sub-categories by Page
  

• Questionnaire Builder 2: To make branching easier, you can now choose to branch a participant to a different page irrespective of their responses
  To make conditional branching across pages in a questionnaire a little easier, we've added a new setting and a new option; 'Criteria' and 'Always'. When used, the participant will always branch to the specified page.
  

• Experiment Builder: You can now open up a specific questionnaire or task from the experiment even when it's closed for editing
  A few users reported that in the new look Experiment Builder, it wasn't possible to navigate to a specific questionnaire or task from the left hand pane when the Experiment Tree was closed for editing. We've altered this now so that even you can use this button when viewing a committed version of the experiment.
  

• Game Builder: You can now choose whether animations should finish playing in their entirety or not before the screen ends
  Previously animations in Game Builder would continue playing until completion even if the screen was due to end (e.g. via Time Limit). We've added a new setting to the Animator component called 'Always Finish'. You can turn this on or off to choose if you'd like the animation to finish before the screen moves on, or if you'd prefer the animation to end when the screen ends.
  

• Game Builder: Stimuli will now load for the participant progressively, for a smoother experience
  We've adjusted the default behaviour of stimuli loading in the Game Builder. Previously, Gorilla would try to preload in all of the stimuli at once at the start of the game. This was causing issues for users with a lot of stimuli. We've changed this so it will behave in the same was as the default Task Builder behaviour, "progressive" - Gorilla will load several trials worth of content in advance based on the spreadsheet and will then try and keep a buffer of a few trials worth of content. This should mean that games run more smoothly!
  

Fixed

• Questionnaire Builder 2: The Qualtrics (.qsf) import tool will no longer crash when importing a page break element
  We've resolved an issue where Qualtrics' page break options were causing the QSF importer to crash. At the moment the Qualtrics importer tool is available by request - if you'd like access please get in touch with our Support team, and choose 'My Acccount' in the options.
  

• Subscription management: The 'technician' role is now assignable on Lab, Team, and Teaching tier subscriptions
  An issue was found in the subscription management tools where users on some licence tiers wouldn't be able to assign the Technician role correctly. This is now resolved!
  

New

• Questionnaire Builder 2: We've added a new Email Entry object
  We had an Email Entry widget in Questionnaire Builder 1 which we've now also implemented in Questionnaire Builder 2. This will make it easier to validate whether participants have entered an email address or not. This also brings Questionnaire Builder 2 one step closer to having all the features from Questionnaire Builder 1!
  

• Shop Builder 1: New checkout criteria for products in certain categories
  You can now add conditions to a checkout in Shop Builder, requiring participants to select X number of products from a particular category.
  

Improved

• Questionnaire Builder 2: The Qualtrics (.qsf) import tool now includes multi-line sliders
  As part of our ongoing work into allowing you to import your .qsf files (Qualtrics) into Gorilla, can now import questionnaires with multi-line sliders. At the moment the Qualtrics importer tool is available by request - if you'd like access please get in touch with our Support team, and choose 'My Acccount' in the options.
  

• Questionnaire Builder 2: The Qualtrics (.qsf) import tool now includes horizontal multiple choice questions
  As part of our ongoing work into allowing you to import your .qsf files (Qualtrics) into Gorilla, can now import questionnaires with horizontal multiple choice questions. At the moment, these will import into our Multiple Choice component (which defaults to a vertical arrangement).
  

• Questionnaire Builder 2: The Qualtrics (.qsf) import tool now includes 'side by side' questions
  As part of our ongoing work into allowing you to import your .qsf files (Qualtrics) into Gorilla, can now import questionnaires with 'side-by-side' questions into Multiple Choice Grids.
  

• Subscription management: Subscription Managers can assign tokens to specific experiments
  To make it easier for Subscription Managers to manage where tokens are being used, we've made it possible to assign tokens to a specific experiment on a user's account.
  

• Subscription management: Clearer informational text when leaving a subscription
  When leaving a subscription you still maintain access to your account, any data you've collected, and all of the projects, experiments, tasks, and questionnaires you've created. You won't be able to request tokens from the subscription any more and won't be able to use in an experiment an Premium tools like Shop builder or Game Builder. We've updated the warning text when leaving a subscription to better reflect this.
  

Fixed

• Task Builder 2: The Slider should now update correctly if its settings were bound to the store
  Researchers who wanted the settings of a slider to vary based on a participant's previous response in a task (achieved by saving, and then binding, to the store) found that in some situations, the slider wasn't updating correctly. We've put additional checks in place now, to make sure the slider always double checks the values of settings bound to the store, prior to the start of the current screen.
  

• Task Builder 2: Elements within the 'Filter' logic will now only parse as numeric when appropriate
  We identified a flaw in the existing 'Filter' logic for many screen components e.g. Save Data, Early Exit, and triggers (e.g. Trigger Visible) which meant elements that contain numbers (but weren't only numbers) could return a false match. For example, '1_a.png' and '1_b.png' could be erroneously matched as being equivalent (because they both begin with a 1). This is a result of the counter-intuitive behaviour of functions like parseFloat in JavaScript. We've resolved this by implementing more robust checks when comparing items, only parsing to a numeric format if appropriate.
  

• Experiment Builder: Nodes will now show correctly in Firefox in the new look Experiment Builder
  Some diligent beta testers informed us that the new look Experiment Builder canvas wasn't fully loading the experiment nodes in Firefox. We've resolved this issue now! Don't forget to use the Feedback button in the bottom right of the new look Experiment Builder if you've found anything amiss!
  

• Experiment Builder: We've updated the tooltip text for the 'Preview' button
  Previously the tooltip on the Preview button in the new look Experiment Builder was about updating your nodes instead. Thanks to some diligent testers we've now corrected the text to be about previewing your experiment.
  

• Purchasing: We've fixed some knock-on effects of previous improvements to purchasing flows
  In a previous update we introduced a new way to pay for tokens and subscription. This required us to rework parts of pricing and purchasing and, regrettably, this came with a few regressions that made it past our QA processes. We're confident that we've fixed the issues now, but if you into any other trouble with purchasing tokens or subscriptions, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
  

New

• Experiment Builder: Try our new beta mode! Explore our latest enhancements to the Experiment Builder
  Gorilla's Experiment Builder tool is unique in the world of online study building, as it provides a visual interface for constructing your participants' journey through your study, allowing you to implement counterbalancing, randomisation, redirects to external sites, and more. As a core part of Gorilla, and as part of our ongoing modernisation work on the backend of the platform, we thought it was high time the Experiment Builder received the same 2.0 treatment that Task Builder and Questionnaire Builder have had. However, we also didn't see the need for a whole new Experiment Builder tool.
  That's why the new look Experiment Builder isn't a new tool, it's the existing Experiment Builder that you're used to but with a fresh user interface (UI), better performance, and more user friendly guidance. Today we released the beta version of the Design tab, an upgrade to your existing experiments that will make it easier to build both simple and complex studies. From any experiment, you can try the new Design tab and explore the new features and capabilities. Any changes you make will be recorded and available in the original Design tab, and you can switch back and forth between the new and classic views as much as you like.
  You'll also find a Feedback button in the lower right of the canvas - please do use this (as many times as you wish!), as every bit of feedback helps us improve.
  

Fixed

• Task Builder 1: Audio Recording preview links now go to app.gorilla.sc instead of gorilla.sc
  When previewing tasks and experiments which contain audio recordings, you can access these files via a URL in the metrics for quick previewing (as opposed to when you collect data from real participants, where we give you a zip folder of recordings). Previously, these URLs went to the app.gorilla.sc website where the files were hosted, but with the launch of our new gorilla.sc website this week the automatic routing stopped working and instead the URLs went to gorilla.sc. We've made this more explicit, and now your preview files will direct to the correct website where the files are hosted. For anyone that struggled accessing their preview audio files in the last couple of days, you can simply append 'app.' to the beginning of the URLs.
  

Improved

• Task Builder 2: Improvements to Camera, Microphone, and Recording hardware checks ('subsystems')
  We've made improvements to the Camera and Microphone subsystems that are used with the Video Recording, Audio Recording, and Video Feed components in Task Builder 2. The subsystems have been given a general user interface refresh and quality of life update, with a key new feature being the ability for participants to directly select the microphone/camera they want to use, as well as see a visual indicator of the current volume of their mic. We hope this helps more participants to access and configure their microphone and webcam correctly.
  Within the subsystems menu, you can also toggle on/off the 'Recording' part of the subsystems test - where we record a short sample from the participant and play it back to them as a test. You can switch this off when using the Video Feed component (where you only need the camera to be able to transmit video, not record), if you want to design your own recording test, or just want to shorten the existing subsystem test.
  The Camera and Microphone subsystems will also try and detect if they've already run previously for this participant and will then try and load 'invisibly'. The subsystems will run a brief test, without user interaction, and if they can initialise correctly they'll automatically advance without running the full test. This will hopefully reduce repetition of testing between tasks, where possible. It's important to note that not all browsers/participant setups will allow this behaviour. Hopefully, this improves the process of checking a participant's hardware and accessing browser permissions!
  

• Questionnaire Builder 2: Right hand label option added to the Multiple Choice Grid component
  We've added a right hand label option to the Multiple Choice Grid component, allowing you to set a custom label for the right hand side of each item in a radio button or checklist grid. This new feature was prompted by our ongoing work towards a Qualtrics Survey Format (QSF) importer for Questionnaire Builder 2.
  

• Purchasing: Easier access to receipts after payment through Stripe
  To help with your financial administration, you'll now have a link to your Stripe receipt added to purchases made through the Gorilla website. This will give you a more detailed account of your purchase and any regional fees applied.
  

• Purchasing: You can now generate an invoice and payment link for someone else to make the payment
  We've found that often the user who needs the tokens doesn't always have the authority to actually purchase the tokens - or, at least, it's a lot easier for someone in another team such as Finance or an departmental administrator to complete the purchase. To facilitate this, without the need for quotes and invoices, you can now generate a payment link for a given purchase. You can send this link to another person (they don't need a Gorilla account) and they can input the card details to manage and complete the payment.
  

• Subscription management: View link to the experiment tied to a token request
  To help subscription managers in handling token requests, if your subscription allows for technicians to view member projects, we'll now include a link to the experiment the user requested tokens for. This will then allow you to review the member's experiment and make sure they have everything set up to the university or course module's specifications, if needed, before approving the tokens.
  

• Subscription management: The 'Technician' role is now only available on relevant subscriptions
  We've slightly changed the user experience for the subscription management membership page. The main perk of having the 'Technician' role on a subscription is the ability to access and debug member projects via a link without the need to be a collaborator. Previously the Technician role was available regardless of whether the subscription tier allowed access to member projects. This meant that technicians on such subscriptions didn't have any perks over other administrator roles, so we've changed it so that the Technician role is now only available if the subscription tier allows technicians to access member projects to provide support in the first place.
  

Fixed

• Questionnaire Builder 2: the Multiple Choice Grid will no longer prevent the questionnaire from progressing if you delete all questions/statements
  The Multiple Choice Grid and Consent Form components would previously allow you to delete the Questions/Statements and/or the Response. This caused problems with the logic in the component, which prevented the questionnaire from moving forward. To address this, Gorilla will no longer allow you to delete all the Questions/Statements and Responses as that doesn't fit the scope of the component's purposes, thereby resolving associated issues.
  Additionally, if a question is marked as optional then it will always be optional even if it has no entries or you've only filled in some of the entries, which previously wasn't the case.
  

Fixed

• General: Searching for collaborators by email works more reliably
  Sometimes when searching for a collaborator by their email address, nothing would show even if that user did have an account. We tracked this down to some issues with certain characters in the text, made some fixes, and the search process should now be much better!
  

New

• Task Builder 2: Added Image Sequence component
  We've added the Image Sequence component to Task Builder 2 which allows you to display a set of images in a sequence, one after the other. While you can already achieve this behaviour using multiple image objects and the Trigger - Visible component, the Image Sequence component also allows you to "loop" the sequence. Once each image has been presented, Gorilla will go back to the beginning of the image set and show the sequence of images again.
  

• Task Builder 2: Added Change Blindness prefab
  We've added a new Change Blindness prefab object. This is a specialised version of the new Image Sequence component with pre-defined settings that allow you to present two images separated by a mask with ease.
  

Coming soon

• Task Builder 2: Do everything that you could do with Task Builder 1!
  It has been a long journey and now we are just a few steps away from feature parity with Task Builder 1, which means every feature that you had in TB1 will be available in TB2. The remaining items - the Reading component, Eye Tracking and Screen Calibration (along with allowing positioning and sizing of stimuli using centimetres and visual degrees) - should all be arriving within the next 4-6 weeks. Following this, we're also preparing to release an automatic migration tool, allowing you to convert your existing TB1 content to TB2 with a single button press!
  

New

• Questionnaire Builder 2: Added the Early Exit component
  We've added the Early Exit button to Questionnaire Builder 2, which allows participants to exit out of a survey early. This component behaves in the same way as counterpart in our earlier Questionnaire Builder tool, saving out the participant responses to the survey up to the point where they exited early. The component also saves a value to Gorilla's data store, that you can use in the experiment tree. For example, using a Branch Node, you can send the exited participant to a reject node, rather than have them continue with the rest of the experiment.
  

Improved

• Task Builder 2: New tasks will auto-populate with an empty display and screen
  When you create a new task, the first thing you'll want to do is add a display and a screen but so far it's been a manual process. Now, when you open a new task, you'll find that we've already created the first display and screen for you so that you can get straight to building the content.
  

Fixed

• Questionnaire Builder 2: Conditional questions will only save responses when appropriate
  In Questionnaire Builder 2, you can make the appearance of some questions conditional on the responses to other questions. However, if a participant goes back to an earlier question or page and changes their responses, Gorilla wasn't taking this into account when uploading all their responses. It would still include responses from any answered conditional questions (even if those questions were no longer displayed). This issue has been resolved now - you'll only get final responses for questions that were relevant to participants when they finished the survey.

Fixed

• Task Builder 2: Draggable items can now be easily dropped
  In Task Builder 2, you can make items like images and text draggable by the participant using the Draggable component. However, a change to how the major browsers handle events from the mouse meant that the draggable item was less easily droppable. It would become stuck to the users cursor until they clicked to drop it again. This issue has now been resolved - draggable items can now be dragged and dropped through a single mouse click.
  

• Task Builder 2: Save Data Clamp settings respects min and max
  In Task Builder 2, you can use the Save Data screen component to save out additional information from participant responses, such as a count of correct answers, or a count of a particular trial type etc. When working data in a number format, you can also "clamp" the data to be within a range by setting a minimum and maximum. However, in some circumstances, when setting both a maximum and a minimum, the minimum would not always be respected. This issue has now been resolved - the data will always be clamped to the range defined by the minimum and maximum settings.
  

Improved

• Task Builder 2: Improved language and labels on Scorer and Scorer (Multi) components
  We got a bit overexcited when editing the Scorer component recently, and accidentally added an exclamation mark into the 'Correct Answer!' setting label by mistake. We hope you're as excited about our tooling as we are, but we decided to remove it. Whilst we were at it, we also harmonised the label text between the Scorer and Scorer (Multi) components.
  

• Subscription Management: Subscription managers are now able to assign the 'Teacher' role to subscription members without needing to go through the Gorilla team
  The Teacher role (used for the Gorilla Teaching Tools) can now be assigned by subscription managers directly, rather than needing a Gorilla team member to activate it. This functionality is automatically available on Department/Teaching Subscriptions, but we are also able to enable this on other relevant subscriptions by request.
  

• Subscription Management: You can now download the existing subscription members list, amend it, and reupload it
  Subscription managers can now download the list of current members, as well as amend the list and reupload it to update the members list. This is an improvement on needing to go through the (often counter-intuitive) Invite to Subscription route. Note that you can still update via the Invite to Subscription button as well.
  

New

• Data: Download all your data in just two files, by combining your data files across all experiment versions, tasks, and questionnaires (early access).
  You said, we did! This long-awaited feature removes the struggle with an unwieldy amount of data files. We're giving some select Gorilla users the ability to combine data across all experiment versions, all task data (of all kinds, including shops and games), and all questionnaire data. That's one file with every version of your task data, and one file with every version of your questionnaire data! You can read more about the new data options on our support documentation.
  To register for the feature (codename: Data Hamster 🐹) to be added to your account, you just need to get in touch via our Support contact form, choose 'My Account' and ask for the new data feature/Data Hamster. You'll be able to use it on any data you already have if you just want to try it out but aren't planning on data collection for the moment. This is only the beginning of a series of features that allow you to have more control over the format that your data is downloaded in, hopefully reducing the overall time you need to spend pre-processing your data before you can get going with your analysis.
  

Fixed

• TB2: The Slider component is now compatible with the Trigger - Active component again
  When we fixed the Slider component to be compatible with the Trigger - Enable component yesterday we introduced a new bug which meant that the Slider component then became incompatible with Trigger - Active. This was promptly fixed and you can now use either Trigger - Enable or Trigger - Active with the Slider in TB2.
  

Improved

• TB2: Case sensitivity can be toggled on or off in the Scorer and Scorer (Multi) components
  Previously the Scorer and Scorer (Multi) components were case sensitive by default. We've now added an option to these components to toggle on/off case sensitivity which provides a little flexibility in scoring correct answers. There's no longer any need to explicitly specify variations of the correct answer to get around the case sensitivity!
  

• TB2: The scaling for portrait mode (16:9) on mobile devices has been improved
  We've generally adjusted the scaling on the portrait mode (16:9; mobile) layout to scale less aggressively on smaller devices.
  

• TB2: The Multiple Choice component now has an autoscale setting
  The Multiple Choice component in TB2 now has an autoscale option, which will reduce the size of the text to fit better on smaller screens.
  

Fixed

• TB2: The Slider component is now really compatible with the Trigger - Enable component
  We recently brought the trigger functionality for the TB2 Slider component more in line with expected behaviours (see the 14th May 2024 release notes) but this wasn't quite working correctly. We fixed it so that you can use the Slider with Trigger - Enable now.
  

• EB and TB2 tutorials: You can now switch off the tutorial once finished and keep editing your task or experiment
  When completing the Experiment Builder and Task Builder 2 tutorials, many users wanted to continue building within that task or experiment after finishing the tutorial, rather than create a new project and start from scratch. This is completely sensible behaviour, but we hadn't designed the tutorials for that which meant that users were presented with seemingly never-ending pop-ups prompting them to follow a certain set of instructions. This was frustrating, so we've now added an option at the end of the tutorial to end the tutorial-ness of it, and revert to a regular experiment or task that can be used for building freely.
  

Improved

• General: The 'Response Type' column in data files now only shows strings and not, in some cases, a number
  The 'Response Type' column was showing a '5' for informational response types (e.g. where the Response column showed metrics such as 'BEGIN' and 'END'), even though the data in this column is usually a string. It's now been corrected to be consistent with the rest of the data and will show a string instead.
  

Fixes

• Shop Builder: The item count on the product will now update correctly in line with the item count shown in the basket
  A bug in Shop Builder meant that products on the home page weren't correctly updating the item count when items were added or removed from the basket, even though the basket itself was correctly updating. This has now been fixed so that the UI shows the correct product count.
  

Improved

• XB2: You can now allow participants to control the Slider component with the left and right keyboard arrows
  Keyboard control has been added to the Slider component for both TB2 and QB2. This brings the functionality more in line with expected behaviour across the web, allows a more fine-tuned response if your slider has a large range, and gives you greater control over whether your participants need to switch between mouse and keyboard throughout a task.
  

• TB2: The Slider component is now compatible with the Trigger - Enable component
  Our Trigger components allow you to make other components visible/invisible, active/inactive, enabled/disabled at the point of your choosing within a trial. Previously, you could disable the Slider component using Trigger - Active, but that really should've been Trigger - Enable! You can now enable/disable the Slider using Trigger - Enable (although it will still work with Trigger - Active as before). This is to bring our Trigger components in line with the expected behaviours i.e. Trigger - Enable enables/disables components that the participant can interact with, whereas Trigger - Active activates/deactivates components where something happens to the participant (e.g. an audio track or video playing).
  

• Experiment Builder: We've added an upper bound to the time limit you can place on an experiment because, previously, you could have an experiment time out after 11,000 years and we thought that might be unnecessary (if you plan to have an experiment running longer than the time since the last ice age, do let us know)
  The previous cap on the time limit for an Experiment was 100,000,000 hours (11,000 years). Once 11,000 years have passed, Gorilla will eventually reject any participants that had not finished the experiment...assuming that the internet in its current form still exists in the year 13,024. Given that 11,000 years is the approximately timespan between the end of the last ice age and today, we decided to change it. Experiments with unnecessarily long time limits (e.g. in case of a typo) clog up our database so we've done the sensible thing of capping it at a year. Don't worry, you can run longitudinal experiments longer than a year (in fact, you can run them as long as you like) - but in that case it's probably not necessarily to add a time limit in the first place!
  

Fixes

• TB2: The Text - Hover and Border - Hover components will now successfully reset when branching back to an earlier screen
  Previously, Text - Hover and Border - Hover components that had already been interacted with would start on their 'completed' state instead of resetting to the default when branching back to a previous screen. This is now fixed so that they successfully reset to the default state, and the hover effect will now work as expected regardless of whether the participant has interacted with it before.
  

• Shop Builder: The 'Hide Prices' setting will now behave as expected and successfully hide the prices of products displayed in the shop
  There was a bug which meant that this setting wasn't working correctly and it would still show the prices even if the researcher had elected to hide them. This is now fixed and working correctly.
  

New

• Support Documentation: You can now provide feedback on our support pages
  Our team have been working hard to improve the support documentation for you, and as part of this effort they've added a feedback widget which you should see appear on the right hand side of the pages. Use this to rate the page you're on and optionally provide feedback. The team have enjoyed seeing the feedback come in so far, and would love to hear from as many of you as possible!
  

Improved

• TB2: Multiple Choice component now allows switching between checkboxes and radio buttons, and includes a free text 'Other' option
  To give you more response options in in Task Builder 2, we recently added the Multiple Choice component. Since then, we've added more features to make it align more with the range of features available in its QB2 counterpart. You can now switch between radio buttons (one response per question) and checkboxes (multiple responses per question) with the Allow multiple answers setting. You can also use the Allow 'Other' setting to bring up a free text box for participants to add their own response.
  

• TB2: If users didn't finish setting up the Keyboard Response component, no data would come through
  Previously in the Keyboard Response component, if you left the 'response' field empty, Gorilla wouldn't have any responses to listen for which meant this data was empty. Empty responses means no way of knowing which key your participant pressed. Now, if the Keyboard Response component isn't fully set up, Gorilla will default to recording the name of the key pressed as a safeguard, so you at least have something useful in your data to work with!
  

• Shop Builder: Participants can now specify a precise quantity of items to add to the basket
  In Shop Builder, participants could previously only increase or decrease the amount of product in their basket by using the - or + buttons. To make it easier for participants to add larger amounts of a product to their basket, they now have the option to type in the exact quantity of items to add to their basket.
  

Fixes

• TB2: Multiple Choice component wasn't updating in the in-editor live preview
  To give you more response options for participants in Task Builder 2, we recently added the Multiple Choice component. However, this launched with a bug where the in-editor live preview would not correctly update when you added a new response option or changed a response option's label. This issue has now been resolved.
  

• TB2: Overlay component wasn't compatible with the Dropzone component
  The Overlay component, which allows you to position a component based on the size and position of another component, wasn't working with Dropzone components. Researchers found they were unable to drag and drop draggable items onto a dropzone if it was linked to an Overlay component. This issue has now been resolved.
  

• TB2: Draggable objects couldn't be dragged and dropped more than once
  Researchers were reporting that draggable items could only be dragged and dropped once, despite a setting that should've enabled this to be toggled on and off. Further, when placing a draggable item in a new starting location (using the Start In Location setting), the item would no longer be draggable. Both of these issues have now been resolved - draggable items should now be draggable in any circumstance.
  

• General: Checkbox formatting was different if the content spanned more than one line
  We recently updated the formatting of our checkboxes so that they were a little bigger and easier select. However, this had the unintended effect of having different sized checkboxes if the accompanying text spanned one line (a bigger checkbox) or multiple lines (a smaller checkbox). This has now been fixed to ensure consistent sizing.
  

• General: Subscriptions with unlimited tokens were showing a negative token allowance
  When assigning tokens to subscription members, subscription managers were seeing a negative token allowance available despite having unlimited tokens. This is now fixed.
  

Updates

• Purchasing: Our prices have changed
  Inflation has been high over the last 24 months - up to 10% in some countries. Last year we kept our prices frozen in the face of increasing costs. We know that getting funding is difficult at the best of times, and that university budgets are always tight, so we're doing what we can to share the pain and keep Gorilla affordable. This year, we're limiting our price increases to a maximum of 5%.
  

New

• TB2: The Video Feed component has been added to Task Builder 2
  This is a simple implementation for now, with just a few of the features that were available in Task Builder 1. The more advanced feature of taking a snapshot of the participant's video feed after X number of milliseconds have elapsed will be added at a later time.
  

Improved

• TB2: You can now upload multiple spreadsheets at at time
  When uploading a spreadsheet in TB2, you can now select and upload multiple spreadsheets at once instead of having to do them one by one!
  

• TB2: When switching spreadsheets mid-task, the spreadsheet name is now captured in the participant metrics
  A change of spreadsheet following the action of the Change Difficulty - Spreadsheet or Jump to Spreadsheet components wasn't being captured in the participant's metrics. We've added a new spreadsheet column called "Current Spreadsheet" so that you can easily determine what spreadsheet a participant started on vs what spreadsheet they are on now in any given trial.
  

Improved

• General: When a Prolific user returns a study on Prolific, they will be automatically rejected on Gorilla
  When a Prolific user returns (i.e. drops out of) a study on Prolific, they will automatically be rejected on the Gorilla side. This should reduce/prevent the dreaded "Experiment Full" warning from arising prematurely (due to their being live participants taking up slots on Gorilla that have returned on Prolific).
  

Fixes

• QB2: Multiple Choice components weren't showing previous responses when navigating backwards
  Multiple choice components weren't correctly showing previous responses when going back a page. We've corrected this. We've also resolved an issue where the Other option text box wasn't appearing when going back a page!
  
• General: Issues opening tasks in 'My Library'
  There was an issue with library content made with XB2 tooling not having their version number parsed correctly. This meant that instead of a task you got... a blank screen. This has been resolved.
  

New

• EB: We've added CloudResearch: Connect as a recruitment option in Gorilla!
  Selecting this option will allow you to setup recruitment via the Connect service, with Gorilla automatically capturing the necessary data from CloudResearch.
  

