Fernão Lopes Portal upgraded to Drupal 11
"The dedication of the Javali team throughout the entire process of planning, reorganizing, and implementing the requested features for the Fernão Lopes Portal was crucial.
From the very beginning, we were impressed by the attention they paid to our requests, the promptness with which they implemented them, and the diligence with which they made adjustments when necessary. The Javali team demonstrated a consistent willingness to accommodate new needs, the ability to engage in dialogue with the Humanities department, proactivity in suggesting new, more functional solutions, and an aesthetic sensibility for creating a user-friendly environment.
Toward the end of the project, the training sessions and the time allotted for us to test the Portal ourselves were extremely helpful. As clients and future administrators of the Portal—despite being laypeople when it comes to digital programming—this opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the new features gave us the confidence that we will be able to continue its development.
Javali and its team were impeccable at every stage of this complex project. I would even say they are the ideal team to work on academic projects dedicated to the humanities, such as ours."
"The dedication of the Javali team throughout the entire process of planning, reorganizing, and implementing the requested features for the Fernão Lopes Portal was crucial.
From the very beginning, we were impressed by the attention they paid to our requests, the promptness with which they implemented them, and the diligence with which they made adjustments when necessary. The Javali team demonstrated a consistent willingness to accommodate new needs, the ability to engage in dialogue with the Humanities department, proactivity in suggesting new, more functional solutions, and an aesthetic sensibility for creating a user-friendly environment.
Toward the end of the project, the training sessions and the time allotted for us to test the Portal ourselves were extremely helpful. As clients and future administrators of the Portal—despite being laypeople when it comes to digital programming—this opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the new features gave us the confidence that we will be able to continue its development.
Javali and its team were impeccable at every stage of this complex project. I would even say they are the ideal team to work on academic projects dedicated to the humanities, such as ours."
The Fernão Lopes Portal is a platform of the Institute of Medieval Studies at NOVA FCSH dedicated to providing access to and facilitating the exploration of medieval chronicles and a vast array of related information, such as chapters, people, places, events, themes, a glossary, and a bibliography.
More than just revamping a website, the challenge was to make a complex academic collection easier to consult, connect, and manage, without compromising the scientific rigor associated with it.
The existing platform needed to better cater to different user profiles—from researchers and faculty to students and the general public—while also giving the editorial team greater autonomy in content management. It was therefore necessary to create a solution capable of organizing large volumes of interconnected information, simplifying search and navigation, and ensuring a sustainable technological foundation for the project’s future development.
The team at the Institute of Medieval Studies needed to modernize its platform without compromising academic rigor or creating greater operational dependence. The solution had to balance three priorities: facilitating access to information, simplifying editorial management, and creating a sustainable technological foundation for future growth.
In practice, this meant:
- Fully migrating existing content, with data validation and no loss of information.
- Making dense and interconnected content easier to find, navigate, and understand.
- Providing a consistent experience for various user profiles.
- Simplifying the work of editorial teams through a more streamlined back office.
- Ensuring a responsive experience on desktop and mobile devices.
- Create a flexible structure to accommodate different types of content and future expansions.
JAVALI rebuilt the portal using Drupal 11, creating a platform that is simpler to use, easier to manage, and ready to keep pace with the project’s evolution.
Key deliverables:
- a modular structure designed for scalability
- advanced search and filters that make it easier to access information
- Consistent alphabetical listings and detail pages, making navigation more intuitive
- automatic linking between related content, such as articles, chapters, people, places, and events
- Simplified back office, streamlining the daily work of editorial teams
- Responsive and accessible experience, optimized for different devices and major browsers
- Integration of complementary sections, such as Contact, Map, Young Scholar, and quizzes
The new portal has brought tangible improvements for users and internal teams:
- simpler and more intuitive navigation, even when dealing with large volumes of information
- content organized in a clearer way that’s easier to explore
- greater simplicity and autonomy in editorial management
- a consistent experience across desktop and mobile devices
- full migration of content, properly validated and with no loss of information
- a more flexible platform, ready to accommodate new content and features
Technologies and features
- Drupal 11
- Modular and scalable architecture
- Advanced search and filters
- Alphabetical listings for easy searching
- Simplified back office for content management
- Responsive design adapted to different devices
- Full content migration
Contribution to the Drupal community
The project demonstrates Drupal 11’s ability to support academic platforms with large volumes of information, different types of content, and complex relationships between data.
The solution created for the Fernão Lopes Portal also serves as an important benchmark for future projects in the fields of digital humanities, research, and open access.