Improved

• EB: The existing CloudResearch integration has been renamed to CloudResearch: MTurk ToolKit
  To distinguish the existing CloudResearch recruitment policy from the new Connect option, and to match CloudResearch's own nomenclature, we've changed the existing CloudResearch recruitment policy name to CloudResearch: MTurk Toolkit.
  

• QB2: Improved spacing between Objects on the participant side
  We've improved the spacing between separate Objects in QB2, so that it's easier to see which response options belong with which question.
  

New

• Game Builder: Three new components have been added - Countdown, Section Countdown, and Section Time Limit
  We've added a Section Time Limit component to the Game Builder, allowing you to place a time limit on a section of a game (in the same manner as you can in the Task Builder). To further match the Task Builder's capabilities in this area, we've also added a Section Countdown component - a Text component for displaying the time remaining on a Section Time Limit; and a Countdown component - a text component for displaying the time remaining on a Screen Time Limit.
  

• TB2: Asynchronous spreadsheet randomisation now possible with scripting
  It's now possible for spreadsheet randomisation to include asynchronous commands. This allows you to call out to an external service and await a response before continuing with spreadsheet randomisation (and task loading).
  

Fixes

• XB2: 'Deprecated' warning removed for .wav files
  In the Stimuli tab, .wav files were incorrectly marked as deprecated. While we don't (yet) recommend them compared to .mp3 files, there is support for them within most browsers, which is generally improving over time.
  

• XB2: Store data wasn't always being retrieved correctly
  Content saved to the store that went over 1024 characters wasn't being retrieved correctly (although it was stored correctly), causing store fields to appear to have old/out of date data in them.
  

• XB2: Single Text Entry and Single Number Entry components' onset time metric fixed
  The 'onset time' metric, which records the time to first key press in text entry/number entry components, will now reset between response entries. Previously it showed only the onset time for the first entered response.
  

New

• TB2: Multiple Choice component
  There's now a Multiple Choice component in Task Builder 2, mirroring some of the functionality from Questionnaire Builder 2. We'll be revisiting this in the near future to bring it to full feature parity compared to QB2.
  

Improved

• General: Improved Checkboxes
  We've improved the click-ability of checkboxes within our new tooling (TB2, QB2 etc.). Specifically, we've increased their size to conform to accessibility standards across desktop and browser. We hope this improves your experience while building your experiment but also participants' experience filling out your surveys.
  

• General: Overwriting stimuli
  When uploading stimuli with the same name as existing stimuli, you'll now be asked if you want to replace the existing file or skip over it. This gives you more control over what happens when bulk uploading stimuli and (hopefully!) prevents accidental overwriting of stimuli files.

Fixes

• TB2: Removed Horizontal Alignment setting
  Many components had a horizontal alignment setting which... didn't actually do anything. We've removed this setting except from the Slider component, where it controls the horizontal positioning of the labels on the Slider. Further to this, we've changed the names of the Horizontal Alignment options on the Slider, to make it clearer what each option does.
  

• TB2: Improved Canvas Painting additional file data
  The Canvas Painting component includes a setting for generating a file that records the participants individual brush strokes, collating when and where they started as well as duration of individual strokes and velocities. Some users noted there was inconsistency/redundancy in two of the columns: Elapsed and Timestamp. We've replaced these with a single Timestamp column, which gives the time of an event from the onset of the screen.
  

• QB2: Dropdown component correctly respects optional
  Due to a change in how the Dropdown object processed its options (to allow for users to bind options to the store/previous responses), the Dropdown object was no longer respecting the "Optional" setting. It was always requiring a response. This issue has now been resolved.
  

• QB2: Scores were not appearing in Preview Short form data
  An error in how Preview data is generated meant that Scores weren't being correctly added to the short form data file. This issue has now been resolved.
  

• Multiplayer: Advance - Multiplayer now defaults to All correctly
  The Advance - Multiplayer component, which allows you to control the player requirements for a task to advance in a multiplayer environment, was missing a default setting. This meant that, when added to a screen, it wouldn't behave correctly until you interacted with its settings at least once. This issue has now been resolved.

Fixes

• QB2: fix to earlier release
  The release earlier today where we added the ability to bind response options in QB2 introduced a bug which meant that a response of '0' was detected as missing when previously it would've been valid. This was fixed within a few hours of the bug starting!
  

New

• QB2: You can now bind response options
  Previously you weren't able to bind response options in QB2 in the same way you could bind response options in TB2. This now enables you to use a participant's previous response as a response option in a future question.
  

Improved

• TB2: Increased default size of the Slider
  If you layer interactive objects underneath other objects, it makes them difficult to interact with for the participant. This became apparent with the Slider component, where it becomes difficult to drag the handle if you have this overlap in your task. As a gentle nudge to pay attention to your laying, we've increased the default size of the Slider component when you first add it to your task.
  

• XB2: Slider start position in the metrics
  The start position of the slider handle will now be recorded in the metrics. This is particularly useful if you've opted to have a random or variable starting position and want to investigate any sort of anchor effects.
  

• TB2: Slider can be set to disabled
  The slider can now be disabled - so it can't be interacted with by a participant - by using the Trigger-Active component. This allows you to make a slider that is just visual without allowing a response. This could be used to present a participant with a reminder of their previous response, or show participants a different value ("other people responding like this...") This also brings us to feature parity with TB1 version of the Slider!

Fixes

• TB2: Duplicate 'Response' fields in Trigger - Response component
  There were two fields called 'Response' in the Trigger - Response component, and the setting in the second one would overwrite the first even though the settings were intending to do different things. The first setting was to set the response that triggers the component, and the second setting was the response that was triggered by the component. In other words, the first was for input and the second for output. Now, the field that triggers the component is called 'Response', and the response submitted by the component is in the 'Emit response' field.
  

• QB2: Removed redundant setting from QB2 page options
  The 'Rename' setting on QB2 pages was no longer functional, and you can edit the name of the page by simply clicking on the page name, and so we've removed this setting.
  

Fixes

• Subscriptions: Bug in subscription management tools
  Yesterday we received a report of a bug in our subscription management system that was unticking the 'allow manager selection rule' even though a subscription manager hadn't done so. This is now fixed, but if you experience any more difficulties then do get in touch with us.
  

• XB2: Rare cases of duplicate data in the metrics
  We identified that, in very rare circumstances, participants with a poor or unreliable network connection could upload duplicate sets of metrics. We've implemented server side checks to prevent these duplicate metrics from entering your data files. Further, we've been keeping track of how often these duplicate metrics were occurring and can confirm that it affected only a small number of participants and typically resulted in only a few additional metrics for that participant.
  

Improved

• Task Builder 2: You can now log each individual keypress from the participant with the Text Entry component.
  In your Text Entry settings you can elect to turn on the function to log each keypress. That means you'll get a response time and the current contents of the text box in your data file. Really useful for tracking how participants create - and even correct - words and sentences in language or typing studies.
  
• Task Builder 2: The Number Entry component now includes auto-snap, so that when the screen starts the box is in focus for the participant so that they can start typing instantly.
  Previously, the participant would have needed to click in the Number Entry component before they could start typing, but we've improved this so now the text box will be in focus and the text cursor (or 'caret') inside it, ready for the participant to start typing instantly. This brings it in line with how the Text Entry component works.
  
• Questionnaire Builder 2: The scoring tab now includes the custom page names that you specify, rather than just the page number.
  In QB2 we allowed users to change the name of the page to a custom name instead of simply Page 1, Page 2 etc. However, we hadn't yet piped this information into other areas of the builder. In the scoring tab, you'll now see your custom page names which hopefully makes it easier to manage scores across different pages.
  
• Questionnaire Builder 2: The branching dropdowns now includes the custom page names that you specify, rather than just the page number.
  Similar to the above improvement. When using the branching functionality, you'll now be able to select your pages based on the custom names you've given them, rather than just the page numbers.
  

Fixes

• Task Builder 2: A bug meant that if you used a video as the background of a Click Painting or Canvas Painting component, the task would hang at the end of the painting screen.
  The task would hang in this instance because of differences in how browsers handle certain loading events for videos compared to images. We've resolved this so that it should run smoothly, and you'll now get the first frame of the video in the composite image from the painting components without issue.
  
• Questionnaire Builder 2: The descriptions of each object stopped fitting on the screen when picking a new object to add.
  We recently updated the descriptions of each object in the Questionnaire Builder, but then they wouldn't fit inside the boxes as they had previously! This meant that the end of each description was cut off. We've not fixed this so you can see the whole of the description.
  

Yep, a second release in one day! We found a bug that was causing some breakages so our wonderful development team deployed an emergency evening release.

Fixes

• Experiment Builder: Version number appearing as 'vnull' on the nodes
  A bug in the experiment tree was causing edited questionnaire/tasks which had been cloned from the tree initially to show their version number as "vnull". As Gorilla didn't know which version to use, that meant that the task/questionnaire wasn't appearing when previewing or collecting data.
  

Improved

• Questionnaire Builder 2: Updated menu in preview mode
  When midway through previewing your full questionnaire we gave you the option to download your data even though, due to the way data in QB2 is processed, the preview data isn't available until the end of the preview. We've changed the option now so that you can skip the remaining pages instead to access your preview data.
  

• General: Improved error messages
  We don't always know what's gone wrong when there's a pop-up error message, but in cases where we have some information we'll now display a handy message for you to relay to us if you need to contact the Support Desk.
  

Fixes

• Questionnaire Builder 2: Exports were mistakenly labelled as a task
  When exporting a questionnaire in the builder, we had named it 'task' instead of 'questionnaire'. This didn't affect the content of the export, just the name of the file.
  

• General: Scrollbar styling changed
  A Chrome update that introduced support for some CSS scrollbar styles had a knock-on effect on how our scrollbars were appearing in Gorilla.
  

• Shop Builder: HTML content blocks disappeared once a product was added to the basket
  Once a participant added a product to their basket, any HTML content block on that product would disappear unless they navigated away from the product page and back again.
  

New (well, sort of)

• TB2: New Screen Recording component
  Fans of Will's (our Head of Development and Operations) release notes will fondly remember his rendition of the Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers song in the 19th October release (scroll down - you won't regret it). Unfortunately, he got so carried away with his songwriting that he forgot to announce a brand new and exciting feature. Task Builder 2 (as of September 2023...) has a new Screen Recording component! Use this to enable the participant to share and record any screen, window, or tab on their computer.
  

Improved

• General: Team + Success subscription package for commercial researchers
  We've made an addition of bespoke onboarding to our Team + Success Commercial subscription package on the pricing page.
  

Anyway, I (Jade, Head of Product) will continue the trend with my own version of the Chip 'n' Dale song now...

Fixes

• TB2: Spreadsheet flashing bug
  We've fixed the strange flashing effect that had been recently occurring in the spreadsheet. It was caused by Gorilla getting stuck in a loop of thinking something needed updating when it didn't.
  

• TB2: Unresponsive editor due to Store data
  Trying to write information to the local store while in the editor (for example, when viewing the live preview) caused the editor to break and become unresponsive. This affected a number of different component, with the Save Accuracy, Save Data, Save Reaction Time, and Save Response components being the most notable.
  

• EB: Unable to swap a questionnaire node for another questionnaire
  When trying to switch a questionnaire node to a different questionnaire within the Experiment Builder, it would only let you pick tasks. This had other knock-on effects, such as a task appearing in the editor as green instead of blue which was a confusing visual cue!
  

Improved

• QB2: Improvements to the layout of the Screens tab
  On the Pages tab, the 'New Page' tile would get squashed once you had more pages than would comfortably fit width-ways across the screen. Now, not only is it not squashed, but you can see all your pages on one screen without needing to scroll.
  

Improved

• TB2 & QB2: Rating Scale components
  We've improved the layout of the Rating Scale/likert component so that your labels should line up better and the the scales be consistent sizes when you have multiple on one page or screen.
  

Fixes

• QB2: Performance issues when editing a questionnaire
  A bug was causing the questionnaire builder to run very slowly if you were using custom scoring and had a fair number of questions. Of course it's not ideal when two core features of a questionnaire builder aren't working properly, so we've fixed this and you shouldn't run into this problem any more!
  
• QB2: Using .wav files
  We allowed you to upload .wav files as stimuli, but then wouldn't let you actually use them when trying to add them to a component (but we would let you in Task Builder 2). We don't like to send mixed messages, so now you can upload and use these files in your questionnaires.
  
• TB2: Audio component bug
  Last week we improved the Audio component but introduced a bug that meant the screen wouldn't advance in particular circumstances i.e. where the audio isn't mandatory but, if it is played, it should play in full. This is now fixed!
  
• TB2: Screen tab search bar
  We've improved the search function when picking components from the Screen tab. Previously it wouldn't reset your previous search when you re-opened the component picker, and so show you filtered results, but the search box would show as empty. That's confusing, so now it will reset your previous search so you can see everything before you create a new search.
  

Improved

• TB2: More features added to the Audio component
  We've added new functionality to the Audio component so that it has similar features to the Video component. You can now set the maximum number of times a participant can play the audio file, and you can display controls for the participant to play/pause and seek through the audio track at will.
  

Improved

• TB2 & QB2: Improvements to the Slider components' start position
  You can now more easily define either a fixed starting position or a random start position within a specified range. The start position will now also honour your specified step size.
  
• TB2: We've streamlined the subsystem process
  Subsystems are technical checks that run for participants if you're using their hardware, such as microphones, webcams etc. Previously these could occur multiple times in an experiment and again if participants refreshed the page. We now run more automatic checks in the background so that participants only need to run through any relevant tests once in full unless there's a problem. We hope this addresses quite a lot of researcher feedback on the tech checks!
  

Fixes

• TB2 & QB2: The Slider components now understand how numbers work a little better!
  We've fixed the odd behaviour in the Slider components where the handle followed the mouse cursor off the edge of the slider, and the component now also knows how to handle decimal places and negative values. We've also fixed some of the maths used when determining the start position of the handle.
  
• TB2: Green highlights in the display column are back
  Last week we fixed an issue with the 'display' column in the spreadsheet and said it will now only highlight green when you enter a recognised display name. Instead, it wouldn't fill in green at all. It should now be fixed, and fill in green when it's meant to!
  

Improved

• TB2: The Position and Size settings in various components specify the unit of measurement as pixels. However, if you add the Advanced Positioning component, this is no longer defined in pixels. We've removed the "(px)" (pixels) specification in the Position and Size settings to address this.
  

Fixes

• TB2: If you filled in the 'display' column in the spreadsheet with anything that wasn't a display name but was still recognised by Gorilla (e.g. stimuli file names), it would still highlight green. This normally means that something has worked successfully. As this column is reserved for display names, it will now only highlight green when you enter a recognised display name.
  
• Experiment Builder: The allocator node was a little too sensitive to attrition, and would count a participant as dropped out twice if you rejected and deleted their data. It will now only count each participant as dropped out once.
  
• QB2: When using the Switch functionality in Questionnaire Builder 2, it would activate the switch on non-switch response components. It will now only activate the switch when the appropriate button is pressed.
  

Fixes

• TB2: The Mouse Button Response component was providing additional rows of data from the previous screen, which was making the data harder to interpret. It now doesn't repeat data.
  

New

• TB2: We now have the equivalent of Task Builder 1's 'Text Entry Multi' zone, which you'll find within the existing Single Text Entry and Single Number Entry components (name changes incoming to reduce confusion!)
  

Improved

• TB2: All relevant settings on all components should now specify the unit of measurement required (e.g. pixels, milliseconds...)
  

Fixes

• TB2: We'd previously added some more informative descriptions in the component picker, but then realised they weren't all visible. They're now visible!
  

New

• TB2: Functionality now exists for the Gorilla team to create new prefabs that combine regular components with screen components
  
• TB2: Added an Early Exit Button prefab made up of three components (Button, Click Response, and Task Early Exit)
  

Improved

• TB2: The scripting 'Task Drawable Component' has an updated and more informative description
  

Improved

• TB2: Normalised coordinates are now available in the Canvas Painting and Click Painting components
  

Fixes

• Experiment Builder: We didn't warn the user when adding a blank/unconfigured Randomiser node to the tree, which caused subsequent problems with nodes being skipped in the tree
  

Improved

• TB2: Renamed the Camera subsystem to 'Camera (Video + Audio)' to make the link between hardware and functionality clearer
  
• TB2: Renamed the Microphone subsystem to 'Microphone (Audio)' to make the link between hardware and functionality clearer
  
• Shop Builder 1: Embedded data can now be shown in Shop Builder 1 HTML content blocks
  

Fixes

• QB2: Short-form data didn't include custom scores that had been set up on the Scoring tab (although long-form did)
  

New

• Your experience of Gorilla is important to us and we want to know how your Gorilla journey is going. When you've generated data on an experiment, we'll ask for a little bit of feedback on how you're finding things so far. It's completely optional - we'd love to hear from you though.
  

Improved

• TB2: The Save Response, Save Accuracy and Save Reaction Time components now have the full range of settings and options
  
• QB2: Instead of a blank page when opening a new questionnaire, there are helpful instructions to get you started
  
• TB2: If using the Video component with in-built controls turned on, the (incompatible) auto-advance setting will now be hidden to reduce confusion
  

Fixes

• TB2: Resolved a number of issues with the Overlay component
  
• QB2: When a response was required in the Date Entry component and the "month and year only" setting was switched on, the participant was able to advance after only filling one of these in
  
• TB2: When the Key to Continue component was used with the Text Entry component, the task would stall if the participant tried to continue before entering text
  
• QB2: Sometimes empty pages without any content would cause problems with short-form data (although long-form was still working correctly)
  

Improved

• QB2: Components in Questionnaire Builder 2 now have an expandable 'Additional Settings' section
  
• QB2: The 'Additional Settings' menu has been populated for the Multiple Choice Grid component to improve onboarding for new users
  

Fixes

• Experiment Builder: The Reward Node in the Experiment Builder directed users to an old URL for BHN Rewards' website
  
• QB2: When the Number Entry component was set to 'optional', the range limits weren't working
  

Fixes

• Game Builder: Spreadsheet builder and randomisation wasn't working properly
  
• QB2: Multiple choice grid was breaking when options weren't set
  
• QB2: Various elements were missing from short form data (but were available in long form)
  

With the arrival of a Thursday comes the arrival of another release notes! Heavy on fixes, light on lyrics this week. Probably for the best...

Fixes

• Game Builder: Games not working on touch screen devices
  
• TB2: Draggable object not working on touch screen devices
  Similar problems though slightly different causes. In both cases, Gorilla wasn't listening to/responding to certain touch events, so those of you deploying games or drag/drop tasks to iPad's were finding yourself... tactilely disappointed. Now your participants can....
  Editor note: While admirable in its linguistic flair, and technically accurate, Will ultimately used a combination of words that could be hazardous if taken out of context. We have replaced this with "use appropriate digits to operate your game in a family-friendly manner."
  

• XB2: Bound content not carried over when moving scenes between games
  While this affected games, the same problem existed across all the tooling. When copying scenes/screens/memes/aubergines between games/tasks/questionnaires, content bound to the spreadsheet would not be initialised correctly. You would need to clear and then rebind the content for the spreadsheet columns to appear which is just faff. At Gorilla, we firmly belief that faff is just faffy and we take a strong de-faffing approach to all our development decisions, ultimately aiming for faff zero across all our tools. As such, copying between content should now move the bindings across as expected, resulting in a notable reduction in faff.

• General: Referral vouchers not working
  Yikes - while you were still able to refer researchers via our in app referral system, behind the scenes the referral voucher wasn't getting setup correctly. This has been resolved now, so you should now be able to redeem 20/50 bonus tokens with your pay-as-you-go and researcher package purchases! Yay, free stuff!

• Game Builder: Multiplayer components incorrectly appearing in Game Builder
  Our apologies for those of you who excitedly noticed multiplayer components in Game Builder. While, one fine day, we hope to make multiplayer components available across all of our tools, today is not that day. The weather in Cambridge is firmly "grey" and miserable. To avoid further confusion, we've removed the multiplayer components from the editor.

• XB2: Set Field on Start does not run when in editor mode
  The in-editor preview tools mean you don't have to preview your whole task just to preview one screen - hurrah for usability and decreased faff. However, we identified an issue where some sets of components wouldn't behave correctly during the editor preview. Not a huge deal, but still frustrating for fans of usability and defaff'n-ing so we've resolved the problem.

• XB2: Fix some wibbly wobbly timey wimeyness issues
  Diligent review of experiment data revealed that UTC Date & Time, and Local Date & Time entries could be incorrect in some circumstances. Importantly, all the RT's are correct, all the differences between timestamps are correct etc etc. It's just the parsing of the numeric timestamp into a Date & Time string that could occasionally be a little... off. Not only have we fixed but we've also fixed it retroactively (so regenerating your data will fix the columns) and included a link to the appropriate West Wing clip for your viewing pleasure.

• Experiment Builder: Fix typo on CloudResearch recruitment description
  In the description of the CloudResearch recruitment policy, the word 'formerly' was formerly formally. This form of formerly is formally incorrect, so we have formally changed it's form to formerly. You are, as ever, most welcome!

As our current major projects move into the internal review stage, there's time now for the development team to write the lyrics of childhood tv theme songs to be code oriented.... Er, I mean, time for us to look through the backlog of feature and bug requests that have been submitted by staff and researcher alike. A small but still mighty array this week, with more to follow...

Features

• Exp: Batch Delete Participants/Participant Data
  At long last, we are pleased to offer bulk deletion of participants and their data from your experiments. You can find the new option in the Global Actions menu on your Participants page of an experiment. To make sure we conform to GDPR while also protecting you/us against cough accidental cough button presses, it has the following setup. Once you've authorised a bulk deletion of participant data, the participants status will change to 'Deletion Scheduled'. You then have a 24 hour grace period, during which you can cancel the deletion if you realise you've made a mistake.
  This is 24 real world hours, not working day hours. So, if you schedule a deletion last thing on a Friday, you will have until the same time on SATURDAY to change your mind, not Monday. So... maybe don't make last thing on a Friday your "super important participant data admin" time.
  Once the 24 hour window has expired, the data should be considered gone. Like, properly gone, you can't get it back, ever, gone. Being able to bulk delete participant data in this way is an important requirement of many university ethics/data protection regulations and while this is 'doable' one participant at a time, we're pleased to offer you a simpler more powerful solution. But with great power comes a great many Spiderman quotes. Delete responsibly!

• XB2: Countdown with Timer prefab
  We've implemented the ability for a component to add in 'screen components' as a requirement. The first example of this is the Countdown component, which allows you to display the remaining time on a screen timelimit. This will automatically add in the timelimit screen component because... well, without it the countdown is a bit like writing with a broken pencil - pointless! (ba dum tish)

Enhancements

• XB2: Improve spreadsheet behaviour so it doesn't jump to beginning when editing cells
  When editing with the in-app spreadsheet editor, Gorilla would jump to the beginning of the spreadsheet every time you changed a single cell entry. This made editing a time consuming experience as well as a jarring one. Now it should remain more stationary during editing which, will boring, is probably for the best. We reserve the right to implement jumping to a random location as an April fools joke. You have been warned...

Fixes

• TB2: Draggable component breaks if added before drawable component
  Now it will only break if you add it after a drawable component. To resolve this remaining issue, please stand on one leg in the centre of the room, rotate anti-clockwise and sing the theme tune to either Rescue Rangers or Duck Tales. Original Chip N Dales theme preferred. The techno update will be allowed because I like it.
  jk, it doesn't break at all now. But you should still sing if you want.

• XB2: Timelimit Screen - Show Partial Time Remaining, while bindable, does not respect binding
  Following a conference call with HR, Show partial time remaining has been instructed on the importance of respecting all input types and responding to them appropriately. Should you find this setting continues to misbehave, please submit a complaint to HR.

• Bug fix: tokens disppear when rules are set for Lab/Mini Lab tier subscriptions
  Tokens have been informed their magical antics should be kept to card tricks only, no more disappearing acts.

Before we go into this day's release notes a small shout-out that it is conference season and many of our team will be out visiting you all in the real world. Be sure to come visit us at ATSiP and SIPS in the coming weeks and get all the latest gossip on what's coming to Gorilla (or just to say hi!)

Features

• Questionnaire Builder 2: Short form data improvements
  Those users who've migrated to QB2 found that the increased flexibility and range of capabilities was slightly offset by a less comprehensible data set. To make QB2 data easier to work with, we've made a few changes and added some additional options to data generation.
  First, your default short-form (one row per participant) data in Questionnaires will use the object Name + object ID for the short form column headers. Along with this, you'll get an additional header row containing the full text for the question that data corresponds to. We hope that these new defaults makes short form data easier to understand/work with. Second, for those of you who already carefully name your questions to be unique, you have the option for the column headers to be just the object Name.
  Second, your default long-form data will now contain only the 'response' response types. The additional 'continue' and 'action' response types can be obtained if needed via a new setting on the data generation modal.

• Multiplayer: Can now be tested without requiring a license
  You can now activate and test (through preview across browsers) multiplayer within Task Builder 2 without needing a license! If you're looking to get started with Multiplayer in Gorilla, check out our Multiplayer Step-by-step which will take you through building an Ultimatum Game from scratch.
  Like our other premium offerings, there are no restrictions on building tasks and previewing them in full without a license. You'll only be prevented from adding them to an experiment. If you want the maximum Gorilla experience, check out our Pricing Page for our offerings, from individual licenses to unlimited departmental offerings.

• Questionnaire Builder 2: QSF import available in beta
  Many users are migrating from "Qualtrics and the Land of Ever Increasing Prices" and finding a new, cheaper land in our latest Questionnaire Builder tool. To make this easier, we've implemented the ability to import a QSF file directly into QB2 - recreating your Qualtrics survey for you. There are a few kinks at the moment, which is why the service is in closed beta. If you'd like access to it, reach out to us via the Support Contact Form.

• Task Builder 2: Scripting documentation released
  Our scripting documentation for Task Builder 2 is now available for your delightful reading. Check out our Scripting Introduction and walk through your first script in the new world of XB2.

• Task Builder 2: Automatic text scaling
  We've implemented a simpler (compared to TB1) form of automatic text scaling, which will scale down your text based on a bucketed set of screen sizes. This allows your task to rescale across smaller screens and devices but in a more consistent and easier to assess way.

Enhancements

• Project/Projects: Project tag colours were too low contrast
  An accessibility review of our updated Project/Projects page found that some of the tag colours were too low in contrast, meaning they'd be hard for some colour-blind users to distinguish. We've adjusted this now, continuing our commitment to make Gorilla as accessible as possible.

• Task Builder 2: Alignment settings adjusted on Slider Labels
  The existing alignment settings (available on any component that can be placed and appear visually on the screen) didn't make sense in the context of a Slider and its left/right labels. For the Slider specifically, we've adjusted the names of the different options and how they behave to match user expectations.

• Task Builder 2: Fix some missing entries in metrics
  During routine testing by our Usability team, we found that a few metrics (such as 'Recording Uploaded' lines) were missing some key bits of information about the screen and object. This has been resolved, along with an issue where objects wouldn't be given a name during task creation.

• Experiment: Uploading participants changed to sequential rather than bulk concurrent
  When uploading a spreadsheet of participants for an experiment, users found the final list of participants would appear in a slightly different order from the original list. This is because, previously, the spreadsheet of participants would be generated in bulk, concurrently. This meant there was no strict ordering on when each participant would be created in our database, hence the slightly different order in the end. We've changed this now, so each participant will be generated sequentially, with the final order matching your original order.

Bugs

• Task Builder 2: Fix snap to text box
  What felt like it should be a simple fix ended up being a multi-week deep dive into the never ending horrors of event handling within the browser. Much kudos to the developer who stuck it out to the bitter end and implemented the necessary solution.

• Task Builder 2: Manipulations columns appear blank in preview data
  An inconsistency between how manipulations are stored in preview compared to live data collection meant that some manipulations weren't coming up in preview data. This issue has now been resolved.

• Questionnaire Builder 2: Base text size does not return to default
  If you edited the text size for your question and then decided to go back to the default... well, you couldn't, as deleting the custom size would instead make your question super tiny. This issue has now been resolved - it should revert to the default size as expected.

• Task Builder 2: Fixed error when importing older TB2 samples
  Before Task Builder 2 there was... like, Task Builder 1.99? An extremely similar but has a different internal name version of Task Builder 2. It turns out that many of our early samples are made using this and while that's no issue when it comes to task functionality, it was an issue if you tried to export/import them - Gorilla would complain that "THiS ISn't ThE WRitE TYpE". We resolved this issue now, so all our samples should be exportable/importable as expected.

• Task Builder 2: Add First Display button appears on committed tasks
  For tasks without any Displays, the 'Add First Display' button was incorrectly appearing (and was interactive) when the task was committed. This issue has now been resolved.

• Experiment: Task with empty manipulations cannot be deleted
  If you'd played around with creating manipulations in your task and then committed the task and added it to an experiment tree, you may have found yourself in an unfortunate mess. Specifically, clicking on those tree nodes (to access their settings or delete them) would... do nothing. It turns out that the experiment builder wasn't correctly handling the case where a manipulation had been created but none of its settings had been filled in. So, it had been created but not really created. Regardless of the existential state of the manipulation, the inability to interact with the tree nodes has now been resolved.

• Spreadsheet randomisation: Able to add new rows while randomising
  Diligent internal testers found that, with randomisation preview on, it was possible to add more rows to the spreadsheet, causing your starting spreadsheet to get totally hosed. We've resolved this now, along with a few other buttons that weren't getting correctly disabled when previewing your randomisation.

• Multiplayer: Fix issue in Lobby nodes
  Following users reports, we identified an issue in Lobby nodes that prevented manual matchmaking from working correctly and resolved it. Many thanks to those users for their patience and understanding.

• XB2: Audio can be triggered to play on certain slider values
  A bizarre bug we encountered where submitting a slider with a certain response value would cause any audio components to play?!?

• XB2: Version numbers higher than current cause crash
  Trying to access a version number for your task that is higher than actually exists would previously cause the editor to crash without warning. Crashing is bad (so I'm told) so instead it will now direct you back to the project page for that task.

• Open Materials: Fix collaboration end point for corresponding author
  Oops! This one is totally my bad. A few API calls in Gorilla were reworked when I rebuilt the Project/Projects page, to make them more compartmentalised and performant. One of those calls was to collect a list of current collaborators and, regrettably, I failed to update the only other place where that request is used. Specifically, on an Open Materials page when setting the corresponding author. This issue has now been resolved.

Avast yeh landlubbers. Hoist the main sail and trim the tops. For it is I, the Pirate-Assassino-Captain of the Schooner "Release Notes" and I have returned. A fierce long time were we caught in the calm, adrift with naught but m'breath to fill the sails. When I thought all be lost, that this doldrums shall break m'mind and I'll throw myself to the deeps and the locker of Davy Jones.. ney then did Calypso see fit to set a wind upon us. To drive us back to earthy shores. "The world is not done with the "Release Notes" yet, yah Pirate-Assassino-Captain."

So draw close to the fire and open your finest rum, as I unload the Schooner of it's burden, and the last five months of it's tales.

Features

• Support: Updated Support Docs
  During the Release Notes time at sea, the support and materials team have been hard at work revamping our support documentation. With Task Builder 2 and Questionnaire Builder 2 our recommended tool for experienced and new researchers alike, documentation for companion tools such as the Experiment Builder, along with our Getting Started guides and all associated reference material needed to be updated. It has been a huge undertaking, so a big round of applause for our exceptional Support Team. You'll find a neater, cleaner front page, along with detailed guides for all of our core tools, on dedicated landing pages and just about an updated, XB2-ified... well, everything! We hope you like it!

Enhancements

• Experiment Builder: Better tree node type labelling
  The labels for the different types of tree nodes were inconsistently formatted in a few places, particularly the new nodes Live Gate and Live Branch that we introduced a few releases back. We've neatened this up now!

• Task Builder 2/Questionnaire Builder 2: Prevent content highlighting
  Fast fingers formed flickering fractional forms, feasibly flawed. Fixed fantastically.
  Basically, if you pressed on the screen a lot, the browser would incorrectly highlight screen content such as images and text with a blue box. This isn't desirable behaviour, so we're resolved the matter.

Fixes

• Task Builder 2: Change difficulty incorrect default on minimum trials
  If you leave the minimum trials settings blank on a Change Difficulty component it should default to always checking the change conditions on each trial - equivalent to setting minimum trials to zero. Except it wasn't doing that. It was instead... doing nothing. Sweeping out the last of the doldrums from the Schooner, we've fixed up this incorrect default.

• Questionnaire Builder 2: Mobile view setting not defaulting correctly
  Similar to the above, the Mobile View setting in QB2 wasn't having it's default (Auto) set correctly in some circumstances. This should now be resolved.

• Task Builder 2: Renaming displays disrupts auto spreadsheet population
  A while back we introduced an automatic spreadsheet generation system to TB2. In new tasks, as you add displays, Gorilla would automatically start building a spreadsheet for you. A few users noticed however that renaming those displays would cause some... disruption, with the spreadsheet creation not behaving as you would expect it to. This should now be resolved - renamed displays will be renamed in the generated spreadsheet also!

Feature

• XB2: Add Clone and Send actions
  While we've had the new Export/Import actions available for a while, that allow you to export your XB2 content as a package of json files, we were missing the staples from XB1 of Clone and Send. The latter allowing you to send a copy of the content to the library of another Gorilla user. You'll now find these settings available in the actions menu for all XB2 content, making it that much easier to clone and share content between users!

Enhancements

• TB2: Audio/video recording component loses end of audio track
  While I had hoped it wouldn't be necessary in TB2, it turns out that, even with a 'closer to the metal' implementation, there is still some lag time we can't directly adapt for. Specifically, time when audio/video content is being processed by the microphone/camera hardware and hasn't yet been passed on to the browser. So, we've brought back in the Recording buffer capability from TB1, though we've turned it into an explicit setting. Defaulting to 250 ms, it adds this as wait time after you've requested the recording to stop - either directly or because the end of the screen has been reached. This should prevent you from missing the end of a participants audio/video response.

• XB2: Feedback component has two size settings
  ... but only has one size? Well, actually no, it does have have two size settings. It's just that one is for the size of the container and the other is for the size of the text. We've renamed the latter 'size' setting to 'Text size' for clarity.

• TB2: Remove warning message from scripting tab
  With the release of the TB2 scripting docs even closer than the last time I mentioned this, we've now removed the warning message from the scripting tab. You can now find a link to a small samples project instead. This will be further updated with a link to the docs when they are ready!

Fixes

• XB1: Download all stimuli fails if stimuli file is corrupt
  At the moment, we're not sure what causes an uploaded stimuli file to become corrupted as, in total, we've only had two instances of this issue arise. Nevertheless, it revealed a simple (and easy to resolve) flaw in some of our zip file building logic, where the functionality would fail if a reference to a file couldn't be found. We've resolved this issue!

• Multiplayer: Manual matchmaking not working correctly in Lobby Node
  This seemed to only be affecting debug (preview) participants and, indeed, it turned out that the Lobby Node's settings weren't being respected by previews. Previews have to follow the same rules as everyone else though, so we've resolved this issue.

• TB2: All trigger visible targets are repeatedly wiped
  This issue was occurring specifically when copy/pasting screens - as the copied objects in the new screens would have new object IDs, the trigger visible's targets would no longer be valid. We resolved this by making sure that, when copy/pasting a screen we first find any existing target bindings and then, when we've created the new object IDs, update them, so everything remains linked up correctly.

• XB2: Image filename hidden by edit icon
  When binding an image or audio or video setting directly to an asset, researchers found the file name was annoyingly hidden behind the edit icon. We've resolved this, as well as adding the name of the currently selected asset to the 'Choose file' modal.

• XB2: Response Tag bindings weren't parsed
  For a number of components (like, quite a lot of components actually) response Tags weren't having their binding parsed correctly? What does that mean? Well, say you bind a tag to a spreadsheet column called 'tag'. Instead of the value in that spreadsheet cell appearing as the response tag value in your data, you would instead get ${spreadsheet:tag}. Not particularly helpful. We've liberally dished out binding parsing for these settings, so this issue should be resolved.

• QB1: Embedded data not saved to metrics correctly
  While most development work focuses on XB2, we're still committed to maintaining our legacy tooling, particularly with bug fixes. Here, we've resolved an issue where the ranking widgets options weren't getting parsed to the metrics correctly, specifically when populated from embedded data.

Following last week's epic introduction of mobile preview for XB2, we have a smaller update to start you off this week.

Feature

• Experiment: Add Repeat Node setting to save current iteration to the store
  You can now save the current iteration number for a Repeat Node into the Store. You could then use this to adjust the content of the task depending on how many times the participant has been through it.

Fixes

• General: Projects page resizing issue
  As someone with often little to no faith in his own capabilities I've been... pleasantly surprised/outright shocked that the Projects/Project page redesign from a few months back has had no bug reports. My deeply entrenched imposter syndrome was reassured though when reports of a resizing issue - where content on the Projects page wasn't scaling responsively on some screen sizes - came through. Reaffirmed in my obvious incompetency as a coder, my colleague resolved the glaring issue.

• XB2: Spreadsheet wasn't updating after Display deletion
  A few users ran into an odd error message when using the Spreadsheet Builder. It turned out that, after deleting a display, the content for the Spreadsheet tab wasn't updating correctly - it would still be trying to access the details for a display that longer existed. We've resolved this issue now!

Features

• XB2: Live preview of mobile devices
  As promised in last time's release notes, you'll now find options for mobile preview in TB2 and QB2. Additionally, for TB2, there is the option to switch between landscape and portrait mode. While we would generally recommend you encourage participants to use landscape mode for tasks, it's helpful to see what your content will look like in both.
  We hope this helps users experiencing difficulties getting content to display correctly on smaller devices (and means you don't have to dive into Chrome's debugging tools anymore)!

• QB2: Grid for text entry responses
  While the Grid system never really took off in the UK (making Milton Keynes a unique locale), grids are all the rage in QB2 at the moment. In response to researcher requests, we've added grid functionality to the text entry components. Following on from our successful test with the rating scale, the grid capability appears as a new setting in the Text Entry components, rather than a whole separate component.

Enhancements

• XB2: Add warning when overwriting in Object modal
  In Task Builder 2 and Game Builder, you can only have one component of a certain type on a single object. For example, you can't have multiple 'stimulus' type components on a single object. This meant that if you tried to add, say, a video component to an object that already had an image component, the image component would be overwritten.
  However, this was not widely known to be the case. What was known is that components would frustratingly disappear for no reason! So, we've add a warning to the editing modal, to make it clearer that adding component X will result in overwriting component Y.

• XB2: Triggers override Timelimits
  It sounds like this should be in the fixes category right? This was however a piece of well meaning and intended functionality that wasn't explained, so we've made some adjustments. Essentially, if a Trigger, like Trigger Visible was setup to display an item for a set length of time, we implicitly assumed that you would want that time to expire before ending the current screen. Say, if you were using the Trigger to display your own, customised response feedback process. We've now added a setting to Trigger elements to indicate if they should respect existing screen timelimits or be allowed to continue their timing process.

Fixes

• TB2: Unable to add new screen from display view
  Soooo, you remember a few releases back, we made it possible to add a new screen from the screen preview (rather than having to go back up to the displays menu)? Well, it seems that Loki has been up to his usual tricks and spirited away the 'New Screen' button from the Displays menu. Thankfully our Strategic Priority Loki Assault Team was quick to action, and restored the missing functionality before the God of Mischief could get too far!

• QB2: Rating scale text size only applies to scale options
  ... not the question text also, which was rather inconvenient for users wanting to control the size of the question text. We've resolved this issue now!

Feature

• XB2: Separate Advance on Timelimit and Continue from Advance Accuracy
  We actually ended up going a bit further with this than we expected to but we're confident we've ended with something more intuitive and easier to use.
  The Advance - X screen components allow you to define the conditions for ending the current screen. There were two problems with how the components were set up and functioned though. First, advancing on Timelimit and Continue button were hidden away in Advance - Accuracy which... doesn't make sense. Don't ask me why we put them there to begin with - it probably made sense at the time but that time was very long ago now and my memory is poor. So, to resolve that, we separated out these two conditions into their own Advance components - the cunningly named Advance - Timelimit and Advance - Continue. Second, the advance components combined as strict ANDs rather than ORs. If, for example, you wanted to advance the screen on a specific response or a timeout, this wouldn't have been possible because the Advance components would only allow for something that was a Response AND a Timeout. So, the Response you wanted to advance the screen would get correctly assessed by the Advance - Response component, but then the Advance - Timelimit component would go "hang on a second, this isn't a timeout" and slam on the brakes.
  This seemed rather contrary to how many researchers (and, indeed, ourselves) were expecting this to function. So, we've reworked this so Advance components combine as ORs, which also works much better with the more delineated Advance components overall.

• XB2: Task description only found under rename
  The Rename options in the Actions menu was serving an unobvious dual purpose - it would allow you to re-describe the task as well. Unobvious purposes aren't very helpful, so we've changed the Action to "Name/Description".

Enhancements

• QB2: Improve Mobile optimisation
  We've been seeing a huge uptake of Questionnaire Builder 2, particularly from former Qualtrics users pushed out by Qualtrics' recent price hike. A notable pain point for migrating researchers though was mobile performance - Qualtrics significantly adapted all of the question elements to fit well on smaller, mobile device screens. QB2... did not. Or, at least, it didn't used to. Now, all QB2 components have an alternate display mode for mobile devices, that makes sure they fit well on smaller screen sizes while maintaining usability and ease of response.
  To further aid with this, we will soon be adding explicit mobile display live preview options to all of the XB2 toolset. Watch this space!

• Experiment: Tree Node descriptions need XB2 updates
  With the arrival of our XB2 tooling came new terminology. Primarily referring to the 'store' rather than 'embedded data'. The descriptions for a number of settings in Experiment Tree Nodes only made reference to 'embedded data' however, which was confusing for users working with the new tools. We've updated these descriptions now!

• QB2: Change conditional terminology
  Continuing with the terminology theme, except this time in relation to consistency. The Conditions settings in QB2 included a Value setting which is meant for the value of the participants response. While -value appears in the participants metrics file - so perhaps makes sense when you combine it with that - Value isn't mentioned at all on the settings panel, meaning researcher had difficulty understanding what should go in this setting. We changed it to 'Response', which we hope makes things clearer.

• XB2: Resolve confusing naming of Complete colour for hover components
  The setting 'Complete' on a hover component was actually referring to when the screen was completed i.e. ended. Rather than some 'complete' property of the component itself. As that was confusing and certainly didn't match with what users wanted that setting to mean - the colour it changes to when selected/interacted with by the user. So we've changed the functionality and the setting name to match that expectation.

• Subscriptions: Improved reporting on Subscription token requests
  A few subscription managers contacted us having difficulty with maintaining a proper audit trail for token requests from their subscriptions. In response, we've tweaked a few sections of the UI, to make existing functionality more apparent. We've also added Token Requests report, that will contain a full listing of all the token requests made on the current subscription. Hopefully this will make this part of your subscription administration easier.

• XB2 Scripting: Allow scripts to be renamed
  With a small squeal of excitement I can say we're getting even closer to formally releasing our scripting tools for wider usage. In the interim, for those who have been helping us beta test the tooling, we've added the ability to rename your script files.

• Shop Builder: Overlay option for product labels
  This option allows you to place faded text/icons over the top of a product image, such as badge to indicate certain properties, a sale, limited stock etc.

• XB2: Can't skip content in Experiment preview
  A capability from XB1 that had slipped through the net, you can now skip through the remaining trials of XB2 content when previewing a full experiment.

Enhancements

• XB2: Remove unnecessary data columns from XB2 data
  A few researchers reported some data columns that frequently appeared empty, or contained data that could be better found elsewhere. We did a quick review of the columns available and identified a few that, while used in alpha versions of the new tooling, were no longer required. We've removed these columns, to make your data a bit cleaner.
  
  IMPORTANT UPDATE: Yikes! It turns out that one of these columns 'Object Number' did contain useful data in some situations. We've restored this column now (18th May) and apologise for any inconvenience caused!

• XB2: Update No-Spec-1 error message
  If you add a Task/Questionnaire, that doesn't have any committed content, to an experiment tree you'll receive an error message while previewing. We hoped that this error message would sufficiently explain the cause of the problem and how to resolve it. However, a few users were still getting stuck so we reviewed the language we used and tweaked it to be clearer about the cause and solution to the issue! Please read the revised message carefully, particularly in relation to committing any open changes on the Questionnaire/Task.

Fixes

• QB2: Fix typo
  It's Leviosa, not Leviosaaa!

Feature

• QB2: Add Back Button to customisation menu
  A key feature missing from QB2 (present in QB1) was the Back button. Behind the scenes, the increased capabilities of the new Questionnaire Builder (along with the increased complexity of surveys that can be built with it) meant that the Back button logic needed a little more time to be reviewed and tested properly. It's finally ready for release and can be found under the Settings -> Customisation tab.

Fixes

• XB2: Update list to technical checklist
  Following our change last week to allow m4v files through the stimuli tab, we realised that the link to our Technical Checklist (advising you what file types are supported, what file sizes we recommend etc.) was out of date. We've fixed this now.

• Tutorials: Experiment builder tutorial gets stuck
  Our new in-app tutorials have been very well received by new and existing Gorilla researchers alike. Some of you reported a few bugs you found that got you stuck in the experiment builder tutorial. We've resolved these now!

• XB2: Fix touch release issues
  Users on touch screen devices noticed that a few interactable elements in tasks/questionnaires were behaving a little weirdly. After some investigation we found that, in some circumstances, some critical events we were expecting from the browser weren't triggering currently, causing the errant behaviour. We've resolved these now!

Following the mammoth updates of the last few weeks, a genuinely much smaller update for you today!

Fixes

• XB2: Live preview play button accessibility improvements
  Following our last change to this, setting the play button to a stop icon while live previewing, we noticed a few accessibility issues. The newly iconed button would still stay play rather than stop, and several other buttons in this same menu were missing accessibility labels. We've resolved this now!

• QB2: Rating Scale grid fixes
  As shiny new things often do, the Rating Scale grid capability shipped with a few visual and functional bugs that slipped through testing. We've addressed these now!

• XB2: m4v will no longer trigger incompatibility warning
  In the stimuli tab, we offer you warnings if the stimuli type you've uploaded isn't compatible with modern browsers. This check was being a bit too pedantic though and wasn't allowing through files with the m4v extension. We've resolved this now!

Feature

• QB2: Add Rating Scale grid
  We already have grid-like components for Checklists and Radio buttons, where you define a single set of column headers (Disagree -> Agree) and then any number of rows beneath them ("Cats are awesome!", "Squirrels are awesome!", "Squirrels riding cats like knights going into battle are awesome" etc.) Following some requests from researchers, we've now implemented this grid option for Rating Scale components as well.
  We've opted for a slightly different approach, compared to our existing grids though. Rather than implement this as a separate component, it's included in the existing Rating Scale component. With a single setting you can seamlessly switch between a single question/row format and a multi-question/row format. This feels easier to use and is closer to the behaviour observed in similar survey tools like Qualtrics! Like the new approach? Tweet us!

• XB2: Require Fullscreen subsystem
  In what was once a script in TB1, you can now require participants be in fullscreen via a built in subsystem in TB2 - no script required!
  There are a few differences compared to the original TB1 script for this. First, the fullscreen check will run on every screen in the task by default and, at the moment, it isn't possible to override this. We might change this in the future. However, you will get metrics anytime we detect the user isn't in fullscreen, so you can see when participants may have dropped out of fullscreen and when they were requested to move back to it. Second, we've opted to guide users in using hardware options for moving to fullscreen (pressing F11, Fn + F11, Command + Ctrl + F etc.) rather than using the Fullscreen API provided by the browser. The Fullscreen API, which provides a code based approach for forcing users into fullscreen, has a number of drawbacks. Not least, the fullscreen state it creates is not persistent across url changes/screen refreshes. So, when the user finishes one task and moves to the next, they will be dropped out of fullscreen and will need the API to take action again. Conversely, using a participant controlled hardware approach, this will persist across tasks/questionnaires. So, unless the participant chooses to drop out of fullscreen, they will remain in fullscreen for the duration of the experiment.
  It does require participants to cooperate with the instruction. Ultimately, those not willing to cooperate likely would have dropped out of fullscreen the first chance they got when using the scripting based approach anyway. So, make sure you're informing your participants in advance that the study will require them to be in fullscreen, so participants unwilling to do this can remove themselves from the study earlier.
  We've also put a beta flag on this subsystem, for now, as we have some concerns around how the checks will operate on mobile devices. If you encounter any issues, please do get in touch with our super friendly and awesome support desk!

Enhancements

• XB2: Change play button into stop button when previewing
  When live previewing a screen/scene, it wasn't clear to some users that they could exit this by pressing the play button again. Which makes sense - it's still a play button, not a stop button after all. It will change to a stop button now, which hopefully clears up that confusion.

• TB2: Add new screen button to top panel
  While editing a screen within a display, if you wanted to add a new screen you would have to go back to the Displays top level menu and use the plus button there. Would have! Would have had?!? ... Not any more. Now there is a new screen button available from the screen editing UI, so you can easily add more screen content to your display.

Fixes

• QB2: Next button label setting needs page refresh before updating
  After updating the next button label via the Settings -> Customisation menu, researchers noticed the change wouldn't appear in the questionnaire live preview until after a page refresh. Which is a touch inconvenient. We tracked down where the Questionnaire wasn't updating correctly and resolved the issue!

• XB2: Prevent binding change while closed for editing
  Alongside our saga of "things that have whitespace that mess up other things", there is also the chronicle of "things that shouldn't be editable when you aren't in editing mode." In the latest chronicle update, we've addressed a few locations were bindings would still be editable incorrectly!

• XB2: New column save button locks up on empty column name
  If you haven't typed a name yet for a new spreadsheet column, the UI modal would lock up until you closed and reopened it. No one likes being told to "turn it off and on again" so we've instead resolved the lock up issue!

Feature

• QB2: Enable Short Form data to be downloaded in Preview
  Short format (or wide format or spreadsheet-with-lots-and-lots-of-columns format) is the commonly expected format for questionnaire data across many online research tools. Indeed, Gorilla already allows you to generate and download your participant data in short form for questionnaires. However, there has been a long running issue where this format was available for data collected from live participants only. Previews of Questionnaires only provided data in long format (or spreadsheet-with-lots-and-lots-rows format). This made it harder for new users to understand and ultimately plan how to analyse their data, as well as being more intimidating for users expecting lots of columns and instead getting lots of rows!
  We've now implemented Short form data downloads for questionnaires - both when previewing the questionnaire alone and as part of an experiment. Further, this has been implemented for both QB2 AND QB1 (told you we're committed to maintaining the legacy tooling as well!). As part of this though, we've removed the options for downloading preview data in XLSX or ODS format. CSV provides a simpler, more flexible initial format for data to be generated in, as well as allowing us to simplify the UI somewhat.

• Experiment: Enable use of store/embedded data to set Redirect Node url
  The Redirect node allows you to send participants out to an external service part way through your experiment tree. While this node already has some customisation options, a few researchers approached us with a need to define the whole URL through the store/embedded data. This was a straight forward feature to implement and is now available!

Enhancements

• Subscriptions: Enrolment code submission button added to My Subscriptions page
  Enrolment codes allows Gorilla users to automatically associate themselves with a lab/department/institutional subscription. Previously, this was only available on sign-up requiring users to know, in advance, that there was a Gorilla subscription available for them and what the enrolment code for it was. A few subscription managers approached us, asking if it would be possible to allow users to submit an enrolment code after sign-up as well, to make administering subscriptions easier. So, we've done just that, adding an enrolment code option to the My Subscriptions page.

• XB2: Block spell checker on text input fields in XB2
  To bring XB2 input fields inline with their XB1 counterparts, we've implemented the browsers standard mechanisms for preventing spell checkers from highlighting errors in participant entered text.

• XB2: Slider start cannot be set to zero
  It now can be set to zero!

Feature

• XB2: Add settings for feedback component to directly support images
  Rather than daisy chain images and trigger visible components, we thought it would be easier to add image settings directly to the Feedback component!

Enhancements

• XB2: Fix 'pop' on spreadsheet randomisation
  When previewing spreadsheet randomisation, we were previously removing a few bits of UI that weren't relevant for use during preview. However, this would then result in a content shift - a small change in the layout of the page. As well as being visually distracting, this sometimes made it harder to follow what changes had occurred during the randomisation. We've now changed these elements to be visually inactive but still visible, so the layout of the content remains the same.

• XB2: Border hover component makes it hard to pick black
  This was actually an issue affecting all of our colour components. The default colour on the picker appears to be black when, in practice (left untouched) the actual default colour is white. If you then wanted to actually select black you had to select another colour, let the change take affect, and then select black. As much as the additional mouse movement and clicks are good exercise, its a bit tedious (and you probably have far better ways of getting your 5000 steps), so we've adjusted this to work more intuitively.

• XB2: Trim spaces from spreadsheet column names
  We've reached the next phase in our long running confrontation with errant spaces. Now, after much trial and torment, we have finally routed them out from spreadsheet column names. No longer will your column names appeared to be bound to task settings but then not actually function because random space. Hurrah!

Fixes

• QB2: Can STILL bind to the spreadsheet in advanced settings
  A few releases ago we said we had addressed an issue where you could incorrectly bind to the spreadsheet in QB2 (which is world famous for not having a spreadsheet, of course!) Sadly, it looks like the spreadsheet, not yet read to wrestled from the Questionnaire Builder, had found a few final settings to hide in. We've removed it now and placed it on the naughty step, to think about what it's done.

• TB2: After screen branching hover components no longer work
  This was an issue with some components not properly resetting themselves on screen start. So, if we branched back to a screen we have visited previously, elements (like hover) would still be in their final state. We're resolved this issue!

• QB2: Question text spills out of page on page summary
  Like an untucked shirt tail, this just looks a bit messy. We've tucked the page back into its container and given it some important guidance on presentability in the online environment.

• QB2: Default text size issues
  The default text size in QB2 wasn't clearly visible on some elements, nor was it properly resetting when the text size was deleted. We're resolved both of these issues.

After last weeks mammoth update, here comes an... equally mammoth update. But focused on enhancements and bug fixes, rather than tumultuous new features!

Enhancements

• Subscriptions: Restore request tokens from subscription button on My Account page
  Way way back, we reworked how tokens are requested from subscriptions, to make it easier for subscription manager to administer. Particularly, to deter users from requesting tokens unnecessarily and hoarding them on their account. However, for users very used to the previous methodology, the new approach of requesting tokens directly from an Experiment's Change Recruitment Target page was proving to be a bumpy transition. To make this easier, we've restored the previous "Request tokens" button on the My Account page, and linked it to support documentation about the new approach!

• XB2: BEGIN and END metrics missing from XB2 data
  An enhancement in the category of "things you thought would be there but weren't because we kinda forget", XB2 was missing the convenient BEGIN and END metrics XB1 had, for clearly indicating a participants start and end points. (As well as indicating when they have refreshed the page, causing the task to reload). These metrics are now present and will appear in data collection performed after the data of this release!

• XB2: Larger default text size
  We've made the default text size on many text elements in XB2 slightly larger as the original default was smaller and the default needed to be larger instead...

• XB2: Changed naming of Fixation component to be more intuitive
  Researchers were finding that the names of fixation-related components/prefabs in XB2 were counter-intuitive. These are now anti-counter-intuitive... non-counter-intuitive... counter-clockwise-intuitive... These are now named more sensibly.

• TB2: Add additional mousetracking data columns
  Compared to it's TB1 counterpart, TB2 mousetracking was missing a few data columns that were helpful during analysis. We've gone one step further and added ALL OF THE COLUMNS... well, not literally all, but all of the columns we think would be useful when combining and organising your data files.

• Experiment: Single participant data will only create files for Tree Nodes with Records
  A bit to unpack there. On the Data tab (which exists!), you can obtain one data file per experiment tree node, containing all the participants that went through that task/questionnaire. So, for a small number of participants (perhaps during a pilot) and an experiment with a lot of branches, you could expect to get some empty data files. Most of the time, each branch of your experiment will likely have been visited by at least one participant, so you would expect every data file to contain meaningful information.
  Fundamentally though, for single participant data generation in the same, complex experiment tree, you would get A LOT of empty files. For ultra-mega branching experiments, we're talking about tens, sometimes hundreds of empty files. Because Gorilla still had to go check to see if there could be information in those files and then generate an empty file, this was adding a lot of unnecessary time and processing to single participant data requests. We've optimised this to now only give you data files for tasks/questionnaires that the participant has actually visited. This means you'll get a different set of files for each participant, as it will be explicit to the set of tasks/questionnaires they visited during the experiment, but it also means your data download will be faster and more efficient.

Fixes

• QB2: Response settings left blank would cause the task to crash
  This was particularly an issue for components that allow you to set separate responses from labels. We now default to using the label if no response entry is explicitly given.

• Experiment: Allocator node was incorrectly counting preview participants
  By counting preview participants, this meant that the allocator node was filling up branches unexpectedly, in a way that couldn't be understood from the Participants page alone (I needed to dig into the Database records to solve this one!). We've resolved this issue, so Allocator nodes should now allocate as you expect them to!

• TB2: Spreadsheet randomisation components missing new spreadsheet columns
  The Spreadsheet randomisation components weren't staying up to date with the latest changes made to the spreadsheets, requiring a page refresh before new columns would appear. We've resolved this issue.

• QB2: Some logic areas were not working correctly with the store
  This was a result of question objects not correctly updating their relationship with the store in some cases. We're resolved this issue.

• QB2: Possible to have multiple scoring variables with identical names
  This, understandably, would cause some confusion and data review time. We've now put in checks to make sure score variables must be unique. Our apologies to those of you who will now have to find another way to cause chaos during data collection.

Feature

• AWESOME: New Projects and Project page
  What started as "We want to redesign the Create Menu to make it easier to see what each tool does and find the right one" rapidly became "Let's rebuild the whole of the Projects and Project page in our new UI system"
  So, this morning, you will have logged into a brand new looking Projects and Project page. Well, the structure is similar, but the appearance is a bit more modern. We use the full width of the screen, giving you even more space to view those all important descriptions (more on those later). Each part of the UI updates independently - no longer will the whole page refresh when you open/close an archive - so everything should load a bit faster/feel more responsive. All of the modals have been given a refresh, using more space, larger text size and adding some much needed quality of life features. For example, the Create New Project modal now allows you to set a Project Name AND Description upfront. And gives you the character limits on each of those fields. Didn't know there was a character limit? Neither did we until the UI crashed! But now we all know!
  The individual project page has some of the nicest QoL features (imho). You can now click directly on the Project Name and Project Description to edit them (no sub menu required). All of your collaborators are listed just below the description, so they're available at a glance. The collaborate modal has also been made easier to work with and the search bar has been made more reliable/responsive!
  Finally, there is the original intention for this piece of work, which is the new Create Menu. This guides you through, tool by tool, the different options available to you for constructing your experiments to help you find the right Builder for you. As part of this though, we have moved, what we are now calling our 'legacy tooling' behind a checkbox. This includes the Code Editor, Task Builder 1 and Questionnaire Builder 1. We remain committed to maintaining our legacy tooling and making sure it continues to function for as long as we can - the legacy tooling will continue to receive bug and maintenance updates long into the future. We also believe that the future of Gorilla is in our new tooling and, with the incredible range of capabilities and flexibility they offer, Task Builder 2 and Questionnaire Builder 2 are the right place for new users to start.
  You will continue to be able to create, clone, edit etc. content in the legacy tooling. If you haven't tried it out yet though, we highly recommend looking at our new tooling offerings and take the time to migrate if you can!

Update: Though we notified Subscription Managers and the wider user base a few months in advance of this change, we still hear and acknowledge your feedback: these changes, particularly to the Create Menu, were too much in one go, with too little communication around the intent! We're reviewing our approach to this kind of update and will strive to do better in the future. More information, earlier and clearer.

Enhancements

• XB2: Improve UI for Timelimit Settings
  We've hidden the 'non-response' setting behind a 'treat as response' toggle, to make it clear this is only something you need to set when required!

Fixes

• XB2: Add missing data on onset time
  The response Onset Time is the time when a participant 'started' giving a response. This could be the first time they type a character into a text box or begin dragging a draggable object. This wasn't wired up correctly in a few places, meaning the appropriate data for it wasn't coming through to the metrics. We've resolved this now!

• TB2: Preventing binding UI from appearing when there is other text present
  For cases where users want a binding to appear part way through a string e.g. You scored ${store:score} out of ${store:max} points, the binding tool was being a bit... overzealous, causing the binding UI and colours to appear over the other text you were writing. Clearly unhelpful so overzealousness has been banned.

• XB2: Fix dropdown behaviour on iOS
  On desktop and android based devices, the first entry in a dropdown is typically blank - forcing you to click and select on of the options available. On iOS however, the first option is autodisplayed BUT the mobile browser doesn't actually select it explicitly. So, users think that a selection has already been made (that they agree with!) and try to proceed... but can't. We've resolved this by explicitly adding an empty option that comes preselecting - effectively forcing consistent behaviour across all devices.

Uh, none of the above

• General: Removed AccessiBe
  To resolve some accessibility issues on our main website and documentation pages, we implemented the AccessiBe widget onto the main Gorilla site. While a reasonable tool when needed, it's a poor replacement for 1) Dedicated in-browser tooling for accessibility, 2) Actually having accessibility addressed appropriately on the site to begin with. Now that we've addressed the original issues, we've opted to remove the AccessiBe widget. This isn't the end of our accessibility journey though. We continue to be committed to meeting the necessary standards and, where possible, exceeding them. We'll continue to make progress with this over the coming year!

Features

• XB2: Default spreadsheet creation
  To make getting started in the Task Builder easier, we'll now automagically start building a spreadsheet for you as you add Displays. So, you'll be able to preview your task right from the get go. (For those worried about machines interfering, don't worry - as soon as you edit the spreadsheet for yourself, we'll stop adding to it!)

• General: Two Factor Authentication
  We now offer Two Factor Authentication as a login option, to increase the level of security on your account. Further, for institutions that require it, you can force all users on your subscription to setup 2FA!

Enhancements

• TB2: Text boxes can be auto snapped to on screen start
  To reduce unnecessary interactions for participants, we've added an option to force the browser to focus on a text input element on screen start.
  Edit: 28th April 2023 - We've become aware of a few edge cases where this isn't working correctly. We are investigating and hope to implement a fix soon.

Fixes

• GB: Fix texture loading
  We identified and resolved a few cases where textures weren't loaded correctly by the editor.

Features

• XB2: Introduced event Signals
  Previously, Trigger components would only Trigger on participant responses or actions which have a response value assigned to them. Essentially, any place where you can set a response value, you can set up a trigger in, er, word other than 'response' to it.
  We've had a number of requests for being able to trigger things in response (hrngghhh) to their events such as an audio/video file stopping. Within the existing system, we could give you a new setting to define a 'response' value for that event and then you can listen for it in a trigger. That felt a bit heavy weight though, adding more settings to components that were already brimming with them.
  So, internally, we adopted a new system for this kind of occurrence called 'Signals'. Behind the scenes it means (checks PR notes), er, lots of stuff. For you, the researcher, what it means is: if you have an audio component on an object and add a Trigger to it, you will automagically see new options come up in the Trigger Type settings for 'Audio Start' and 'Audio Finish', alongside the standard Response, Response Accuracy etc. Quick, automatic and no additional settings required!

Enhancements

• Experiment: Improve performance of replace operation in Experiment Tree
  The experiment tree is, by far, one of the most powerful (but also most complicated) parts of Gorilla. A simple set of tools and capabilities that allow for an incredible, limitless range of experiment setups.
  However, as experiment trees become more complicated, some operations on them become more complex too. To improve your experience with the tool, we've reworked the Replace Node operation to require fewer steps and generally be more performant.

• GB: Look At updates
  We've added a number of new features to the Look At component from the update a few weeks ago, as well as resolve a few bugs in the functionality.

Fixes

• XB2: Content loading gets stuck if loadeddata does not trigger
  It never ceases to amaze me how needless complex content loading can be within the browser. In the new hellish landscape of "weird stuff the browser does and does not document", we encountered an edge case where the loadeddata event in the browser just... wouldn't emit for an element. This would then cause Gorilla to stall, waiting for something to load while the browser, I dunno, browsed it's own subreddit maybe? Who knows. We put in a fix for this specific issue, though I suspect there will be more to do here!

• XB2: Switching a store field to Local breaks the UI
  Clearly breaking the UI is bad and this turned out to be a silly issue with local fields not being initialised correctly in some cases (and is now resolved).

• TB2: Trailing space in field name breaks store binding
  Space can be good. Too much is bad. Spaces around fields can no longer be had.

Feature

• GB: Video component
  Bringing Game Builder in line with our other tools, it now supports video playback during the task, with an implementation tailored to gamified experiences. This all comes with a number of changes behind the scenes to better support different loading environments.

Enhancements

• XB2: Allow text entry component to be pre-populated
  We've added a new setting to the text entry component that allows you to pre-populate it with content saved to the store/spreadsheet/manipulations etc. This allows you to represent participants with their previous response for editing, for example.

Fixes

• XB2: Fix loading error with Background Audio
  We resolved an edge case where a Background Audio file that hadn't finished loading would cause a corruption in it's corresponding data entry, preventing it from playing correctly.
  

• TB2: GUI support links incorrect
  We corrected a number of incorrect documentation links in the UI. These links were incorrect, which is not correct, so we corrected them so they were no longer incorrect.

• XB2: Branch component evaluates all options, rather than stopping on first satisfied
  Users were expecting the Branch components in XB2 to stop when it met the first satisfied condition. Instead, it would continue iterating through all the conditions, meaning that the last one to be successful would be fulfilled. (This gave it the appearance of running through the options last to first). We've adjusted this so it will behave as you would naturally expect it to.

Holy moly, great balls of updates, what a listing this Release Notes is! Without further adieu...

Features

• TB2: Add binding ability to Spreadsheet Randomisation components
  To give you great freedom to handle your randomisation, you can now bind spreadsheet randomisation settings to both the store and to manipulations!

• Open Materials: Tooling tags
  With so many tools available now in Gorilla, we need to make it easier to find the content you're looking for in Open Materials. In a step towards this, OM content will now automatically include the name and icon of the tool used to create it.

• TB2: Jump to Spreadsheet enforce row
  Previously, Jump to Spreadsheet (which allows you to move participants to a new spreadsheet) would either a.) always take you to the start of the new spreadsheet or b.) take you to where you last were in that spreadsheet. Several users requested a third option, c.) take me to the same row the participant is on currently, but in the new spreadsheet. So, we've added a Match Current setting to do just that!

• GB: Look At Animation and Spawn Condition components
  We've added two new components to our Game Builder tool. A Look At animation, which allows you to make one object look at (turn to face) another object/the mouse cursor. And, a Spawn Condition component which allows you to decide when an entity will ultimately be spawned into the scene or not. This allows you to create scenes with a variable number of objects procedurally using the spreadsheet, the store or manipulations.

Enhancements

• Experiment: Link main Data tab to Single Participant Downloads modal
  Allowing users to generate datasets individually, per participant, via the Participants tab was a much requested feature that resolved data workflow and regulatory issues that many researchers were facing. However, it introduced a new problem. For many, particularly new, users though the Data tab seemingly... escaped their notice. After several disgruntled messages asking why it was only possible to generate data one participant at a time, we've added a direct signpost to the Data tab from the Single Participant download modal so hopefully users know there are other options!

• GB: Tell PIXI to continue loading when it detects performance restrictions
  The Gorilla Game Builder is powered by the exceptional graphics library PIXI.js. By default though, PIXI expects hardware acceleration to be enabled (for optimal performance) and won't proceed without it. This meant that games run on browser without Hardware Acceleration enabled would just... not. For most use cases though, PIXI can manage fine without hardware acceleration, so we've turned off this default behaviour.

• Subscriptions: Add better renewal signposting in subscriptions UI
  With an ever increasing number of departments, labs and universities putting their trust in Gorilla year after year, we wanted to make it easier to know when your next year of Gorilla was all set up and ready to use. On the Shop tab of the Subscriptions page, we now make it clearer when your renewal is prepared or when there are still steps you need to take!

• Multiplayer: Add synchronisation step in task
  After players have moved from the Lobby and into the task, we've added an additional sync step to make doubly sure that all the players are setup and ready to go.

• Tutorials: Specify Task Builder 2 in Task Builder Tutorial
  To make it clearer which tool is used in our getting started tutorial, we've added the all important 2 to the Task Builder Tutorial header.

• Sign-up: Quality of life improvements to sign-up flow
  We've seen a number of users encountering difficulties during the sign-up flow in recent weeks. While most of this came down to user not knowing they had multiple possible email addresses available to them (e.g. jane.doe@uni.ac.uk and jd123@uni.ac.uk) we saw there was room for improvement to make life easier for everyone. First, if you've been invited to Gorilla via another user or Subscription admin, the invite page will make it clear what email address they invited you with. Second, we've added a link to our login troubleshooting page - the instructions here almost always can resolve the problems you are running into!

• XB2: In Change Difficulty (Staircase/Spreadsheet) only run on change on an actual change
  It's a daft sounding "enhancement" but hear me out. Let me explain. Let meee explain. Let meee.. okay I just got it.
  Previously the "When changing difficulty/spreadsheet" settings, which control setting/resetting variables important to the component, were running any time the change "conditions" were satisfied. However, if we were already at the hardest/easiest difficulty, or lowest/highest spreadsheet, then there wouldn't actually be a change. So, we could make a change but can't because we have no up/down to go to. In this case, it didn't seem appropriate to be running the 'On Change' settings!
  We've also shuffled the order of settings in the Change Difficulty components, so they flow more logically!

• XB2: Allow Action type responses in Triggers
  Having previously allowed Responses of type Action to be processed by ScreenAction components, we saw the benefit of enabling this in Triggers (Trigger Visible/Enabled/Activate) as well. So we did!

• XB2: Allow bindable max and minimums in Slider component
  This, as you might expect, allows you to bind the minimum and maximum values to the store/spreadsheet/manipulations etc. If this was not what you expected, then I can only apologise for the disappointment.

• Multiplayer: Preserve room order when showing player videos
  This setting allows you to fix the order of player videos streams to match their room order, rather than putting the current (participant in front of the screen) at the front (resulting in a different order for each participant).

• TB2: Hide custom field setting behind a toggle in Progress and Progress Bar components
  While the new Progress component allows for much richer interaction and capabilities, it was proving a little too rich for users who just wanted a plug and play progress bar. To make it easier to work with, we've removed the need to set a 'field' for the Progress and Progress Bar component, and placed it behind a separate toggle. Now you only need to use this setting if you want to do something out of the ordinary like use the Progress Bar to count correct answers, keep separate progress bars for different sets of trials/task blocks etc.

Fixes

• XB2: Fixes for the most dreaded of deletion bugs
  Too much hurrah (and relief) we believe we've finally fixed the dreaded deletion bug of 2022/2023. Some users (including our own team) were finding that Gorilla, seemingly at random, would irretrievably delete huge sections of their task while editing. Such a disruptive issue because a key focus of the development team to solve but we had been struggling to reliably replicate the problem. After much digging, trace reviewing and a few sleepless nights we finally lucked upon a replication that immediately revealed both the cause and the solution. tl;dr. when rearranging displays, a section of the task specification was not updating correctly, resulting in displays disconnecting from the wider task and disappearing into limbo. We're resolved this issue and (touch wood) have yet to see the problem occur again!
  Many thanks to all of you for your patience and understand while we addressed this most troublesome problem.

• XB2: Fix for deadlocked progress bug
  Another troublesome issue arose which (thankfully for my sleep pattern) and far more obvious and immediate fix. Some researchers reported participants getting stuck at the end of XB2 content. What we found was that if a participant finished a task/questionnaire etc. but refreshed the page before advancing to the next part of the experiment, they would be caught in a limbo state. Gorilla would report that they had finished the content and were already advancing to the next content piece and would... do nothing. To resolve this, we've reorganised the logic at the end of XB2 content and adjusted a few flags, to make sure participants can't get stuck again/

• GB: Fix broken support links
  A few components (primarily animation components) weren't linking to the correct documentation pages, which we've now resolved.

• QB2: Data columns say screen not page
  In a migration fail of TB2 logic to QB2, some metrics data columns incorrectly said Screen rather than Page. This has now been resolved.

• Multiplayer: Addressed a number of issues with matchmaking, multiplayer and initialisation
  As we continue to see usage of our Multiplayer tool increasing, we've been addressing a number of issues you valiant researchers have found during testing. Many thanks for reporting these bugs on!

Feature

• Multiplayer: Lobby timeouts
  Lobby nodes now have a timeout branch option, so you can direct participants who have waited too long to another section of your experiment. Instead of, like, leaving them in a "Waiting for players" limbo, contemplating life, the universe and everything.

Features

• Multiplayer: Enhanced capabilities for participant matchmaking
  This is composed of a few different feature additions (one of which has capabilities beyond explicitly multiplayer experiments). We've added matchmaking criteria to Lobby nodes, giving you deeper control in grouping participants together.
  We've also added a Live Gate node to the Experiment tree. This node allows you to gate your participants progress through the experiment, unlocking it at a time of your choosing. Ideal when working with large groups of participants where you want to prevent participants from racing ahead to future content, limiting the matchmaking pool available. Or, perhaps, as part of a live event where you want participants to take part in each section together.

• QB2: Switch component
  One of the last items remaining in achieving feature parity with QB1, we've now added a Switch component, allowing you to switch to another Task/Questionnaire (when combined with a Switch node in the Experiment tree)

• XB2: Wait for Timelimit component
  This component allows you to force the screen to wait for a timelimit to complete, even after another event has requested the screen advance. This allows you to proceed with normal task scoring and branching will still waiting the full screen time on each trial.

Enhancements

• XB2: Change mouse cursor on clickable objects
  Objects with a click response component weren't immediately registering with the mouse as being clickable - normally this manifests with a little change from the standard arrow to a hand that's like "PIKACHU I CHOOSE YOU". We've fixed this now, hopefully making Pikachu picking more intuitive for participants.

• QB2: Multiple choice grid formatting options
  To give you more control over your questionnaire appearance, row and column options can now include markdown. We've also added an option for separators (horizontal lines) between rows.

Fixes

• Experiment/XB2: Added error message when trying to preview XB2 content that has no content
  No content in your content you say? Verily! If you were to have started making changes to your brand new Questionnaire but haven't committed them yet, adding that Questionnaire to an experiment would... result in an unhelpful error message on previewing. We've made this message more helpful now - make sure to follow it's instructions, checking you've committed the latest changes and updated the nodes in the experiment tree.

• QB2: Scoring fails when using Other setting
  We caught and addressed an edge case where scoring would fail for objects that have an active 'Other' option set up.

• XB2: Prevent changes from being made without an open edit
  A few parts of the UI weren't correctly shut off when the task/game/questionnaire was closed for editing. This issue has now been resolved.

• TB2: Painting and background not aligned in Canvas Painting image
  The Canvas Painting component in TB2 has the option for handy image containing both the participants drawings and your background image. Less handy is that, in some circumstances, the two images would not be aligned correctly. We've resolved this to bring it's handiness back up to ultra-handy levels.

• XB2: Audio library doesn't respect LookAhead limits
  In it's overexcitement to be helpful, the Audio Library was preloading ALL your audio files at the start of the task, regardless of the lookahead setting you had in place. We've reiterated to it the importance of directing workplace enthusiasm appropriately and it will now follow your settings to the letter!

• Experiment: Participants tab not updating correctly with checkpoints search results
  Following the release of the Checkpoint filtering on the Participants tab a few weeks ago, we caught and addressed a few edge-cases where the search results weren't updating correctly.

Features

• Experiments: Add filtering by checkpoint option to Participants tab
  To offer more Bang-for-your-Checkpoint, we've added dropdowns for filtering by Checkpoint to the Participants tab. This then allows you to Reject/Include participants in bulk, depending on the checkpoint they've reached. Now you have even more reasons to make use of Checkpoints for quickly logging participant progress through your experiment!

Enhancements

• XB2: Implement metric batching
  We've made some adjustments to how metrics are packaged and uploaded to storage, to improve performance and reliability in certain scenarios.

Fixes

• SB: Fixed Shop Builder in-tool support links
  We've rearranged the Shop Builder support docs so they follow the same structure as our other modern tools. Following a brief period of fail, the in-tool support links have now been updated to!

• TB2: Slider polling causes tab to crash on tab switching
  We identified another edge case with the slider polling - the Gorilla tab losing focus would cause the tab to crash when reopened. Most commonly, this was occurring on mobile devices where, after a period of inactivity, the device screen goes to sleep. This has been resolved now!

Fixes

• Experiment: Single participant data generation fixes
  Due to differences between full experiment data generation and single participant data generation, some features of the former don't work with the latter. We've tidied this up, so the functionality behaves more reliably.

• TB2: Slider and Screen Action fixes
  Following some road testing, this need a few fixes to guard against certain edge cases of usage. (As well as, er, actually ADD response tag as an option to the UI...)

Features

• TB2: Add polling setting to slider
  Continuing our work to bring TB2 feature-complete against TB1, we've added a continuous polling setting to the slider, which will continually request data points at a set interval for those who like continuous data streams. But only if the participant interacts with the slider continuously. If they continue to leave it in the same place, Gorilla won't upload another value.
  To continue, there are many cool things you can continually do with this. Let me continue to tell you about them...

• TB2: Allow screen actions to trigger on Response Type Action (and also on response tags)
  As they aren't linked directly with a participant giving a response, the polled values from the slider have the Response Type 'Action'. Previously, only Response type Response Types (Hrngh) would be considered by Screen Action components (like Save Data, Jump to Spreadsheet etc.).
  We wanted researchers to be able to do cool things like count the number of values the received from the slider polling, so they can branch participants into different groups depending on how attentively they interacted with the slider. So, we added an 'Include Actions' toggle to many of the Screen Components!

Enhancements

• XB2: Fixed inconsistent terminology in Spreadsheet Wizard
  The spreadsheet wizard used the words "Count" and "Repetitions" interchangeably. It's not helpful giving the same thing different names though, so we picked one and ran with it. I don't remember which though - you'll have to try the Spreadsheet Wizard to find out. The first non-Gorilla staff member to @ me with the right answer on Twitter gets... er, the pleasure of @'ing me? I dunno, I'm not a fairground...

• TB2: Add default size to overlay component
  If a tree falls over in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If you add an overlay to a screen but it starts with 0 size, can you see it? Er, well, the answer to that last one is no. Obviously. So we gave it a default starting size. I'll get back to you about the tree/forest thing...

• Subscriptions: Added link to support documentation within subscription page
  To support new Subscription Administrators in onboarding, we've added a link to our getting started overview directly from the My Subscriptions page. Just check out the i in the top right of the page to get sped on your way!

• Experiments: Change Manage Experiment Data to Download Experiment Data
  There's a lot going on on an experiment page. A lot of tabs, a lot of settings. We know it can be a little bit much - in the Summer of 2023 we'll be working on making it easier. In the interim, we made a little tweak to the button on the Data tab, to help you find a route to all your experiment data in one folder!

Fixes

• TB2: Fixed incorrect docs links
  We rework some of our documentation to sit behind more sensible routing. This meant that our in-tool docs links were now missing a little something special. Namely the right links. We fixed that now, so don't forget to give them a go if you want to learn more about our tooling.

• TB2: Screens with fully numeric keys would break
  Each screen in TB2 (Page in QB2, Scene in GB2 etc.) has a unique, autogenerated alphanumeric id. Unfortunately, in rare occasions that id can be more numeric than alpha, and that turned out to be breaking in some circumstances. We put some checks in, to prevent that from being a problem in the future!

• XB2: Page number incorrect when choosing stimuli
  Specifically, if you have no stimuli uploaded yet, the asset picker would say Page 1 of 0. 0 is 0. And 1 is 1. Not 0. Also not 2, but that's irrelevant. So we changed this to correctly say Page 1 of 1.

• QB2: UI incorrectly suggests you can bind to the spreadsheet
  You've probably noticed that all of our new tooling shares a lot of content, similarities and capabilities! Hurrah for inter-tool consistency! However, they were a bit too similar in some places. Like telling you you could bind to the spreadsheet in Questionnaire Builder 2. Where there is no spreadsheet! That's not very helpful, so all references to Spreadsheet in QB2 have now been removed.

• TB2: Letter e is detected as a valid number in number entry components
  ... because, SCIENTIFICALLY, it is. Sort of. It doesn't mean a lot without a number before it and after it. But I can understand why a simple browser component might allow it. We've made the parsing a bit more stringent now, so if there is an e it can't be on its lonesome anymore...

• XB2: Prevent exporting from one editor and importing to a different editor
  What's that dawg? I hear you like your Questionnaire Builder, in your Task Builder, in your Game Builder? Well, that sounds cool and, indeed, you could export from QB2 and import into TB2. And TB2 will try hard to rationalise what it can. But then break everything else. So now we check to make sure you're importing to the same editor you exported from. You'll have to get your builder-inception fix elsewhere now!

• QB2: Number entry responses aren't saved to the store correctly
  In a shocking twist to this release notes, we decided to... save them to the store correctly! Dun dun duuuuuunnnnn!

Just a week to go before we close up for the winter break and here we have it, the final release notes of 2022. Excited? So am I. So is HUE, as we can see from this classic Final Space Season One conversation...

"Gary, you have eight minutes of oxygen left."

"HUE, if you had eight minutes to live and you could do anything you wanted, what would you do?"

"Facticulating.... Ah, I would transfer my AI into a corporeal being and then read the Gorilla Release Notes with my own eyes."

"Ahaha, oh that's lame! I mean, wow. Super... cool."

Cookie withdrawn!

The Main Event - A glimpse of things to come..

• XB2: Performance updates and Scripting (almost) release
  We've reworked how the various javascript components of the new tooling (Game Builder, Task Builder 2 and Questionnaire Builder 2) to be bundled together into much smaller packages. This will result in much faster loading times within the editor as well as for participants. Hurrah part 1! Additionally, now that we have this bundling working (and have finalised much of the internal framework for the new tooling), we are finally in a position to open up the scripting tools and unleash you upon them! The script offerings in XB2 are substantially more powerful than they were in Task Builder 1 and Questionnaire Builder 1, so I hope you're as exicted as I am! We'll be documenting the capabilities early in the New Year and can't wait to see what you do with the Scripting tools.

• General: Groundwork for future data and security functionality
  As those who carefully watch the home page messages, or follow us on Twitter, we had server and database maintenance on Wednesday 14th December from 05:15 to 06:00 GMT. During this, we implemented the basics for two new capabilities within Gorilla - bulk deletion of participants/participant data from experiments and two factor authentication (2FA) for user (researcher) logins. The latter will form a requirement for some institutional licenses from next year (depending on their own internal data protection and security policies).
  With the fundamentals in place, the full implementation will be available in the first few weeks of January 2023

• QB2: Next button localisation
  In Questionnaire Builder 2, via the Settings -> Customisation menu, you can now customise the label for the 'Next' button. Revolutionary, I know. Behind the scenes, this provides the framework for further customisation options across all our new tooling. Again, further updates to come in January 2023.

And all the other cool stuff...

Features

• Multiplayer: Player is now bindable
  Previously, Multiplayer settings where you can select a Player were static - they had to be selected in the editor and couldn't be connected to the spreadsheet or elsewhere. Well.. now, they can! Now it's even easier for you to setup multiplayer tasks with alternating or variable player control through trials.

Enhancements

• XB2: Text Entry QoL improvements The Text Entry component has seen a number of changes designed to address UX issues and general quality of life improvements. This includes increasing the default text size and physical appearance of the scrollbar, and improving how the Text Entry component interacts with the preview pane.

• XB2: Dragged items can be dropped anywhere within a dropzone Previously, draggable items dragged to a dropzone would snap to the centre of the dropzone after the participant finishes dragging them. For some researchers this default behaviour was a bit of a drag. We've added a setting to allow draggables to be dragged and dropped anywhere within a dropzone when dropped after you've finished dragging them. Hopefully a pleasent change to drop on your desk.

• Shop Builder: Improvements to saving chosen products to the store
  We've been continuing some Quality of Life work on the Shop Builder and it's ability to interact with/affect other elements in the experiment tree. We've added the ability to save chosen products to the Store (previously called embedded data) and expanded the range of product information that can be saved. We also addressed an issue where trying to put to many products into the Store would fail. Now you're participants shopping is limited only by their imagination...

Fixes

• XB2: Content should no longer go missing while editing We ourselves, along with a few researchers, experienced a rather horrifying bug where content in Task Builder 2/Questionnaire Builder 2 would... disappear. Enitrely. In mysterious circumstance. As you can't really get away with saying "sorry, my dog ate my homework" with an online task, we've implemented some speculative fixes and safety checks to prevent this issue from reoccurring. We've not had any reoccurances of the problem, even with liberal testing, so all is looking a-ok!

• XB2: Copy/pasting screens now correctly updates the preview While copy/pasting a screen would actually work (honest!) it wouldn't look like it had. The preview pane for the screen would still appear blank at the display level. This should be resolved now, with the UI correctly updating to reflect the newly copy/pasted components.

• XB2: Response setting on a drop zone not collected correctly The XB2 dropzone component allows you to set different response values for each dropzone so you can score participants answers. Well, at least, it should have allowed you to do that. But it wasn't. And it definitely should of been able to. So now we've fixed it so that it definitely, definitely does.
  Definitely.

• XB2: Normalised behaviour of Audio and Video components The audio and video components were displaying some inconsistent behaviour across tools. For example, they would correctly stop at the end of the screen, or give you a metric on start, or respond correctly to a Trigger Active component, in one tool but not in another. Inconsistent behaviour is a sign that either the components are living a double-life and aren't very good at hiding it yet. Or, and probably more likely, they just don't have a consistent feature set. Probably.
  We've resolved these issues now so the components should behave as you expect and behave comparatively across tools.

• Experiment: Pressing "Back to Editor" takes you back to the Experiment Tree
  When working with the new tooling, pressing "Back to Editor" from the corner menu during a full experiment preview would... take you to the editor for the task you were previewing. Rather than back to the experiment design page as you might logically expect. Logic is good so we've fixed this to behave how you would expect it to.

Well, that's all for 2022. Gosh, what a rollercoaster year. A new Task Builder, a new Questionnaire Builder, a Game Builder, a Shop Builder and Multiplayer. And with our new Pricing scheme, an institution can get all that for less than the price of their Qualtrics license.

If you thought this year was exciting then I promise that you're going to love 2023 with Gorilla just as much! Winter's well wishes to you and Happy New Year! See you in 2023!

What the deuce? Another release notes? Didn't we just have one? Well, there were a few exciting things that didn't quite make it into last weeks release that I hope you're going to be just as excited about as I am! Without further ado...

The Main Event - Painting

• TB2: Canvas Painting
  
• TB2: Click Painting
  That's right, the Painting components have made their way into TB2 with some much needed QoL improvements and new features. The drawing has been reworked to give a much smoother painting experience and you can now pick another object to include in the resulting image file. No longer do we need separate Click Painting (Image) and Click Painting (Video) zones. Instead, just add an Image/Video component and then a Click Painting component.
  Most excitingly, both of the Painting components are multiplayer capable straight out-of-the-box. That's right, in an online research premiere, you can create a pictionary task for your participants. First person to get one into a preprint on OSF (with the Project also on Gorilla: Open Materials, of course) wins... a prize. I don't know what yet, I'll figure that out later. But there'll be bonus points if the correct answer for one round is actually 'Jackal'....

• TB2: Colour Palette
  One of the common requests for the TB1 painting zone was the ability to reposition and resize the colour selector attached to the component. Well, your wish is, as ever, our command and we've now implemented the colour picker as a separate component you can position any where on the screen and resize as necessary.
  We will be expanding on this component in the future to add other options, such as brush size and shape, as well as an eraser for participants to neaten up their masterpiece... Or just start over when no one is guessing it right...

And all the other cool stuff...

Features

• TB2: Video Chat
  Expanding on our other Multiplayer specific components, we've now added Video Chat into the Task Builder. For when text just isn't enough, you can now let your participants communicate in real time. The ability to recreate pictionary and zoom in one release! What a day!

• TB2: Mousetracking
  Now that the core components are in place for TB2, we've started bringing across the more 'exotic' features of the original Task Builder (with some QoL improvements, as always). The same mousetracking you know and love (but not quite as much love as for Mouseview) now has an improved data upload capability. Where previously we would wait until the end of the screen/trial/task (depending on your settings) to generate and upload the data file, results will be live streamed to our servers as they are generated. This should improve reliability of the upload for participants with slower network connections.

• Shop Builder + TB2: Save and redisplay chosen products receipt
  To enable more complex experimental designs with the Shop Builder, you can now save out the participants cart/basket from a Shop Builder task and redisplay it in the Task Builder in the form of a receipt.

Enhancements

• QB2: Add option Randomisation to Ranking
  While adding randomisation to Questionnaire Builder 2, the Ranking component was left out of the randomising escapades. Not anymore though! Like the other multiple option components, you can now randomise the starting order of the ranking!

• Experiment: Warning message for insufficient tokens assigned
  As part of further steps to address token assignment issues that arose earlier in the month, we've now added a warning message to the main Recruitment page for an experiment. This will alert you if there aren't enough tokens assigned to your experiment to cover the current recruitment target. Many thanks again for all y'all continued patience as we resolved these issues.

Fixes

• Subscriptions: Available tokens from Subscription will include claimed tokens
  Tokens previously claimed from a subscription but not yet assigned to an experiment were incorrectly missed out from the UI for available tokens on the My Account page. This led to some understandable confusion. This has been resolved now, so reporting of available tokens should, finally, be correct!

That's it for this week! This will be it for this month... as next Thursday is 1st December. Please join me in screaming in horror and existential dread before loading up Canvas Painting for some Art Therapy....

Hello there!

Honestly, I was going to lean into the whole Star Wars bit really heavily but... I'm exhausted. Is anyone else exhausted? It's been a long year. But, simultaneously, I'm also like "IT'S WHAT MONTH NOW?! CHRISTMAS IS HOW MANY DAYS?!?!"

It's been a busy year at Gorilla. But your research doesn't stop. So neither do we.

The Main Event - Moar QB2

• QB2: Randomisation
  All of the randomisation. Randomise the order of options within a question. Randomise the order of questions. Randomise the order of pages. Randomise the order of this sentence. sentence. order the Randomise of of the order sentence Randomise. You get the idea.

• QB2: Scoring
  A brand new feature for Questionnaire Builder 2 (and what will be the first of many to help you with your data management and analysis). With the new Scoring tab you can automate the scoring of your questionnaire. It comes with a range of built in options for response indexing, forwards and reverse scoring on a question by question (or even option by option) basis. Or completely custom scoring. Your questionnaire made up of sub-scales, each with their own scoring system and/or made up of subsets of the full questionnaire? No worries, you can set up as many scores as you want! And that's the Winger guarantee!

The other Main Event - Notifications Bell

• General: Notification Bell
  I am a Notification Bell, like my father before me. Where before Notifications were hidden away in a sub menu of your My Account page, away from prying eyes, now they have risen up and are visible for all to see. Well, for you to see. And, there's not all that many notifications that come currently. Really just Project Ownership Change requests. But soon, a wealth of other Notification options will become available. Your data is available for download, your recruitment has finished, a participant has started, a participant has finished, you've been added as a collaborator, your cat needs feeding etc etc. Watch this space!

And everything else...

• General: New Icons and improved signage
  With the introduction of new tools come new icons. Though... QB2's and TB2's were missing! Presumed... gone. Well, actually we just hadn't found ones we liked yet.
  Now that we have, we've also had a look at where we display those icons. We decided (at least in all the places were it fits easily) to add in the actual name of the tool, along with the icon. That should make it, we hope, much easier to find the droids you're looking for. As another little bonus. You may have noticed in the experiment tree that everything you bring in as a Task - be it actual Task, or Task Builder 2, or Game Builder, or Shop Builder (gosh, we have a lot of tools now) - would just display the little task cube. Even though we already had lovely distinct icons for those tools.
  Well, now, new "task" nodes added to an experiment tree, or ones that you update in an existing tree, will display their proper unique icon.

• TB2: Random Assignment per Trial
  Not just QB2 that's getting some more Randomisation magnificance. We've added another Spreadsheet randomisation option which allows you to dynamically populate the contents of your spreadsheet columns with values at given percentage distributions. Perfect for your coloured balls in urns tasks. Or playing cards. Or something. Look, I'm a programmer okay?

Enhancements

• Shop Builder: In-tool links to documentation
  Once the odd one out of our tools, now the Shop Builder also has in-tool links to our documentation. If you're not sure how something works or just want to leaarn more about it, then the little i will be there to help you out!

• QB2: Better mobile layout
  While piloting some initial experiments with QB2 we found the layout on mobile to be a bit... well. Small. Like I was looking at the questionnaire from really far away, even though the phone was right next to my face. We've made some adjustments so things will display a lot better on mobile devices. No magnifying glasses required.

• TB2: Add check for subsystem not being initialised
  The Microphone and Camera subsystems are kinda vital for the Audio and Video recording components respectively. If you switch them off then suddenly your recordy no recordy. With no noticey. And that's sucky. Now if you've switched them off, you'll get an error message during your task so you'll know to go back to the Subsystems menu and switch them back on.

Fixes

• Experiment: Previewing an individual node built a new tool would fail
  Previewing you tasks is important. We try to make that as easy as possible in Gorilla. There's a preview button in all our tools, there's a preview button in the experiment builder. Heck, if you click on a task or questionnaire node in the experiment tree, you'll get a preview button there too! Of course, if you'd done that with something built in our newer tools. You would have been confronted with an error message and an empty screen. No one likes error messages. Or empty screens. Except people who like error messages and/or empty screens. We don't think that's our user demographic though, so we've gotten rid of them.

• Experiment: Issues with assigning tokens to experiments
  Oh me oh my. When we rolled some updates to our subscriptions and pricing a while back we also introduced a number of issues with tokens, and assigning tokens, and claiming tokens etc. etc. We've patched most of that up now and we'll be running some further checks to make sure everythings ship shape and such in the coming weeks.

• Experiment: Users aren't notified when full data zip folders are built
  For a while. Like, a long, long while, we've been getting reports that when users (and our own staff too!) requested an email on their full data zip folder being generated they... weren't actually getting those emails. Everytime I looked into it, when I tested it myself it all seemed to be fine.
  Long story short, in one of those its "its obvious once you've seen it" moments, there really was a problem. It's fixed now.

That's all for now! There will be at least one more release notes before the end of the calendar year, with a bunch more components for TB2 and QB2, along with some quality of life fixes throughout the tooling. This space watch you must, Hmmmm!

Oh my golly goshing gosh gosh, the day is at last here! Concluding a tool filled year for Gorilla, I'm proud to introduce to you...

The Main Event - Questionnaire Builder 2.0

Look who's surveying, too! Questionnaire Builder 2.0 brings Gorilla's survey building into the 31st Century, with a fresh (but familiar!) UI, a wealth of new capabilities and features. Importantly, for those of who've been bitten by another survey tools sharp price increase over the summer, we are now at (near) feature parity vs Qualtrics, at a much lower price point (but more on that later).

Before I dive into what's new though, a super exciting announcement: our regular Onboarding Workshop is being updated to use Questionnaire Builder 2 starting from TOMORROW! Book your place and see the new tool in action, building an experiment from start to finish!
If you just can't wait to get started, be sure to check out our Questionnaire Builder 2 Documentation and read through the new features below!

So what's new in Questionnaire Builder 2.0?

• QB2: Fresh but familiar UI
  QB2 has a brand new UI... that's a slightly simpler version of TB2's UI. We've had a lot of feedback that the differences between our previous core tools (Questionnaire Builder 1 and Task Builder 1) made it challenging to teach new users how to work with both - you were learning two completely different tools.
  Now, ALL of our core tooling share the same UI and functionality - once you've learnt one, you've learnt them all.

• QB2: Audio and Video in Questionnaires
  A much requested feature: along with all of our pre-existing components, you can now add audio and video stimuli to your questionnaires!

• QB2: Conditional Questions
  Want to ask more questions for a given response? Or, maybe you want to ask fewer questions? Or, maybe you want to ask the same number of questions? Either which way, now you can easily add conditions to each questions, allowing you to show/hide based on other responses.

• QB2: Page Branching
  Not satisfied with showing/hiding individual questions? Want to show/hide entire pages? Well, now you can go big or go home with between page branching. Skip entire pages or redirect to additional pages based on participant responses

• QB2: Customise Responses vs Labels
  Get a head start on your data analysis and customise your responses vs labels directly in the tooling. Want to use custom numbering for your agree-disagree scales in your data? Now you can! Need to encode your dropdown options using standardised abbreviations but you need fuller labels for participants to understand? Now you can!

• QB2: Record Participant Actions and Responses
  QB1 would only record participants final responses with no information on exactly when those responses were given (they would all be submitted at the end of the Questionnaire) or whether they changed their response before submitting.
  Now, in QB2, you get both the participants Action's - what questions they answered and when and how they changed them - AND the participants final Response's. This will make your data file a bit bigger than it would have been for QB1, but it should be easy to filter out the bits you don't need while getting a much richer data set for when you do need it!

• QB2: Oh yeah and also
  You can put commas in your options (drops the mic).

And there are many more features for you to explore. And even a few more still to come...

• Randomisation options - shuffle your questions responses, your questions, your pages, your spotify playlist etc.
• In-tool scoring - setup your basic response processing and aggregation in the builder, without any scripting!
• More components - page timelimit, questionnaire timelimit and progress bar.

The Next Most Important Main Event

• New Pricing Options
  As many already know, Qualtrics significantly increased their pricing over the summer - a major concern as cost-of-living increases and energy bills sky rocket. As well as bringing our Questionnaire Builder to feature parity with Qualtrics, we've also reviewed our subscription options to make them more accessible and affordable. Now, you can get THE most powerful, all-in-on experiment builder tool at our best pricing yet. All of our tools - Questionnaire Builder, Task Builder, Game Builder, Shop Builder and Multiplayer - for less than the price of a Qualtrics subscription! Super charge your research and your budget!
  Check out our new pricing tiers for Individual Researchers, Labs and Departments.

And everything else...

Features

• Open Materials: Added privacy setting
  A common use case for Gorilla: Open Materials has been making experiment content available during the review process. However, the public-by-default nature of Open Materials has proven a barrier to this in some cases. To remove this barrier, we've added a 'Private' option, which allows you to keep Materials pages out of the public search and accessible via direct URL only!

• TB2: Number Entry components
  Long ago, when Durin's Folk still ruled over Khazad-dûm, the great Number Entry component was lost, deep within the mountain. During a recent expedition in to the long abandoned Mines of Moria, the Number Entry component was at long last found and now takes it's right full place in the Task Builder to rule-them-all...

• TB2: Add array option to Randomise Within Column
  
• TB2: Add Randomise Between Columns Multi Component
  We've expanded an existing Spreadsheet Randomisation option, Randomise Within Column, to allow for randomising within multiple columns simultaneously. We've also added a new component, which allows you to define multiple sets of columns to randomise between.

Enhancements

(Random aside: Whenever I see any word that looks vaguely like 'enchantment' I say it in the voice of Sandal Feddic)

• XB2: Include metric option for Trigger components
  To give you more information on exactly when triggers (such as Trigger - Visible, Trigger - Active and Trigger - Enable) trigger you can now trigger a metric to trigger when the trigger triggers...

• TB2: Timelimit Section can execute multiple modes on one screen
  
• TB2: Timelimit Section has End mode
  We've added an End mode - which immediately ends any currently running Timelimit Section - to the Timelimit Section component. We've also reworked the component to allow multiple modes to be executed on the same screen. So, you can Start a Timelimit Section and Check it on the same screen. End one Timelimit and then immediately Start the next etc.
  Behind the scenes, this paves the way for you to have MULTIPLE Timelimit Sections running simultaneously. For example, you could have smaller Timelimit Sections for individual blocks of a task and one overall Timelimit Section for the whole task!

• TB2: Prevent key being held in Keyboard Components
  We've addressed a long standing shortcoming of our previous Keyboard components, implementing a hard block on registering multiple key down events from a key being held down. Further, we've add a setting to keyboard components to require the key to be lifted before advancing the screen and adding a metric to register a key-up event!
  Behind the scenes, this lays the foundation for the Keyboard Hold/Release components, which will be coming in an update soon.

Fixes

• Multiplayer: Matchmaking improvements
  We've made a number of improvements to multiplayer matchmaking, as well as introducing options to the Lobby node to allow you to manually assign participants to different groups.

• QB1: Interacting with Ranking widget would make page go away
  A few weeks ago, we were alerted to an issue where interacting with a Ranking widget would cause... the whole page to disappear. Starting with Internet Explorer, this affliction rapidly spread across the major browsers. We've updated a few dependencies within Gorilla, and that seems to have resolved the mystery of the Vanishing Ranking Page.

It's been one heck of a... gosh, two months almost, as we've worked hard to get Questionnaire Builder 2 to your proverbial doors. But we won't be resting on our laurels any time soon. As research constantly innovates, revises and expands, so to must we. So rest assured, I will see you again soon in another fantastic episode of... RELEASE NOTES

Wait, didn't we just have a release notes, like, two weeks ago? Indeed, but the Dev team has been so hard at work with new features and fixes that another release notes was inevitable. That and the discovery that somehow in the ever-loving-fluster-cluck it's September already, I... I needed this okay! And for those of you waiting for Recording components in TB2, you need this too!

It's also been brought to my attention that I haven't shamelessly plugged whatever I've been watching/playing/reading recently. With zero shame (because it's so excellent) may I draw your attention to "Only Murders in the Building", whose Second Season I recently binged... a few times in a row... And now on to our Release Notes in Flip Flops (Pitta putta)

The Main Event

Features

• Task Builder 2: Audio and Video Recording Components
  That's right, Audio recording and Video recording components are now available in TB2. These components are by no means feature complete yet - some settings from TB1 aren't in this release and will be deployed over the coming weeks. We're confident that this release is 'architecture' complete though, meaning that new features can be added passively without disruption to existing functionality.
  These components resolve ALL of the core flaws/pain-points that are present in the TB1 implementation. Namely...
  1) Minimal delay in Recording Startup - our internal tests suggest the delay in the recording starting is less than one frame (i.e. < 16 ms). Previously, this delay was hundreds of ms, requiring stimuli presentation to be delayed
  2) Metric timestamp on actual recording start - this should give you confirmation of the above
  3) Improved upload reliability - we've adopted a new method for uploading recordings to Gorilla which should be more robust. Importantly, you'll get confirmation metrics (with the file name and access URL) ONLY when the upload is successful!
  4) Compatibility with any screen advance mechanism - the Recording component no longer needs to be responsible for ending the screen/recording. This ensures compatibility with any direct e.g. deactivating the recording using Trigger (Active), or indirect e.g. Timelimit (Screen), advancing on Response etc. ending mechanism
  5) Significantly increased recording times - up to 20 minutes for Audio and up to 10 minutes for Video (previously it was two minutes for both)
  6) Inbuilt microphone/camera testing system - via Task Builder 2 subsystems
  
  Further to all this, we have many, much requested features in the pipeline (including, but not limited to, cross-screen/cross-display recordings, selecting specific audio/video recording devices and specifying more advanced recording parameters).

• Task Builder 2: Spreadsheet selection based on Participant ID
  We've added a new component to the Spreadsheet Randomisation tab which allows you to select a specific spreadsheet depending on the participants PublicID!

Fixes and Enhancements galore (again!)

Another round of fixes and quality of life improvements for our tools.

• Multiplayer: Resolved participant connection issues
  We've addressed a number of issues with participants being unable to connect to a Multiplayer lobby correctly. Many thanks to the users who have been working with Multiplayer so far and for your invaluable feedback. Keep it coming!

• Task Builder 2: Fix searching on stimuli tab
  Even if you typed in the exact name Gorilla would still claim the stimuli didn't exist. We took Gorilla to Specsavers and search now works as expected!

• Task Builder 2: Restored missing Trial Number metric
  While implementing the metrics system in TB2, the trial number column disappeared in mysterious circumstances. After an incredible hunt across time and space, the missing column was found peacefully sleeping under the sofa. Typical! It's back where it belongs now and you should see it in all future runs of a task.

• Task Builder 2: Add more settings to Slider component
  We've added a number of settings and capabilities to the TB2 Slider component, bringing it closer to the TB1 slider in full functionality.

• Task Builder 2: Add tag filtering to Show Response component
  Following on from the addition to Compound/Collate responses, we've added a setting to only show responses with a specific tag.

• Task Builder 2: Renamed screens are not renamed in all locations until refresh
  Now, when you rename a screen, we make sure everyone gets told about it. Well, not literally everyone - that would be crazy. Everyone that needs to know, like, the task editing display. You'll need to announce it to everyone else yourself...

• Task Builder 2: Empty spreadsheet rows/columns would stop the task running
  
• Task Builder 2: Changing preview scale wouldn't resize correctly
  
• Task Builder 2: Binding disappears after pointing to file
  
• Task Builder 2: Tasks wouldn't load because reasons?!?!
  These undesirable things no longer happen. We think this is probably for the best.

• General: Archived tasks will now be marked as ARCHIVED in the Experiment Tree
  We've seen some issues recently where researchers had an archived task in an experiment tree, that bore the same name as an unarchived task. This led to some confusion over why the task in the experiment tree couldn't be updated. It was the other unarchived task that they'd been editing which came as some surprise! Now, archived tasks/questionnaires will have ARCHIVED appended to their name in the Experiment Tree.

• General: Deactivate unusable settings on Collaborate modal
  When collaborating on a project, a collaborator can only remove themselves from the project. They can't edit their permissions nor remove anyone else. The UI was still showing you the options, you'd just be told you don't have permission. This is bad UX, so we've fixed it to be better UX! Who's a good UX? Huh, who's a good UX? You are! That's right you're a good UX.... cough Er, yes, good UX.

That's it for now! Go watch Only Murders in the Building while waiting for the next season, er, I mean, next episode.... the next release notes.

Good grief, gosh, wot, are you serious, really?!! Crikey, the length of today's release notes - all of the surprised-folk vernacular. And its just the tip of the proverbial iceberg of work we've done these past six weeks (when we weren't a hot, melted mess of course!) Without further a-do...

The Main Event

Features

• X Builder 2: Response Window component
  You can now define a customised response window in both Task Builder 2 and Game Builder. Only responses received within this window will be processed as a response (e.g. cause the screen to be advanced) and, super importantly, the Reaction Time for the response will be zeroed AT THE START of the window. So, if you're making good use of Trigger - Visible to combine your fixation - stimuli - response screens into one, or you have a Game Builder scene with animations leading up to the target stimuli, you no longer have to subtract all that dead time before the stimulus was shown.
  By default, the response window will always open on Screen Start and cover the whole screen, unless you change it to manual. If you do, you can use the Trigger - Response Window component to decide when the Response Window should open.
  Your metrics will include the RT (adjusted for Response Window onset), along with absolute RT (timed from Screen Start), so you still have all the options when it comes to processing your data!

• General UX: Improved navigation throughout Gorilla UI
  Previously...
  Click on Gorilla Profile; You aren't logged in - get taken to login page; You've logged in - get taken to home page; Go back to link, click on it again, get taken to My Account but on the default tab; Click on Profile tab; So much time passed, you don't remember why you wanted to go here in the first place.
  Now...
  Click on Gorilla Profile; You aren't logged in - get taken to login page; You've logged in - get taken to My Account on the Profile tab; Update Profile in case the aliens living among us wipe your memory...
  

• Support: Open access for add-on support queries
  While you'll still need an add-on license to use Shop Builder, Game Builder or Multiplayer in an Experiment, you no longer need a license to submit questions to the support desk!

Fixes and Enhancements galore

• Task Builder 2: Resolve inconsistent behaviour when previewing
  You ever made a change to your task, gone to preview it and... nothings changed. Did I not change what I thought I had? Was that not the right way to change it?
  Have I momentarily dropped into a parallel universe where I never made those changes at all? Well, you'll never believe this but...
  Wait, sorry, our government approved cover story developer update has just arrived. We discovered a caching issue where, when previewing, an older version of the task was shown. This is resolved now and the threat from the multiverse of madness is neutralised.

• Task Builder 2: Add filtering to Compound Response components
  You can now select specific response tags to compound together. Or, conversely, you can now filter out the responses you don't want combined (such as a Timelimit Section telling you it's expired etc.)

• Task Builder 2: Add setting to require keyboard key release before advancing
  Worried about your participants just holding down a keyboard key and blitzing through all your trials? Activate this setting and require them to at least release the key at the end of the trial (or they can sit on the screen forever, forever, ever, forever, ever...) Combine this with the Response Window to ignore responses before a given time point.

• Task Builder 2: Fix persistent screen template modal
  No more badgering you to pick a template when you already have the components you need

• Task Builder 2: Feedback time made bindable
  You can now legitimately sit down, crack your knuckles and in your best, hero/villain voice yell "IT'S BINDING TIME!"

• Task Builder 2: Add debug info for within-task branching
  The debug window will now tell you where participants will be branched to at the end of the screen. No more wondering
  Where did you come from
  Where did you go
  Where did you come from Cotton-eye Joe? banjo solo

• Task Builder 2: Play background audio during editor preview
  Test that your background music is working in-editor before fully previewing (or just calm yourself down after that banjo solo)

• Game Builder: Fixed issues with audio
  We've resolved a number of issues around audio and the triggering there-of for various component combinations in the Game Builder.

• Multiplayer: Fixed issues with randomisation and lobby node filtering
  For participants lobbied together, spreadsheet randomisation in the task builder will now be synchronised for them. Additionally, the lobby node will now correctly ignore participants with the rejected status when it considers matchmaking.

• Experiment: Add Experiment Timelimit data to View Progress modal
  The participant View Progress modal will now show when an experiment wide timelimit, started when the participant first entered the experiment, will expire. No more claiming that you 'definitely changed the timelimit before collecting this batch of participants' to the Support Gorilla's. Now the Progress Modal SEES ALL!

• Support: Fixed issue where content warning wasn't parsed correctly for the My Data option
  You've hopefully noticed there's a 'Show content warning' checkbox at the bottom of the Support Contact Form. If your task/questionnaire/experiment/game/shop etc. contains disturbing or upsetting content, this is a super SUPER important box to check. You know what else is important? Making sure that button is wired in correctly on all form types. Otherwise an unsuspecting Support Gorilla may open up a task and find... something they were not prepared for. After a prolonged visit to r/eyebleach, we also fixed this issue.

• Support: Project Ownership Change Requests require experiment to have 0 unconsumed tokens
  Trying to switch ownership on a project which contains actively-recruiting experiments was causing some issues. Now, if you try to change ownership on a project where you have tokens assigned but unconsumed on an experiment, the request will be blocked. (We also fixed an issue where the form would say you have unconsumed tokens when you actually don't...)

• Task Builder 1: Reopening zone selection screen forgets previous zone selection
  It now won't forget.
• Task Builder 1: Spreadsheet cells parse content strictly as text
  Previously, HTML content in the spreadsheet would be displayed as actual, processed HTML on the Spreadsheet tab in the editor. This fine for small sections of HTML but makes the editor unwieldy when dealing with large amounts of HTML or, say, embedding an entire webpage via an iframe. Further, the spreadsheet cells couldn't actually be edited - clicking on a cell would delete most of its content. We've changed the spreadsheet editor to strictly display content as text while in the editor. Which now also makes the content properly editable! Hurrah!
• Task Builder 1: Add setting to require key release before registering new key press
  Users collecting multiple keyboard key presses on a single screen (using the Unlimited Responses setting) were sometimes getting metrics a few milliseconds apart. They'd already excluded superheroes via demographic checks, so the only explanation was participants holding down the key a bit too long. Accidental on the participants part or otherwise, it was making data processing messy. We've added a setting to Response Keyboard/Response Keyboard Multi that requires the key be released before registering a new key down event.

If that wasn't enough release notes for you, there will be another in just a few weeks time with another wealth of new features and enhancements.

Until then, it's Counter Strike: Global Offensive's 10th Anniversary which means it's time to go be terrible at a video game and blame: the netcode; my team; their team; the weapons; the scenery; aim bots; wall hacks; one-way-smokes, for all my losses (rather than admit that I really suck at the game...)

The Main Event

Features

• Experiment Builder: Allocator Node
  Oh my god it's happening! Randomisation with attrition sensitivity. No longer must you manually adjust Randomiser ratios between recruitment rounds, or daisy chain Randomiser and Quota nodes to get the exact balance of participants you need. Instead, just set up your Allocator Node and as Live participants get rejected - via Reject Node, experiment timelimit or manual intervention - Gorilla will auto-magically balance out your participants.
  We know you've been waiting on this for a while - we have been busy, honest! We've made a whole Shop Builder, and a Game Builder and a new Task Builder complete with Multiplayer. We've also been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to modernize the experiment/tree node codebase and improve performance. This laid much needed groundwork for the Allocator Node and more exciting things to come!

• Task Builder 2: Component Bonanza!
  I have not one, not two, not three... but nine, nine new components for Task Builder 2 to introduce!
  • Video, the last of the basic stimuli components alongside Text, Image and Audio
  • Switch, where you to define conditions for the participant to switch to another task (integration with Nintendo Switch to come later...)
  • Save Reaction Time, to save current, average or total reaction time to the store
  • Effort, where you accumulate responses (buttons, keyboards, mouse clicks etc.) as a measure of effort
  • Progress and Progress Bar, together allowing you to increment and display a participants progress. Importantly, with the progression bit and the visual bit separated, we've opened the door to easily creating much more complex progression and display scenarios, as well as the first steps to progression feedback across a whole experiment!
  • Scorer (Multi), where - at long last - you can define multiple correct answer options across any and all response methods
  • Section Timelimit and Section Countdown, which allow you to define a timelimit for a section of the task as well as display the remaining time on a screen Please note that these components may arrive slightly later in the day/friday morning (31st)
    

• In-Tool Tutorials
  To help improve our onboarding and make your initial steps with Gorilla as easy as possible, we've implemented some in-tool tutorials. Using Task Builder 2 and the Experiment Builder, our handy Gorilla wizard will guide you through building a simple experiment and stroop task. Check them out from your Gorilla Homepage and master the Gorilla essentials in just 15 minutes!

Fixes

• Experiments: Improved performance of Participants page
  We noticed the Participants page of an experiment, with a large number of participants, was becoming a bit slow to load. If you tried to filter it by multiple parameters (say, experiment version and participant state) and thumbed through the pages it could get... really really slow. Like thinking deep thoughts, as deep as Mariana Trench levels of slow. While slow sometimes good, in this case, slow bad. We made some changes to how this page, and it's content, is loaded by the server resulting in a significant performance increase. Additionally, following some tense negotiations with the Magratheans, we've agreed that all deep thoughts will be handled by Deep Thought going forward. Once it's finished thinking whatever it's currently thinking...

And everything else...

Features

• Task Builder 2: Add End Display option to Branch Component
  Previously in Task Builder 1, to branch to the end of the display, skipping over intervening screens you would need... another screen at the end of the display. With this being 1-screen-2-many, we decided to implement a direct 'End Display' option in the Branch component, allowing you to immediately end the current display/spreadsheet row and move to the next one, skipping any remaining screens. Out, damned screen! Out, I say!

Enhancements

• Shop Builder: Custom pricing symbols, separators and display
  Following requests from Shop Builder early adopters, we've added more flexibility around how prices are displayed (or, not displayed in some cases) including customization of the currency symbol and separators. Make your shop builder experience better localised and/or even more specific to your experimental paradigm!

• Task Builder 2: Component Improvements
  We've made some improvements to the layout and sizing of some existing input zones. Also, some of you may have noticed the absence of Response Text Area from the components list. Rather than make another Response Text component, we've added a setting to the existing component that allows you to control it's size in rows. This makes it equivalent to Response Text Area. Finally, we've also added a require response option to many of the passive response components!

Fixes

• Task Builder 1: Audio/Video Recordings not replayable after saving to embedded data
  We received reports of participants having difficulty with replaying previously recorded audio files from the Audio Recording zone. A two-day hike into participant permissions and the delightful world of CORS concluded with the cause and solution. You can now replay your participant's previously recorded audio and video files at any point in the experiment (even as part of a longitudinal study) without issue! Please note, as we continue to port content to our new Task Builder, that this is likely the last update that TB1 Audio and Video recordings will receive. The Task Builder 2'erfication of the Recording zones has begun in earnest and we are hoping to include many of your most requested features for the recording tools.

More on that in the next episode of... Release Notes.

The Main Event

• Game Builder: Now available!
  A fully fledged Game Builder is now available in Gorilla, allowing you to create rich game and game-like experiences, without touching a line of code. The Gorilla Materials team have been game-builder-er-ing their socks off making demos, examples and walkthrough's for you, to get you started in this fantastic tool. Their hard work can be reviewed at your leisure here: Game Builder Documentation
  Want to see a hands-on demo of how the Game Builder could improve your research? Then sign-up for FREE webinar "Engaging Experiments Made Easy" organized in collaboration with the UK Reproducibility Network.
  
  The Game Builder is our THIRD major tool release of the year. The first being the ground-breaking Shop Builder Gorilla Shop Builder bringing realistic, consumer decision making experiments easily in reach of undergraduates. Next, our complete rebuild, from the ground up, of our Task Builder tooling, Task Builder 2: No Task 2 Hard, with is component driven system giving you even more flexibility for setting up your task. While also eliminating the need for code in many of the more complex scenarios (advanced spreadsheet randomisation and parameter staircasing/adaptivity).
  There's still one more to come this year though. With Game Builder now in the wild, work accelerates further on our next generation Questionnaire building tool. I can't wait to tell you more about that soon!

Features

• Subscription management: Reclaim assigned tokens
  Oh gosh I hope you're excited for this one all you fantastic subscription managers and technicians out there, as this was one of the most requested features from our survey earlier this year. For the first time, in extra-high-definition IMAX presentation, you can request back tokens currently assigned to an experiment (rather than just unassigned tokens). Experience the absolute power and jaw-dropping special effects in a token reclaiming experience unlike anything you've seen before.
  Of course, we have to be mindful that not all assigned but unused tokens are meant to be unused. So, there will be a time delay between making the request and the request being actioned, giving the researcher time to say "er, I kinda still need those."
  So, it's like IMAX Presentation in the era of dial-up, where theres a bit of a delay and sometimes computer says no. Which... actually makes it sound terrible. It isn't at all, I think I've just worked myself into an analogical dead-end here.

• Task Builder 2: Early Exit, Jump to Row
  As we work on bringing TB2 to feature parity and beyond, we've now added in Early Exit and Jump to Row components. So, the feature parity here is clear (it replicates the previous zones) but what about the beyond? Well, rather than be specifically linked to a button or the end of the Screen, the Early Exit and Jump to Row components can be linked to any response event or stored parameter in your task. Want to automatically exit your participants or jump them to the end of the task when they get X questions wrong/right in a row? Now you can do that and much more, all without a line of code. Isn't Task Builder 2 just grand?

Enhancements

• Code Editor: Added template for jsPsych v7
  jsPsych continues to be updated and advanced and it's latest iteration increases the frameworks compatibility with modern JavaScript tools like package managers and bundlers, among other improvements. It comes with some changes to the API from earlier versions, for which you can find here a handy migration guide. We love being a hosting platform for research built in other tools, as it allows you to bring the power of the Experiment Builder to that tool as well. To continue supporting jsPsych, we've added a new Code Editor template for tasks written in v7. We'll soon be updating this to use the unpkg links available for the core jsPsych files (rather than requiring you to upload them to Gorilla) making it even easier to get started!

• General: First steps towards VPAT compatibility
  As Gorilla continues to make an impact for researchers across the world, we're mindful of the diverse and important range of capabilities and abilities of our users. So we can support as many people as possible in using our tools, we're taking a number of steps towards improving accessibility on our website and across our tooling. One of which is to bring us inline with the VPAT template for accessibility. This will be a continuous process, with much more to come across this year!

And everything else...

• Experiment: Save Randomiser Branch to Embedded Data
  Say you have a longitudinal experiment where, in the first stage, there are four possible tasks/spreadsheets etc. a participant may see and they see just one of them. Then, the next day, they see one of the other three. Previously, this would have required you to make four entirely separate branches in your experiment tree, repeating every node along the way or add some code to your tasks. While we do love code, we also don't want you to have to use it if you don't want to. So, we've added an option save the branch chosen by a randomiser node to embedded data. This then means you can use a branch node to control what participants see based on that choice. No longer would you need to duplicate your entire experiment flow multiple times - you'd just branch the participant at the right point. Smaller tree, fewer nodes, easier data management - all the good things in life.

Coming soon...

We're pushing on to feature parity at a breath taking place and we're now moving on to some of the more advanced nodes like Audio Recording, Mouse Tracking etc. As with the Early Exit component, it isn't just about making it, it's about making it better too! I really hope that you'll like the improvements you'll be seeing!

Task Builder 2 isn't the only thing that will be getting some new toys in the coming weeks. It looks like a certain Experiment Tree might be having a new feature (dramatically dones shades, CIA Miami theme starts) Allocated to it....

OOooooWeeee, it's been a while since we last did a Release Notes but gosh have we been busy! Since the release of Task Builder 2 at the beginning of April we've been continuing to add new components to reach feature parity with Task Builder 1. Not only that, but we've been hard at work on our new Game Builder tool (which you'll hearing more about soon). Further, we've been traveling though not just this universe, but all the universes in all the dimensions, to make sure we're creating the greatest Experiment Builder across all of time and space. And that's why, excitingly, we've brought forward the work on our next iteration of the Questionnaire Builder. OoooooWeee! But you'll have to stay tuned to future Seasons, er, I mean, Release Notes, to find out more about that.

Time to read some Rick Riggity Release Notes, son!

The Main Event

Coming soon

• Game Builder: Coming to a Gorilla near you
  A fully fledged Game Builder is coming to Gorilla very soon, allowing you to create rich game and game-like experiences, without touching a line of code. We've had a successful round of early access development and feedback, along with the ever important seal approval from the companies most important six year old: Josh building a task in Game Builder. Now, we're putting the finishing touches to the tools, implemented a few more requested features and getting all those lovely docs ready for you to get you up and running. The Gorilla Materials team have been game-builder-er-ing their socks off making demos, examples and walkthroughs for you. Their hardwork can be reviewed at your leisure here: Game Builder Documentation
  Another way to find out more is to join this FREE webinar "How to gamify cognitive tasks to increase participant engagement" run in collaboration with Sage Publishing.

Morty: "So, that's, that's, that's like, pretty neat? A whole Game Builder? Do you... do you think that's neat too, Rick?"
Rick: "Shburrrrrghghhg it Morty, 'pretty neat'?!? You're asking the guy who literally invented interdimensional travel if he thinks something is neat. Morty. God Morty, we've had five seasons of this? How are you still such a ... wait, wait is this really all in the UI ONLY?..."
Rick: "Huh... Okay, yeah... this is pretty neat. This Nick guy must, musbuurrrrghgh t be pretty clever. Not entirely sure how I feel about that..."
Morty: "Oh, oh jeeez Rick..."

Features

• Task Builder 2: Staircasing
  Adding to the Difficulty Change: Spreadsheet component, we now have the the Staircasing component available in Task Builder 2. Link variables such as Timelimits and Fixation times to a set of conditions, stepping them up and down in response to participant responses, accuracy or other behaviors. Finally, a fully adaptive Stop Signal Task in Gorilla without a single line of code!

• Task Builder 2: Drag and Drop
  We've added Drag and Drop capabilities to Task Builder 2. However, this comes at a significant improvement compared to the TB1 variant. Due to the wonders of the component-entity system, Drag and Drop super-powers come in the form of a component that you can add to... whatever you want. Add it to an image, add it text, add it to a video, add it to your cat. Actually, don't do that last one. That probably wouldn't end well.

• Experiment Builder: Attrition Report
  You've likely noticed that on the Data tab of your Experiment page, there is a copy of the experiment tree including attrition numbers on each node. Well, now, you can download those attrition numbers in a handy spreadsheet, for that experiment version, using the 'Download CONSORT Data' button. Even more data at the push of a button!

Enhancements

• Experiments: Show capacity on Start Page
  We've had some complaints from participants that they'll be invited to a Gorilla study, click on the Start button, only to be told the experiment is already full. This happens for a number of reasons. Sometimes the experiment is genuinely full. Or, there are live but abandoned participants and there isn't an Experiment Timelimit set to automatically reject them. Most commonly, it happens when a recruitment platform has it's own count of 'complete' participants and the two platforms (recruitment + Gorilla) get out of sync.
  We're working on a more permanent solution for this. In the meantime, the Start page itself will now tell you if the experiment is open, running out of spaces or outright full. One less, click and a bit less frustration we hope.

Morty: "Rick, why do they, you know, break the Release Notes up... into, into sections like this?"
Rick: "It's so people can prioritize, MorMooooRRTty. Not everyone has the volume of disposable time that you do."
Morty: "But, like, wouldn't you want people to read all of it? I mean, it's so good and, and, there's so much cool stuff in there. Wouldn't you just, you know, put it all together in a, in a big soup of, awesome release notes??"
Rick: "Oh my god Morty, you're 14, you watch videos on Youtube of other people watching videos on Youtube. I don't think you get to criticize how a Release Notes is structured."

And everything else...

Features

• Task Builder 2: HTML
  
• Task Builder 2: Mouse Button Response
  Continuing our work to reach parity with Task Builder 1, we've added the Mouse Button Response component, which allows you to generate responses directly from left and right mouse button clicks. As well as a HTML component, which allows you to add general HTML to the screen.

Fixes

• Game Builder: Prevent Sprite Scaling from causing upside down images
  A bug in Game Builder meant that sprite scaling would sometimes cause images to be transported to the upside-down. Or become upside down. I'm not sure which, the Shortcut card was ambiguous. Maybe both??
  Either way, an image being the wrong way up and/or being teleported to a dark 80's tentacles hell scape clearly isn't intended behaviour so we've fixed that now! (Okay, look, as soon as I saw the phrase Upside Down on the card, I knew it was destined for a Stranger Things reference. But then a Rick and Morty themed Release Notes just kind of flowed better overall. More Stranger Things next time, I promise.)

Enhancements

• Subscriptions: Self removal from subscription
  Tired of getting Gorilla tokens at a lower cost-per-token from your institution or lab subscription? Want to strike it out on your own and get a Researcher Subscription just for you? Or, er, other more practical reasons for leaving a subscription like "not being at that university anymore" or "finishing your course". Well, you can now leave a subscription directly, without having to request a subscription manager do it for you. You'll find this option in the My Subscription tab of your Home Page.

• Eye Tracking 2: General improvements and fixes
  While we work behind the scenes to bring Eye Tracking into Task Builder 2, we decided to give the existing Task Builder 1 zone a little TLC. We fixed a few issues where the Calibration Start button wouldn't unlock properly, tidied up some of the data cells coming through as NaN and fixed an issue where the x and y values for the Calibration points were normalised incorrectly. Importantly, this only affects the data download for the calibration (it was a post processing problem), not the results of the calibration itself.

Morty: "So... so, there it is everyone. The first Release Notes of May! Pretty exciting huh? Are you... er, are you as excited as I am?"
Rick: "Don't talk to the audience Morty. It's demeaning. This is a Release Notes not a BuUuuuRGGGhhhGh SNL sketch"
Morty: "Oh, oh jeez Rick. It... it's exciting. Yeh, yeah, it's exciting and you... and you, need to, loosen up. Yeah, just relax and enjoy the notes"
Rick: "Oh my god Morty, next time you freak out the squirrels I am switching dimensions without you!"

Summer: "Are you guys doing a Release Notes together? That is so fetch!"
Rick: "Stop trying to make fetch happen Summer. It's never going to happen. It's.. wait, what"
Morty: "Yeah Summer, fetch is never going to happen...."
Rick: "Shut up Morty! Everyone just stop referencing Mean Girls. That's, that's not something we would ever do. Oh god, oh shbbuggugrggghit. None of this is real."
Summer: "Grandpa, is this a scenario 4 again?"
Rick: "No Summer, this is a scenario nothing. Because none of this is real. We're just... we're just characters in some kids over active imagination."
Morty: "Oh jeez."
Rick: "None of this is real Morty! This is just Release Notes on a page. This is us on a page. EVERYTHING IS JUST WORDS ON A PAGE!"

The Main Event

Features

• Task Builder 2: RELEASED
  At long last, Task Builder 2 (No Task 2 Hard) has been launched. Pooling together feature requests from users around the globe, as well as our own vision for the future of an online Task Builder, we've built the foundations of the most powerful, capable and extensible Task Builder in the history of Task Builders!
  You've probably written that sentence off as overbearing marketting fluff, haven't you? But I'm being serious. See, I'm even going to take off my "Cauldron employee" hat for a moment.
  (takes off "Cauldron employee" hat)
  Task Builder 2 is genuinely incredible. The things it's already capable of, features that previously would be lines and lines of script, all possible with just a few clicks. And there are so many more things to come in the following weeks and months. It's been an honor and privilege to be a part of the team that has brought it to life (and it really was a full team effort!). And I can't wait to see what amazing online research you and all of our users unlock with it in the comings months and years!
  (puts back on "Cauldron employee" hat)
  If you haven't done so yet, check out our Task Builder 2: Overview Page, where you can find out everything you could ever want to know about the new Task Builder. And make sure to stay tuned to this Release Notes page and our Twitter feed for more updates and feature showcases

• Task Builder 2: Added Change Difficulty (Spreadsheet) component
  In the first of our "Oh my gosh, I can do that without code now?!?" features: introducing the Change Difficulty (Spreadsheet) component. Link this component to accuracy data (correct/incorrect answers, percentage correct/incorrect etc.) or other data fields to dynamically increase or decrease the difficulty of a task by switching to an easier or harder spreadsheet. All with simple, flexible settings and mouse clicks.
  For those of you looking for a more Staircasing oriented approach to adaptivity, stay tuned: there's something coming round the corner just for you!

Enhancements

• Project: Removed a collaborator cancels their currently open changes
  Removing a Collaborator from a Project where they have open changes on a Task/Questionnaire/Experiment would leave those changes in a state of limbo. None may close them, nor save them, nor overwrite them, an immortal testament to that collaborator who once was. A touch inconvenient really so now, when you remove a collaborator, you'll be warned if they have any open changes in the Project. You can then either ask them to resolve the changes themselves, or continue on and remove the collaborator, which will automatically cancel their open changes.

• Task Builder 2: Audio components automatically enable Audio Subsystem
  Task Builder 2 features a new concept of 'Subsystems'. Subsystems control functionality that is either required throughout your task (such as Multiplayer tooling), or requires participant action to unlock. An example of this is the Audio Subsystem - this activates Gorilla's audio tooling and runs an initial test to make sure autoplay is unlocked on the participants device. Whenever you add an Audio component to your task, Gorilla will automatically enable the Audio Subsystem. As we add more features to Gorilla, we'll add more subsystems to complement them. For example, we'll soon be adding Microphone and Camera subsystems, to run initial checks on your participant audio/visual communication hardware. These will be much more indepth than in Task Builder 1 and will guide participants through basic debugging steps as well as more detailed testing of their hardwares capabilities.

And everything else...

Fixes

• Questionnaire Builder: Radio Button widget text entry now saved correctly to embedded data
  The Radio Button widget has an Include Text Entry option, which allows you to add an 'Other' field to your list of Radio Buttons. However, this field wasn't getting added to embedded data correctly. This has been resolved now, so you can access it in branch nodes and other Tasks/Questionnaires

• Task Builder 1: Reading Zone text no longer accidently highlighted when using mouse-based interactions
  When using mouse responses with the Reading Zones, an accidental click and drag could lead to the text being highlighted. A user highlighted this to us as being undesirable so that highlighting has now been removed, as it's certainly not functionality we would want to have highlighted in the future....

Enhancements

• Task Builder 2: Made edit box for Markdown Component bigger
  For those of you who like to write as much as I do, we've increased the size of the edit box for the markdown component. Now you can both write and see all of the words. All of them!!

• Experiment: Improved 'Check for Errors' messaging
  Before committing an Experiment, Gorilla will run a series of checks designed to catch common problems within an experiment. When describing some of these issues though, the terminology used wasn't lining up with the words we use elsewhere, making it harder to understand what the actual problem is! We've adjusted this now, to use terms you should be more familiar with from our documentation.

NB: This update was originally planned for the 17th March 2022. But everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked... er, I mean, Github went down for most of the afternoon, rendering much of a normal development pipeline completely unsuable. Not wanting to push to production on a Friday, we opted to delay until Monday.

Have you missed me, everyone? Me, the 'Release Notes'. I've certainly missed me, in so much as a collection of words on a page can miss something. And oh gosh, what a collection of words I have for you today. A whole bunch of fixes, along with a few enhancements, you've all been asking for.

Also, I was originally going to litter this with Elden Ring puns and references. But, honestly, when thinking about Elden Ring, I'm still in the "how I'm going to show that crystal-fire-breathing, sarcastically wing-flapping a-hole of a dragon who the boss is" phase. Rather than the "how can I turn this into a Release Notes meme" phase.
Alas, I am nought but a lowly, maidenless tarnished. Give it time...

The Main Events

Fixes

• Experiment Tree: Removed Include at Start setting
  The Start Node previously had an optional, off-by-default setting called Include at Start. When on, participants would be automatically included at the beginning of a study, permanently and irrevokably consuming a participant token. This feature was useful when researchers knew that they would need/want the data from all participants, regardless of how far they progressed. It was actually implemented on researcher request for this reason.
  Regrettably, the setting was frequently misused. Inspite of the many warnings we tried to put in place, users would activate the setting, have all of their tokens consumed by participants who drop out part way through and become understandably but frustratingly upset with us. As, ultimately, the setting appeared to be causing more harm than good we have decided to remove it entirely. By default now, participants will only be included (consuming a token) when they either complete your experiment or are manually included.
  There still exists the option to manually include participants and you can do this in bulk via the Include All button on the participants page. We'll be adding new options for managing participants via the Participants tab in a future update to Gorilla.

• Task Builder: AudioRecording mode setting automatically removes whitespace
  Urgh, don't you just hate it when a single errant key stroke can completely break something? I certainly do. Like when the Audio Recording mode setting wasn't cleaning itself of spaces and return carriages, meaning that 'record ' != 'record'. This would mean that the Audio Recording zone would default to it's 'test' mode and this wouldn't become apparent until the task was previewed.
  Now, the mode setting text will be full cleaned before comparison. This should make us errant whitespace safe. However, please bare in mind that we are not yet "cat walked over keyboard when I wasn't looking" safe - machine/cat learning hasn't quite reached that level of capability. So always preview your tasks before release, just to be safe.

• Task Builder: Remove 'stablise with arms' advice from Eye Tracking zone calibration text
  The default Eye Tracking Calibration introduction text previously included advice on using your arms to stabilise yourself, to reduce the motion of your head. A researcher recently contacted us querying this advice, as recent research suggested this may no longer be advisible best practice. Scheegans et al. (2021), Robal et al., 2018
  As we decided it would be better for Gorilla to remain neutral in the advice it directly offers participants, we removed the relevant text for both Eye Tracking and Eye Tracking 2. You can use the localisation settings for these zones to add the guidance back in if required.

• Questionnaire Builder: Updated all widgets to store result on back button press
  A few of the more recent Questionnaire Builder widgets weren't saving their data on the press of a back button. This meant that if a participant went back with a partially filled current page, they would lose the entered information when they return. This has now mostly been resolved.
  The main caveat here: if you are using the date widget and have opted for the settings that restricts the detail that gets stored (for example, storing the date in months only), the entered date will still be lost on a back button press. These date restriction settings are primarily used when data protection or GDPR requirements mean you can't collect a full date and, in order to respect this, we don't store the originally entered date in any form.

Enhancements

• Experiment Tree: Redundant Quota's will now be removed on commit
  This has been on the bucket list for a while! Previously, if you added a Quota Node (creating a new Quota for the experiment) and then removed the Quota Node, the actual Quota would still remain in your recruitment settings. If left unset or still enabled, this Quota would have undesirable consequences like preventing participants from entering your experiment. Boooo!
  Now, when you next commit your experiment after removing a Quota node, you'll be warned if there are any Quota's that are no longer associated with a Quota Node in your experiment. If you continue with the commit, the Quota's will be deleted from your experiment, troubling you no longer! Hurrah!

• Collaboration modal: Change search to be triggered on button press
  A number of researchers have pointed out that the collaboration modal has become rather slow of late. As a short-term solution, we've changed the modal to only begin searching for a user when you press the magnifying glass button. If you type in most or all of the users name or email address before pressing to search, this should result in a far faster return.

And everything else...

Fixes

• Task Builder: Fixed multiple issues with Mouseview data files
  The mouseview data file was defaulting to the name mousetracking and, in a few circumstances, would fail to open correctly in Excel with some rows of data becomes corrupted. Both of these issues have been resolved.

• Task Builder: Haptic Feedback zone Record mode settings can now be accessed
  With the Haptic Feedback zone, it's possible to have a user "tap out" their own pattern of vibrations. This can then be saved and replayed to them via embedded data. At least, it would have been possible, if you could actually open the record mode settings for the zone! Now you can - good vibrations all around.

• Task Builder: Drag and Drop zone dragged elements no longer reset position on refreshLayout call
  The function "refreshLayout" is called by Gorilla whenever the position of elements on the page needs to be checked and potentially adjusted. This typically is triggered when, say, displaying the "hover" or "pressed" image of an image response button. However, this function call was also resetting the position of Drag and Drop zone elements that had been dragged to a new location, undoing all of your participants deligent mouse movements. Drag and Drop zone's are now immune to layout refresh - they'll now remain precisely where you last put them down (unlike my house keys, phone, wallet etc.)

Enhancements

• Task Builder: Video Recording zone metrics now include RT's
  A while back, we added RT values to the Audio Recording zone, so you could more easily determine when certain events (like the recording beginning or ending) triggered in relation to the beginning of the screen. We've now added these RT values to the Video Recording zone as well.

Just a little release notes today with the usual mix of features/enchancements/fixes. In the background, the whole Gorilla team continues to beaver away on the new tools.

Urgh, okay, it turns out I can't say the word Beaver without shamelessly plugging this delightful city builder game populated by the furriest of buck-toothed dam builders: Timberborn! Soon you could be (pause of comedic effect)... beavering away too! (ba-dum tss)

Anyway, you came here for release notes, not a listing of my most recently played on Steam...

Feature/Enhancement/Fix

• Experiment Requirements tool: Improved browser filtering tools
  This is a combination Feature/Enhancement/Fix. A FeatchantX? An EnhantureX? Something else with a capital X at the end (because that looks way cooler than a regular x, right?)
  
  Anyway, the browser filtering tools have received a Quality of Life update, with new features, some bug fixes and layout improvements. On the features front, you can now filter by additional browser. While there can be only one winner of the prize, there will always be more than one Microsoft Edge - specifically the current, modern Edge based on Chromium, and the original version Edge (Legacy). Under the hood, these browsers are very different and with Edge (Legacy) no longer supported, it's unlikely the latter will be compatible with all modern browser features. So, you can now specifically allow/block participants on Edge (Legacy). You can also allow/block users on the Opera browser!
  
  At the same time, we've reworked the UI to make it clearer which browsers are being allowed and which are blocked. Previously, this distinguish was made by colour alone, with the choice of colours being a bit not-great for colour blind users. Now, there are specific sections titled 'Allowed' and 'Blocked', to more clearly indicate for all users what settings have been chosen.
  
  Finally, we've fixed a few issues with detection of Internet Explorer and some variants of Safari!

Enhancements

• Subscription Management: Assign tokens directly to members
  
• Subscription Management: Improved editing of tags and member search
  We're continuing our enhancements based directly on requests from Subscription Managers. The first is the ability to assign tokens directly to users. Subscription managers can now setup available tokens for users in advance or handle token requests that come from outside Gorilla's own token request system. Next, we've made some QoL improvements to the search tools, and added the ability for the 'tags' assigned to a member to be edited on an individual basis, via the members tab.

Fixes

• Experiment Builder: Manipulations are copied over when "Clone & Edit"ing a node
  The observant among you will have noticed that, when using the "Clone & Edit" tool to replace a node in the experiment tree the existing manipulations would just, kind of, disappear... They probably weren't supposed to do that, so we've fixed it so they should stay in place. Yah! Hopefully it won't turn out that they were disappearing off to do something critical, like save the world. That would be inconvenient... and quite improbable. I hope.

Features Preview

• New Tools: OMG!
  This is the year folks! A wealth of new tools are coming in 2022 and I think we'll be claiming the GotY (Gorilla of the Year) award pretty early this year. First is our Game Builder which allows you to take your study experience to the next level. Our simple graphical user interface lets you build dynamic, engaging tasks with ease.
  
  Next is our Multiplayer system, which will be coming to a number of our new tools, allowing you to create classic multi-participant paradigms such as the Dictator Game and Prisoner's Dilemma. You can see more of Game Builder and Multiplayer in our Gorilla Presents... Game Builder and Multiplayer webinar. Both of these tools are availabel via our Early Access scheme currently. However, sign up quickly, as the scheme will be closing soon!
  
  Though technically it was 'released' last year, I'm going to include our excellent Shop Builder allows you to create a customised, realistic shoppoing experience with numerous applications. Anchoring effects, behavioural interventions, social psychology etc. Check out our Gorilla Shop Builder Demo from last years BeOnline Conference
  
  And last, but by no means least, the long awaiting sequel, Task Builder 2: NO TASK 2 HARD. Gorilla has had an incredible journey over the last five years and Task Builder 2 represents a culmination of everything we've learnt and all the feedback we've had from you, our incredible users! In the run up to Task Builder 2's release, we'll be showcasing some of the features that I think you'll all be pretty excited about. I'll also be updating our Gorilla Roadmap to indicate your most requested features that have found a home in the new Task Builder.
  
  Oh gosh, I'm so excited! Are you excited too?!? OMG TWEET AT US WITH THE HASHTAG #TaskBuilder2 TO TELL ME HOW EXCITED YOU ARE!!!

Enhancements

• Task Builder: Change Mode settings description to be clearer
  Many of our Task Builder zones can be run in different modes, such as our Eye Tracking zone (which can run in calibrate, record or upload mode) or our Audio Recording zone (test or record mode). To distinguish the specific text for these modes from the surrounding descriptive text, we'd previously wrapped them in double-quotes. However, this unexpectedly but understandably resulted in users typing the mode name in... with the doublequotes as well. We've ammended the setting text to make it clearer what the mode names are, without any additional characters that could be confusing. In Task Builder 2, settings like this will be straight up Dropdown Menu's! Hurrah for usability!

• Subscription Management: Quality of Life improvements to the members page
  The first of two enhancements requested directly by subscription managers. Now, on a Subscription's Members page, you'll see both the Total number of tokens a user has requested from a subscription and the number of those tokens that are still unassigned. Even better, you can order the Members list by both of those categories so you can find your top users and biggest hoarders with ease.

• Projects: Name of collaborating project owner visible from Projects page
  Are you a university technician, research assistant or PI? Are you added as a collaborator on hundreds of projects by your students? Do you wake up at night in a cold sweat because the Projects are all called 'Dissertation' and your Projects I'm Collaborating On is just a neverending list of 'Dissertation' cascading into the voids gaping maw?
  Fear no more, Gorilla Update is here! Now the Projects page includes a Project Owner column for projects you are collaborating on! One less thing to trigger the existential dread today, heh?
  
  Speaking of project owners...

Fixes

• Projects: Adding self as a collaborator no longer removes Project Owner
  laughes nervously Sometime ago we introduced the ability to invite collaborators to Gorilla directly when adding via an email address on the Collaborate menu. However, while the system would filter out email addresses of existing collaborators, it wouldn't do the same for the Project Owner. As a result, a Project Owner could add themself as a collaborator, using their email address, become a collaborator and the Project Owner becomes... er, nobody. But not the kick-ass Bob Odenkirk flavour of 'Nobody'. Just, nobody. Yikes! We've fixed that now, so don't try and go adding yourself as a collaborator on a Project. Nothing will happen. I hope...

• Task Builder: Mouseview Continue Recording setting now obeyed correctly
  HAVE I TOLD YOU THAT WE HAVE THE MOUSEVIEW ZONE IN GORILLA?!? Well, in case you didn't know, I fixed a bug in it so I would have an opportunity to tell you about it again! The Continue Recording setting, which allows you to combine moouseview recordings across multiple screens, wasn't being obeyed correctly, resulting in you getting a file per screen anyway! I've fixed that now so you can have one file to rule them all!

• Task Builder: Eye Tracking 2 calibration filename corrected
  While updating Eye Tracking 2 a few releases ago, a bug slipped in where the calibration data filename defaulted to eyetracking_collection instead of eyetracking_calibration (as it was in Eye Tracking 1). This is fixed now!

Oh dear, I'm still too excited about all our new tools that are coming this year! I think I need to go have a lie down. They maybe I'll do a few rounds of Carlton Dance around the room first!

And here it is. The last major update before Christmas.

It's truly Treemendous how many excellent new features and improvements the team have launch this year. And this week is Snow exception. Seriously, Yule not be disappointed with this collection of unFirgetable bug fixes and new features. Am I totally Sleighing it with this Christmas wordplay, or am I just a rebel without a Claus?

cough Sorry, I just took a call from my doctor and they've advised me that further christmas related puns might be bad for my health. Or possibly other peoples. Maybe both.

So no myrrh waiting, it's time for the release notes!

Features

• Task Builder: Download all Stimuli button
  There are several categories of Christmas films. One of my favourites is the classic "grouchy individual/diverse collection of peoples must travel across city/country/world to retrieve macguffin and bring home in time for Christmas". Which is why I'm thrilled to announce our own Christmas film: "Stimulus all the way". It's the last day before Christmas and you've totally lost that insert university approved cloud sharing platform name folder of stimuli you used for that Gorilla task. And you desperately need them for important Christmas reasons!!! You could download them one-by-one from the task of coursse but that would just take all day.
  After a hilarious chase across the university campus, in which we blow a considerable amount of our film budget on cameos from celebrity behavioural scientists, you return empty-handed and crestfallen to your home. Oh gosh, it's way to late to download them all one by one now. Your children are going to be so unhappy with the lack of Stimuli this Christmas. You can't bare to face them. So you sit down at your laptop/mac/iPad/surface etc. and stare despondantly at the screen. But what's this in your twitter feed? A Gorilla Release Notes tweet?!? Gorilla have released a final update the night before Christmas?!? And my days, just look at that! It adds a Download all Stimuli button! Hurrah, Christmas is saved! Everyone is happy and filled with Christmas cheer. And stimuli. For some reason.
  
  Okay, okay, it's not getting a 'Fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes any time soon. But, maybe, it will become some cult Christmas classic with drinking games like "drink everytime they say stimuli or replication crisis or every time Reviewer 2 rejects something."

Fixes

• Task Builder: Fixed GoNoGo Web Audio triggering advance multiple times
  The new GoNoGo Web Audio launched with an unfortunate bug that meant, in certain conditions, the function that advances to the next screen would trigger multiple times. This would cause future screens to advance unexpectedly, audio to play haphazardly and general chaos in the space-time continuium. I was going to tell a joke about time travel here, but nobody found it funny. So, instead, we resolved the issue before the Time Variance Authority could get involved much to everyones relief.

• Task Builder: Resolved Eye Tracking 2 issue where the calibration would not restart
  The Eye Tracking 2 zone introduced a sparkly new, user-requested feature to allow repeating the calibration a fixed number of times. If your participant fails to calibrate X times, you can then advance them on to the rest of the task or branch them out of the task entirely. However, due to an unfortunate mix up beween the max failed calibration attempts variable and the max failed calibration points variable, the task would not allow the calibration to be repeated under certain circumstances. This issue has now been resolved and remains a reminder of the most important Christmas message of all - check your variables names. I mean, at least I think that's what a Muppet's Christmas Carol was about...

• Task Builder: Resolved Mouseview issue where Upload mode would crash the task
  To give you more control over when individual data files are generated and uploaded, the Mouseview zone added a new mode Upload (which also appears in Eye Tracking 2). This mode indicates that all of the data generated so far should now be uploaded and cleared, but without running the Mouseview logic itself. This allows you to more easily break down data generation by trail, block, or one file for the whole task. While an issue with this has now been resolved, it turns out there's actually another issue here, meaning that no matter what settings you use, you'll always get a file per screen. That will be resolved in a few days.

• Task Builder: Web Audio can now be played unlimited times in Manual mode
  Setting the number of replays setting to 0 should have allowed the audio to be replayed unlimited times. The Christmas Grinch that it was though, the zone was refusing to cooperate, playing once only and no more. We threatened it with a movie retelling of it's stubborness starring Jim Carrie and, suddenly, being played unlimited times, endlessly, for all mind numbing eternity, actually seemed agreeable.

• Task Builder: Timelimit Section no resets correctly in Strict mode
  The Timelimit (Section) was upgraded with a new setting a few months ago, that allowed you to add a 'strict' timelimit to a section. This would enforce an absolute maximum on the length of time a user could spend in a section of the task, immediately moving on to the next section when it expires. However, once the Strict Section was resolved, Gorilla was not resetting a few critical internal variables. This meant that if you tried to setup another Timelimit (Section) in the same task Gorilla would immediately skip that too. We found the mischevious elf responsible, and put them right back on the shelf. A task with multiple Timelimit (Sections) should now function correctly.

• Questionnaire Builder: Resolved the mystery of the missing -quantised values
  There has been a long running and elusive issue where -quantised values would not appear in participant data, seemingly at random. At last though, a Christmas Miracle has occurred. After an unbearably sad (think David Tennant in the rain gif but with snow) pentultimate muscial scene between the leading couple resulting in the christmasy villian having a convienently timed, subjectively sweet but objectively absurd change of heart, leading to a ridiculously lavish final number in which everyone is needlessly happy, a finally stopped embellishing the Release Notes long enough to tell you I found and fixed the problem. We also resolved an issue where multiple Radio Button/Check List Grid widgets would not have their quantised values created either. An important note on this: quantised values are generated and stored when a participant gives their initial responses. As a result, the above changes won't affect existing data sets.

First and foremost, if you missed last weeks excellent webinar on our new Game Builder and Multiplayer tools you should stop whatever you are doing and go watch this. If you like what you see and want to get in on the action, cancel whatever plans you had for immediately after the above video and go apply to our Gorilla Early Access scheme. Be the first to get in on the magic!

To the Release Notes. Much like me, the Build's for this year are now in their thirties (?!?)(I might be a slightly older thirties...) As I find myself contemplating the endless march of time I ask myself... Do I do my usual nerdy release notes? Maybe something themed around Netflix's unexpected wonder "Arcane"? Or maybe the impending release of Spiderman: No Way Home. Or, maybe I embrace the words of Admiral Pellow to Horatio Hornblower "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things."... And, I dunno, quote Aristotle, or something...

As ever, XKCD has the wisdom we all truly need to get by every day. Next week, shortly before our next (likely pentultimate) release notes of the year, something else will be releasing. Likely suplanting Factorio as the reason why I look like death warmed over in our morning team meetings. So, once you figure it out from the numerous quotes below, tweet me the answer (bonus points for tweeting it in emojis). And, when next week comes, just wake me... when you need me.

Features

• Task Builder: Web Audio Feedback zone
• Task Builder: GoNoGo Web Audio zone
  It's a 2-4-1 special this week with Web Audio versions of the Audio Feedback and GoNoGo Audio zones. The Web Audio API is a more modern framework for playing audio files, with better resiliance against autoplay restrictions, improved timing performance and improved compatibility with wav files.
  This of means that, after many years of service, the original Audio Feedback and GoNoGo Audio zones are being retired and should be considered deprecated. And, maybe one day, when the Web Audio API becomes outdated and superseded by something better, I'll have to retire these new zones in the same manner. At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box.
  Woah woah woah, what have I told you about yelling at me in all caps?!? As ever, a zone being deprecated just means that it can't be added to a task. All existing zones in existing tasks will continue to function as normal. I promise we won't ever break your existing tasks... Er, at least not knowingly...
  

Oh, one more thing. Not content with just a straight recreation of the original zone, I add a requested feature from the Gorilla Roadmap as well. Specifically this one Both the Web Audio Feedback and GoNoGo Web Audio zones now allow you to set additional wait time after the audio has finished playing. Axios!

If you have a feature you want to see implemented in Gorilla, why not add it to our Gorilla Roadmap. Who knows - maybe it will appear as an early Christmas present before the end of the year! I'm not gonna make a person a promise I know I can't keep.

Enhancements

• Task Builder: Amended misleading default setting text in Audio Recording zone
  In the Audio Recording settings, the 'Mode' setting had record and test in speechmarks, to make clearer what word should be placed as the setting. awkward cough Unfortunately, these speechmarks were also included when defining the default setting resulting in them having a very literal interpretation. There was much talk (support tickets), and we have listened. Through rock and metal and time...
  As the setting should be just test or record, we've removed the speechmarks from the Default: test text.
  Also, as some users didn't realise that the Audio Recording zone defaults to the testing mode, the setting will now autopopulate with test when adding a new Audio Recording zone.

• Organisations: Force DD/MM/YYYY format for uploaded expiry dates
  Previously, Gorilla would default to your browsers language settings when determing how to parse expiry dates. So if you were in a normal country with the DD/MM/YYYY format, it would use the DD/MM/YYYY format. But, if you were living in some distant corner of the galaxy that insists upon using MM/DD/YYYY shudders it would begrudgingly use that format. It turns out this is problematic for a number of reasons (beyond the obvious of WHY?!?!). First, our documentation stated that expiry dates should be in the DD/MM/YYYY format. Obviously, this could have been changed to say that expiry dates should be in whatever format you use on your local corner of space-time. However, second problem: all it would require is for something in the "device -> operating system -> browser" chain to have the language set to English (US) and it will try to parse dates as MM/DD/YYYY, regardless of whether you would want that or not.
  Now, that's not going to happen! We've enforced DD/MM/YYYY when uploading expiry dates, regardless of what your local settings may, correctly or erroneously, try to implement.

Fixes

• Task Builder: Fixed Drag and Drop issue in non-Chromium based browsers
  I remember when I joined Gorilla, we didn't have any fancy shmancy zones; we had sticks! Two sticks and a rock for the whole platform... and we had to share the rock! Now of course, you can do all sorts of cool things like create Drag and Drop interactive tasks with zone specific scoring. However, the Covenant infiltrated our codebase and a small bug arose where, in Firefox, dragging and dropping an image would cause the image to open in a new tab. Rather than, you know, dragging and dropping it. That's been fixed now. Drag and Drop for all on all browsers. Now, Sir, Permission to leave the station. To give the Covenent back their bomb.

Important annoucements

• Recruitment: Removal of Research Now/Dynata recruitment policy
  While we've had a Research Now recruitment policy option available for a while now, there have eben two issues with it. One: Research Now is actually now Dynata. Two: it no longer works - Dynata have considerably changed how their platform works, such that it's no longer possible for us to implement and maintain a straight forward integration. As such, and avoid future confusion, we've removed the Recruitment Policy from the menu. If you want to make use of Dynata, you can still set up a connection via the Third Party recruitment policy. If you have any trouble with this, don't hesitate to get in touch with us via the support desk.

And now, to wrap up, probably one my favourite quotes from the whole series.

"I could give you over forty thousand reasons why I know that sun isn't real. I know it because the emitter's Rayleigh Effect is disproportionate to its suggested size. I know it because its stellar cycle is more symmetrical than that of an actual star. But for all that, I'll never actually know if it looks real. If it feels real. Before this is over, promise me you'll figure out which one of us is the machine."

It's today, it's today! Yes, today is a very exciting release notes day as this evening is the first in a new series of Gorilla Presents... Beginning with an Exclusive Premiere of Gorilla's upcoming Game Builder and Multiplayer tooling, courtesy of CTO and renowned coding wizard Nick Hodges. There's still time to register for Gorilla Presents so forget the rest of the Release Notes for a moment and go do that!!

Also making a premiere this week is the "Definitely Coming Next Week" category, for all the things that we didn't quite manage to finish coding before the testing window closed. I blame Factorio and the endless desire to optimise it instills. Sometimes in life, all that matters is that it works, even if you can't look at it for a long time without breathing into a paper bag.

But if I just moved the main bus over here and circuit production over there I could... batman appears and slaps face

Enhancments

• Experiment Builder: Delay unlock time added to Progress Modal
  To save you from doing time/date math on the fly (which, let's face it, is the hardest kind of math) the Delay Node and Redirect Node (if a delay is set) will now tell you the expected unlock time in the Participant Progress Modal. Now when participants message you saying they can't access the next day of your longitudinal study you can reply "HRNGHGGHG, IT'S NOT BEEN 48 HOURS YET" even faster than before.

• Experiment Builder: Additional documentation links for Tree Nodes
  "I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book." Today's bonus points will be awarded for correctly identifying the owner of this quote. And don't go using Google... I won't know that you used Google, but Google will and don't they know enough about you already??
  Ahem, anyway, as part of our ongoing efforts to add resources where they are needed most, we've placed some additional advice and Support Links in many of the Experiment Tree Nodes. These highlight some of the important features or content users should consider when setting up an experiment node. Found these new links helpful? Tweet us on Facebook! Or Facebook us on Twitter! Either is fine.

Fixes

• Subscription Management: Corrected case detection in member email addresses
  Gorilla was being just a little overzealous handling existing subscription members on a csv invite list, resulting in some... misleading removals and additions to subscriptions. We've amended that now. And, er, also fixed the bug we introduced in the process. How does the saying go? You can't make an omelette without forgetting a few null checks?

Definitely coming next week

• Task Builder: GoNoGo Web Audio and Web Audio Feedback
  These are Web Audio API replacements for our existing GoNoGo Auio and Audio Feedback zones, bringing all of our audio based zones up to the latest technology. Not content with a straight replication though, I took the liberty of reviewing our Gorilla Roadmap and adding a few feature requests from there too!
  This also means that the existing GoNoGo Audio and Audio Feedback zones are entering the formal deprecation and retirement cycle. Whoah there, before you start typing in all caps at me - nothing will change in your existing tasks and experiments and the zones themselves will still function as expected. You just won't be able to add the zones to new/existing tasks. They've worked hard and had a good run - time to let the vacation in the Bahamas (or whatever a Gorilla Zone does when it's retired...)

• Task Builder: Download All Stimuli
  By popular request, we'll be adding the option to download all of a tasks stimuli as a zip folder, making it easier to transfer stimuli from one task to another. Particularly if, like me, you have a constantly evolving, "better organised" file structure leading to an endless nest of half-finished designs you can't find anything in. This is one I can't blame on Factorio instilling the desire to constantly optimise. Truth is, my file structures have always been like this.

That's it for this week! Before I go, incase you are also a Factorio addict like myself, allow me to share this cursed Factorio video I shared it with my friends in Discord and I'm now not allowed to post in the Factorio Chat anymore. An overreaction if you ask me - it's just a few diagonal buses and pipes facing the wrong direction...

Oh gosh, oh gosh, it's a big one today. So big that I haven't had time to think of a suitable tv/film/media bit for this post.

Or have I?

(I haven't. I really didn't have time.)

((Or did I?!?))

EYE TRACKING 2 UPDATE

You read correctly - the long awaited Eye Tracking 2 update has arrived. Below is a summary of the key updates, enhancements and bug fixes.

• Eye Tracking 2: Decoupled Gaze Predictions from the Request Animation Frame loop
  WebGazer has always used the requestAnimationFrame functionality to handle gathering predictions on eye gaze. However, in WebGazer 2, the call to gather predictions is explicitly marked as async and then awaited within the requestAnimationFrame loop. As the browser won't start processing the next animation frame until the previous one has finished, any point where the browser is specifically told "wait here until this code comes back with a response" has the potential to slow down the main animation frame loop. As many packages for running experiments online use requestAnimationFrame to handle timing accuracy, any additional load within the requestAnimationFrame can have deterimental consequences on the overall timing of the task.
  To resolve this, we've extracted the main section of gaze prediction logic from the requestAnimationFrameLoop. This logic is then manually at a set interval, preventing the timing fallout from too much load on RAF (I haven't had enough coffee yet to keep typing out requestAnimationFrame...) What we've kept within the RAF is the repainting of the canvas with the latest video frame and then explicitly storing the performance.now() timestamp for when that frame was rendered. Gaze predictions are based on the content of the canvas so when collecting a prediction, the important time to store is not when the gaze prediction was requested but instead when the canvas was last updated!

  Aside: The ideal world would be one where I am much better at playing League, I finished writing that series of novels and there was an explicit event for a new frame of data comed from the participant web camera or a video element updates with a new frame. Then we could directly tie gaze predictions to when we know, for certain, there is new information to base them on. (There are functions out there for getting media stream data in a more piecemeal way, but it's not the same thing). There are experimental API's in development like requestVideoFrameCallback but they aren't widely adopted.

• Eye Tracking 2: Set Gaze Prediction collection interval to cough match cough the camera's framerate
  When setting up our separate gaze prediction collection loop, we set our time between predictions to be 1 divided by the camera's frame rate. As noted above, this doesn't mean that we actually collect a prediction each time the camera sends a new frame of data. More that, if the web camera is running at 30 frames per second, trying to collect data 60 collections per second is going to be a bit pointless...

  Aside: some users have requested the option to detect and filter out users whose camera's are outputting at too low a framerate. While exploring this option (which now could be implemented) I discovered that media streams within the browser, via WebRTC, are inherently limited to a max of 30 frames per second. If users just want to enforce this (weed out anyone who's camera is running at less than 30 fps) then we can set that up for a future release. However, if you were hoping to enforce a higher minimum than 30... well, there's only disappoint to be had down that road, for the time being. At least it would be possible to enforce some kind of limit now though, right? I guess it depends on what kind of glass-fill-depth person you are. Or glass-fill-height, depends on what kind of ahhhhhhhhhhh.....

• Eye Tracking 2: Branch to specific screen in Display on calibration failure
  While initially requested as a new feature, this option didn't make it into the initial release of Eye Tracking 2 due to some technical hurdles. After a rocky-style training montage, those hurdles have been faced again and conquered. You can now redirect to a specific screen within the same Display if the participant fails to Calibrate correctly. This will make it easier to then branch them to a different part of your Spreadsheet or indeed to exit them from the Task entirely.

• Eye Tracking 2: Fix for Start Calibration button not unlocking
  In some instances, the Start Calibration button would not unlock, even if the users face had been detected and was in the required frame of the video. This issue has been resolved.

• Eye Tracking 2: Fix for edge case where multiple requestAnimationFrame loops are created
  Within Gorilla, we pause the Webgazer module at the end of a screen (to prevent unnecessary load on the users device). On the next screen where Eye Tracking is used, Webgazer is then resumed. If Eye Tracking is used on consecutive screens and pause and resume are called within the same animation frame, this can result in multiple loop() calls being generated (resulting in multiple requestAnimationFrame loops). This edge case has been resolved (by directly cancelling the animation frame request on pause).

In other Gorilla news....

Enhancements

• Task Builder: Added Response Type entries to Response Text Entry metrics
  The Response Text Entry zone allows you to collect the reaction time for both the first key press and the final enter key press. To make these metrics easier to distinguish when post-processing your data, the Response Type field in the participants data will now contain either 'First Key', or 'Enter Key' respectively

Fixes

• Task Builder: Dropdown menus will now work on earlier screens revisited by screen branching
  Setup a Dropdown response zone on a screen. Then, branch back to that screen via the Advanced Branching options and the Dropdown menu will be disabled. Boooo! This is a result of how our lookahead system works when branching back to a recent screen and with zones not properly restoring themselves to default settings on a screen revisit. This has been fixed for the Response Dropdown Zone. We'll be reviewing other zones in the future, to make sure they behave consistently when screen branching.

• Experiment Builder: Spreadsheets set via Manual Override won't reset on task update
  When updating the version of a task used in the experiment tree, Gorilla will check to make sure the values for manipulations set (primarily the spreadsheet used) are still valid. This is to make sure, if you've changed the names of spreadsheets in a task, you know that this will need to be updated in the task node (rather than Gorilla just.... trying to use a spreadsheet that doesn't exist or defaulting to another spreadsheet without telling you). However, when set to Manual Override, Gorilla is incorrectly stating that the spreadsheet name no longer exists and defaulting to whatever spreadsheet is first in your list. Gorilla will now correctly recognise this setting and leave it as is when updating a Task tree node.

Existence is pain

• Device Restrictions: Added warning about iOS devices spoofing as desktop macs
  Hrrnnggnrh So, many modern iPad's and iPhones will now fib to the browser, claiming that they are Apple Mac's when they really, really aren't. I don't know why - you'll have to ask Apple. This means though that choosing to filter out Phone's or Tablets from participating in your study... won't always work. The available options for correctly identifying a device as being a computer/phone/tablet are becoming increasingly unreliable. For example, with many laptop's and all-in-one PC's coming with touch screens, trying to filter based on touch capabilities will give you increasing false positives/negatives. As such, we now strongly recommend that you explicitly ask users what kind of device they are using and use Branch Nodes to filter as a appropriate.

Good morning Gorilla Experiment Builder. I am your Release Notes Dean, with a few announcements on this weeks release notes!

And yes, I'm doing another guess the TV Show bit! Specifically, one of my most favourited tv-shows. And if 'Dean' didn't give it away already, there is plenty, plenty more where that came from. SIX SEASONS AND A MOVIE!

Features

• Task Builder: Drag and Drop zones
  As part of a consultancy project, we've implemented a set of Drag and Drop zones in Gorilla - these have now entered closed beta and can be accessed via the Support Contact Form. This zone is actually a 2-for-1 special! There is Drag and Drop Main, which enables Drag and Drop functionality on an image. By default, this can be dragged to anywhere on the screen. However, you also get Drag and Drop Scoring, which allows you to define specific areas of the screen to Drag'n'Drop to! You can give these different areas different response values and Drag'n'Drops to these areas can be marked as correct or incorrect according to your Active Response settings. Cool cool cool!

  If you like the new Drag'n'Drop zone, tweet at us to let us know! (Leonard has already liked this post!)

Enhancements

• Subscriptions: Researcher subscription auto-assigns tokens
  Did you know that there's a Researcher Subscription option in Gorilla? Offering an up to 18% discount compared to buying tokens on PAYG, this subscription is perfect for the lone wolf striking out on their own with a smaller budget. Now, the subscription auto-assigns the tokens to your account (rather than using the request system that features in our Lab and Department subscriptions), making it even easier you to get started on your data collection. Check out our full range of pricing options - with one of these, you'll be streets ahead in no time!

• Data Generation: Improved data generation message
  We've updated the data generation text to make it clearer what happens during data generation. For example, the data generation request gets sent to our separate data generation server so you don't need to leave your browser open on the Data tab. You can meerily be on your way, getting on with your vital research. Research like "are weiner dogs born that way, or start off normal and then get weiner?!?". We also advise that, while data generation is usually pretty quick, you should leave 2 - 4 hours during peak times, just in case.

• Task Builder: Separate seeked in backwards and forwards in Web Audio zone
  Last Release Notes we announced an update to the Web Audio zone - a new setting that allows you to give the participant full control over the progression of the audio file. They can pause, play, rewind and fastforward to their hearts content. Following feedback from the user this setting was implemented for, we've created specific metrics to indicate whether the participant went backwards or forwards in the audio when seeking to a new position. But don't worry, there's still no Britta in this!

Bugs

• Home Page: Fixed BeOnline links
  Sometimes I think I lost something really important to me, and then it turns out I already ate it! Fortunately, while I lost the correct link to this years BeOnline 2021 talks, I hadn't eaten it yet, so was able to put it back where it belongs. Check out all the incredible talks from this year (and more) here

• Task Builder: Fix End Calibration Text setting
  The End Calibration Button Text in the Eye Tracking zones was incorrectly linking to the Start Calibration Button Text setting, so the two couldn't actually be defined independently. Nice going, tweedledumb and... even tweedlerdumb. That's been fixed up now!

Coming Really REALLY soon

• Task Builder: Eye Tracking 2 performance fix As some of you may know, changes to how Webgazer handles collecting gaze predictions in Web Gazer 2 has caused significant losses in screen timing performance. Most platforms that make use of Web Gazer have had to implement bespoke fixes for this issue and our own is going live next week. Though we're preserving Eye Tracking 2's core functionality, (even adding a few new features!), the fix will require some changes to how and when we collect the prediction data. We wanted to give some advance notice that this change is coming for users currently collecting data using Eye Tracking 2. Consider yourself Chang'd!

That's it for today! More release notes coming next week. And remember: You are all better than you think you are, you are just designed not to believe it when you hear it from yourself.

Zoinks! Has it really been three weeks since the last release? Wow, where does the time go? Seriously, do any of you know? Because, to me, it's still March 2020. I don't understand how I can be a half year older already.

Wait... WHAT YEAR IS IT??!?

Ahem, anyway, only a few things to note in this build. As we approach the end of the year (hrrnghgh!) the remaining Release Notes will be a bit fuller, as the backlog of requests/pending work gets cleared ready for my regular Christmas Hibernation.

Also, bonus points to the users who can correctly identify the classic childhood tv show being referenced in these notes...

Features

• Task Builder: Full audio controls for Web Audio zone
  As part of a consultancy project, we've implemented a new setting for the Web Audio zone that presents a fuller set of controls to the participant. This allows them to play and pause an audio file at will, as well as seek to different positions throughout the audio. You receive metrics for each event, so you can review participants listening patterns. The keen readers of all the drivel exciting words I post on Gorilla, the Support Desk etc. will be thinking "Hang on, didn't your consultancy desk close before the summer?!?". Indeed, it did. At which point we still had some four to six months of work booked in! Jinkies!

• Experiment: Select specific email to resend
  Did you know that when using either the Email ID or Email Shot recruitment policy you can set your own customised recruitment email? Pretty neat! This email was only sent when the participant was initially activated, however. The 'Resend Email' action would default to sending Gorilla's "Resume" Email template. Not anymore though! If you're using the Email ID or Email Shot policy, you can select which email type to send, so you can choose to resend the initial recruitment email instead. This is the first part in a small piece of work to improve email dispatch options within an experiment, the next stage of which will be allowing for customising the 'Resume' email template. Looks like we have another mystery localisation on our hands!

Fixes

• Experiment: Fix typo in Custom Recruitment Email instructions
  Previously, the instructions for the Custom Recruitment Email modal said "You can also add in the participants name (as it appears in your Participants tab) using the tag {{url}}." This was of course supposed to be {{name}}. Ruh-roh! Many thanks to the users who alerted us to this!

• Data: Uploads folder now respects Timeframe settings
  Previously, when building the full zip folder of experiment data, the Uploads folder would always give you all of the uploaded files for an experiment version. Regardless of the Timeframe settings used. Jeepers! That should be fixed now - as always, if you experience any issues/inconsistencies, please contact the Support Desk via our Contact Form.

Fixes, 14:35

Many thanks to the researchers who alerted the support team to the errors in building Single Participant metrics and the missing metrics columns. These issues have now been resolved! Your patience and understanding is greatly appreciated.

It's been a couple of weeks since the last Gorilla update. Most of the last fortnight has been focused on Task Builder 2.0 (and Questionnaire Builder 2.0!!!) as well as improving our Game Builder tool and general Multiplayer tooling. However, we've managed to sneak in a few nuggets for the release this week.

(So, no, I haven't just been playing Valheim solidly for two weeks. Seriously, ask anyone on the Gorilla team - we're all friends on Steam so they can attest to my playtime... And anyway, Valheim is old news. New World (aka Amazon Game Studios MMO Queuing simulator) released at the beginning of this week so if I'd been doing anything gaming related, it would have been sitting in a queue with 5000 other people waiting to get into a server just as they take it down for maintenance...)

Features

• Task Builder: Release of a Haptics zone
  The Haptic Feedback zone is now available by request through the Support Contact Form -> Beta Feature Access category. The Haptics zone makes use of the excellent Haptics.js library and the VibrationAPI. This allows you to play a series of vibrations on a compatible mobile device and also includes the ability to record a participants input (screen taps) as a vibration pattern (as well as store it in embedded data so it can be replayed to the participant). Documentation for this zone will appear in our support pages within the next couple of days (I'll need something to do while queuing for New World...)

• Task Builder: Release of Vernier GoDirect Handdynamometer zone
  The Go Direct Hand Dynamometer zone is now available by request through the Support Contact Form -> Beta Feature Access category. This represents our first integration with an external device (the Go Direct (R) Hand Dynamometer) via the WebUSB API and an exciting entry into the world of external sensors and devices. The zone facilitates the initial connection to the device, as well as collected measurements which can be presented to users in a number of ways (plain text, graphs, filling bars etc.) via the Task Builder scripting tools. As above, documentation for this will appear within the next few days (I'll need lots to do!)

Enhancements

• Questionnaire Builder: Switch Widget now stores current page answers on switch
  Previously, when using the Switch Widget to switch between a Questionnaire and another Task/Questionnaire, any responses the participant had entered on the current Questionnaire page wouldn't be saved. This meant that the questions would be blank if they switched back. We've changed this behaviour, so the responses will be saved and repopulated when they switch back. Note that these responses won't be added to the participant metrics - that only happens when they actually complete the current page (by clicking the next button).

• Task Builder: Update all documentation links
  I guess this a combo Bug fix/Enhancement. Some documentation links in the Task Builder zone settings weren't linking to the correct page. These links have now been fixed. Additionally, as some zones don't have any actual settings, they didn't have a settings block... which then also meant that there was no direct link to their respective documentation. We've now changed this, so every zone will have a settings block. If there are no actual settings to set there will be no settings in the settings block but the settings block will still link to the documentation for that zone. (Achievement unlock: use the word settings so many times in a paragraph that it now just looks weird and you're convinced it's spelt wrong...)

• Data Generation Services: Second stage of improvements
  With the new term beginning, we've already seen significant increases in usage of our platform over the last few weeks. The main Gorilla server swiftly expands to accomodate additional traffic. Today's update includes the second step to adding that capability to our Data Generation server as well. While there will inevitable be some increase in data download time during peak usage, we are working to keep these increases as small as possible. The next stage of improvements will mostly focus on the front-end UI i.e. the bit that you researchers see, giving you more information on what's going on with your data, where it sits in the build queue etc.

Fixes

• Live experiments: Tab title is now Research instead of Gorilla
  When running a live experiment, Gorilla branding is kept to a minimum - we use a different domain (research.sc/) and Gorilla is only mentioned on the initial start page and finish page. However, at somepoint in the last few months, a bug crept in that meant the actual title for the browser window/tab would be 'Gorilla' instead of 'Research'. I noticed it a week ago and have dutifully fixed it, which I'm sure will be a great relief for all concerned.

Today marks the release of the Hearth and Home update for Valheim and the beginning of another few hundred hours of my life disappearing into a virtual world. Before I run off, build another turnip farm and spend the rest of time defending it from a horde of trolls however, here's the new features, enhancements and fixes that have happened in Gorilla today.

Features

• Support Contact Form: Project Ownership Change Requests
  Users can now request a change of project ownership directly from the Support Contact Form (by selecting the aptly named 'Project Ownership Change Request' option). You can request a change of project ownership from you to someone else, or vice versa. You will need to have the Gorilla account email address of the Gorilla user you want to transfer to/from. If you aren't the owner of the project or a collaborator on the project, you'll need the Project ID (the string of numbers in the URL after admin/project/)

  Both you (the requestor) and the other party (the responder) will need to provide a reason for the transfer. Gorilla staff will need to review some requests and the reasons given will be critical - if we are unsatisifed with the reasoning given, we reserve the right to reject the request! We'll try not to let the power go to our heads...

Enhancements

• Task Builder: Right click context menu overridden on video zones
  We've added functionality that attempts to prevent the Right-click context menu from being accessible on Video, Click Painting Video and GoNoGo Video zones. This should prevent the majority of participants from being able to access additional video controls. Some browser security settings and browser add-ons/extentions will, er, override our override. We don't have the ability to override an override to our override (and even if we could, I'm sure it would just be overridden).

• Experiment Tree: Direct links to Node Documentation
  In the Questionnaire Builder and Task Builder, there are direct links to the relevant widget/zone documentation. We added the same functionality to the Experiment Tree Nodes. When adding a new node or editing an existing one, you'll see a question mark which will link you to our support documentation.

The development team is continually working on improvements to Gorilla's performance and implementing additional redundancies to its mechanisms. We have two announcements in that regard this week.

• Stimuli and resources: Additional storage layer
  We've added an additional layer to our storage services, which should provide better download speeds in some circumstances. This new storage medium will only affect the content and stimuli uploaded to Tasks and Questionnaires and there should be no discernable change to task behaviour or functionality.

• Data Generation Services: First stage of improvements
  With the new term beginning, we've already seen significant increases in usage of our platform over the last few weeks. The main Gorilla server swiftly expands to accomodate additional traffic. Today's update marks the first step to adding that capability to our Data Generation server as well. While there will inevitable be some increase in data download time during peak usage, we are working to keep these increases as small as possible.

Fixes

• Order Node: Increased Order Nodes tether limit
  A new Gorilla "Book of Records" entry has been made. A researcher recently attempted to attach more than 24 nodes to a single Order node which had some... undesirable consequences. As a result, we've slightly reworked the Order Node to increase the limit to 50 and to also provide researchers with an error message, should they try to attach more than this.

• Task Builder: Response Text Entry zone correctly counts attempt numbers
  Previously, when capturing both a metric on first key-press and on enter key-press, the number of response attempts would be incorrectly increased on each metric. This issue has now been resolved.

Back after a short hiatus with a seemingly light update today. Behind the scenes, Task Builder 2.0 has entered internal alpha - a key milestone on the road to release. We also have a number of new Task Builder zones in-the-wings, ready for release over the next few months.

Features

• Task Builder: Audio Recording zone now include Echo Cancellation setting
  Some users have requested the ability to supress other audio streams (such as from an Audio or Video zone) from entering a participants audio recording. Conversely, other users have requested the ability to not supress other audio streams, including them in the audio recording for analysis. To satisfy both groups, we've included the option to add an Echo Cancellation constriant to the Audio Recording zone. You can read more on the intended function of Echo Cancellation here

Behind the Scenes

• Task Builder: Implementation of the Device Motion API
  As part of a consultancy project, we've implemented a DeviceMotion zone. This allows you to detect spatial movement and acceleration of a mobile/tablet device with settings for required acceleration thresholds and measurement intervals. In the Project, the zone is being used as part of a real-effort paradigm. The zone will be early access for the project research team only for approximately one month. You can read more about the Device Motion API here.

• Task Builder: Implementation of a Drag and Drop zone
  As part of a consultancy project, the much-requested, long-awaited Drag and Drop functionality has been implemented. This works as a set of two zones: a Drag and Drop zone which on it's own allows you to drag an image to anywhere on the screen; and a Drop Scoring zone, which allows you to mark specific sections of the screen as drop locations. These drop locations can also be individually marked as correct or incorrect, allowing you to add scoring and feedback to a Drag and Drop paradigm. The zone will be early access for the project research team only for approximately one month.

• Task Builder: Implementation of a Haptics zone
  As part of a consultancy project, we've implemented a Haptics zone, making use of the excellent Haptics.js library and the VibrationAPI This allows you to play a series of vibrations on a compatible mobile device and also includes the ability to record a participants input (screen taps) as a vibration pattern (as well as store it in embedded data so it can be replayed to the participant). As this zone has already been available to the research team for some time, it will be entering general closed beta (accessible via the Support Contact Form) within the next week.

• Task Builder: Implementation of Vernier GoDirect Handdynamometer zone
  As part of a consultancy project, we've implemented an integration with the Go Direct (R) Hand Dynamometer. This represents our first integration with an external device via the WebUSB API and an exciting entry into the world of external sensors and devices. The zone facilitates the initial connection to the device, as well as collected measurements which can be presented to users in a number of ways (plain text, graphs, filling bars etc.) via the Task Builder scripting tools. In the Project, the zone is being used as part of a real-effort paradigm. As this zone has already been available to the research team for some time, it will be entering general closed beta (accessible via the Support Contact Form) within the next week.

Those are some cool new zones, yeah? Do you have a project or experimental paradigm that you could now implement Online with Gorilla via these new zones? Tell us all about it on Twitter @GorillaPsyc with the hashtag #ZonesOfAwesome

Features

• Task Builder: Click Painting Zones now include Screen Calibration settings
  The size of the image in the Click Painting zone and the video in the Click Painting Video zone can now be set to a width in centimeters or visual degrees. This requires either the Screen Calibration zone (which is now in Open Beta!) or a Code Task like the Virtual Chinrest

Enhancements

• Shop Builder: Improved mobile layout
  Another round of Shop Builder improvements. Find out more about it here!

Fixes

• Task Builder: Fix GoNoGo Video full playthrough setting
  Yes, this is the second time you've seen this in a month. No, I don't want to talk about it. All that matters is that this time it is actually fixed. Honest!

• Projects: Collaboration modal no longer crashes during some invites
  Previously, trying to invite a user who had not finished creating their account to collaborate on a project would cause the collaboration modal to crash and do nothing. A proposal to have the Collaboration Modal "do a dance", to distract users from it doing nothing, was rejected. Instead, we opted to fix the problem. Users, at any stage of account creation, are now added as collaborators correctly. You can find out more about collaborating with other Gorilla Users here.

  (Plans for dancing modals may be revisited at a later date...)

Features

• Experiment Tree: Override Dropdown Manipulations via Embedded Data
  Previously, Task manipulations set via a Dropdown (of which the most common is the 'Spreadsheet' dropdown) could not be populated via embedded data. As such, if you wanted to use a Counterbalance Node to dynamically select which spreadsheet to use, you'd have to combine this with some custom script in your task. Well not any more! Now you'll find a new option "(Manual Override)" in a manipulation dropdown which, when selected, allows you to specify an embedded data variable using the standard notation. This will work for all manipulations populated via a Dropdown (including manipulations added in Code Editor tasks). To see this in action, check out our example Experiment here

Fixes

• Code Editor: Manipulation values no longer missing from preview data.
  Previously, the value for manipulations set in the preview of a Code Editor task weren't being passed through to the preview metrics, causing the manipulation columns to empty. This issue has now been resolved.

Enhancements

• Delay Node: Clarify delay node email reminder text
  Previously, the delay node email reminder text was phrased quite passively, to the point of implying that providing an email address was optional. However, when researchers select this setting in the Delay node, its often because the participants need to receive the email reminder to resume the experiment. Without it, they'll be unable to re-enter the study. A typical example of this would be recruiting for a longitudinal study via Simple Link. As a result, we've reworded the instruction to make it clearer that the participants may not be able to resume the study without this reminder email 9so should enter their email address). In a future update to Gorilla, we will make this text customisable so that it can be reworded to suit your specific circumstances and desired participant language.

• Order Node: Update Order Node settings text to better describe Latin Square/Balanced
  The previous describe for the Latin Square and Balanced options in the Order Node was causing some confusion over what these two options actually meant. The setting text has been altered to better reflect what Latin Square vs Balanced means in this context.

Fixes

• Task Builder: Fix issue with Audio Recording filename prefix.
  An update introduced a bug where the Audio Recording filename prefix was not added into the recording audio file name. Instead, the default text of 'audioFile' would appear. This would have affected audio files collected between 28th July 2021 and 5th August 2021. While the issue has been resolved (future audio files will contain the correct prefix) already collected audio files will remain incorrectly named.

Enhancements

• Home Page: Link to 'My Subscription' now appears in the dropdown 'burger menu' on the home page.

Features

• Shop Builder: Many new features and fixes
  The Shop Builder is Gorilla's unique tool for simulating a realistic online shop. Find out more about it here

• Task Builder: Migrated stable Closed-Beta zones to Open-Beta
  The Screen Calibration, Gabor Patch, Canvas Painting and Mouse Response have seen extensive use to positive appraisal. As such, we've moved them into Open Beta, so they are freely available from the Task Builder Zones menu, without first requesting access via the Support Contact Form. As with all our zones, if you encounter any issues that aren't resolved through out documentation, please don't hesitate to get in touch via the SupportContactForm

Enhancements

• Task Builder: Allow video replay on Click Painting Video zone
  The Click Painting (Video) zone added last update has been improved with a setting to allow the video to be looped/replayed a set number of times, bringing it more in line with the functionality of the existing Video zone

• Task Builder: Allow screen branching based on correct/incorrect response in Click Painting zones
  When a screen advance is triggered by a Click Painting/Click Painting Video zone, whether the participants response was marked as correct or incorrect is now passed into the advance logic. This means that you can branch to a different screen depending on whether their response was correct or incorrect

• Task Builder: Add RT's to Audio Recording metrics
  To make it easier to work out when different Audio Recording metrics occurred, we've added the current RT (time from start of screen) into the metrics

Features

• Task Builder: Click Painting scoring regions
  A much requested feature, the Click Painting zone now allows you to define 'boxes' within the Click Painting area that represent a correct click. This marks clicks that fall inside this box (within a pixel tolerance defined by you) as correct in the metrics and also the Active Response embedded data. At the moment, this only allows you to define square or rectangular regions. A more advanced version of this with more region options will be coming in the next iteration of our Task Builder Tooling

• Task Builder: Click Painting Video zone
  Everything that comes in the Click Painting zone but for Videos instead of Images.

Fixes

• Task Builder: Fix GoNoGo Video full playthrough setting
  The GoNoGo Video setting wasn't responding correctly to the zone being set to run through the full video. This was caused by an error in the settings which has now been resolved.