August 2012 - Koha-devel - lists.koha-community.org

Official Koha Newsletter: Volume 3, Issue 8: August 2012
by Daniel Grobani 29 Aug '12

29 Aug '12

[Below is the text of the newsletter. For active links and a more readable format, please visit http://koha-community.org/koha-newsletter-volume-3-issue-8-august-2012] Official Koha Newsletter (ISSN 2153-8328) Volume 3, Issue 8: August 2012 Edited by Daniel Grobani, Koha Community Newsletter Editor. Please submit news items to danielg.koha(a)gmail.com. Table of Contents Koha Development Koha 3.8.4 Released Koha 3.6.8 Released Koha 3.10 Release Delayed Koha Statistics Release Manager’s Newsletter Koha Community New Koha Libraries Community Gossip Past Koha Events August General IRC Meeting Global Bug Squashing Day Upcoming Koha Events August General IRC Meeting PASIFIKA Koha workshop Help Make KohaCon13 a Success! Koha Development Koha 3.8.4 Released by Chris Cormack The Koha release team are proud to announce the release of Koha 3.8.4. This is a maintenance release and contains a lot of useful bug fixes. You can download the release here. Debian packages will be available here soon. Release notes are here. Koha 3.6.8 Released by Jared Camins-Esakov The Koha release team are proud to announce the release of Koha 3.6.8. This is a maintenance release and contains a lot of useful bug fixes. You can download the release here. Release notes are here. Koha 3.10 Release Delayed by Paul Poulain The official release of Koha 3.10.0 is delayed by one month. For Koha 3.4 and Koha 3.8, we faced some nasty bugs that were not detected before the release. We think the “feature freeze” was too short to identify all potential problems. That’s why I have the following plan that delays the release by one month: 1. until 22 Sep: development 2. 22 Sep: feature freeze, no more large or core enhancements pushed for 3.10, whatever the patch submission date 3. 22 Oct: string freeze, no more string changes 4. 22 Nov: Koha 3.10.0 is released If you plan to upgrade your version immediately when the new one is released, please note that the release will be made on 22 November. I could release a 3.10.0RC1 (“Release Candidate”) on 22 October for early adopters. If you’re interested in such a RC1, let me know! Koha Statistics Chris Cormack, Koha Community statistics wizard, has posted statistics for Koha 3.8.4 and Koha 3.6.8, and signoff statistics for July. Chris also addressed on his blog how long it takes patches and enhancements to make it into master. Release Manager’s Newsletter Paul Poulain, Koha 3.8 & 3.10 Release Manager, publishes a monthly newsletter dedicated to Koha development. It can be found on the Koha Community website in the Koha News category. The latest issue is here. Koha Community New Koha Libraries Clatsop Community College (USA) (via ByWater Solutions) Indiana Supreme Court Law Library (USA) (via ByWater Solutions) French Cultural Center of Boston (USA) (via ByWater Solutions) Kenya Polytechnic University College Library (Kenya) LCC International University Library (Lithuania) (via ByWater Solutions) Palco and Lucas Public Libraries (USA) (via ByWater Solutions) Community Gossip Nancy Keener reports that the Systems staff at Washoe County Library System will be presenting a program on “Migrating to Koha” at the Nevada Library Association conference in Las Vegas this October. They will also be doing a program on “Do-it Yourself”, Self-Service Kiosks, and using Linux in the library. Nancy, whose library is hosting KohaCon13, also says, “This same Nevada Library Association conference will be held in Reno next October at the same time and place as KohaCon13. It is our hope to get a better deal on rooms and meeting space by having the two separate conferences in the same location. It also will show Nevada libraries that the Koha community is a vibrant and innovative group.” Catalyst Academy students continue to contribute patches to Koha. Koha 3.8.0 had 15 patches from Academy students. Irma Birchall reports that a mailing list for Australian Koha users has been established. Rutgers MLS students will be using Koha in their “Library Systems and Software” class this fall. Hosting is being donated by ByWater Solutions. The National Library of the Philippines and its use of Koha was featured in an article in the online Sun Star newspaper. Jesse Maseto posted a description of the stages a Koha bug moves through on the way to being fixed. Koha Kenya is an association of information managers, librarians and IT specialists fostering the diffusion of open source technology in libraries and Information Centers across Kenya. More info is here. Kathryn Tyree of Catalyst IT went from not having a git checkout of Koha to having her first patch pass QA in less than 90 minutes. Past Koha Events August General IRC Meeting The August general IRC meeting was held on 8 August 2012. More information, including the agenda and links to the minutes, is here. Global Bug Squashing Day by Magnus Enger Global bug squashing days are days designated to a concerted effort to get bugs and patches moving along in the right direction. A Global bug squashing day was held on Friday, 10 August 2012, and there was much rejoicing. More info is here. Upcoming Koha Events September General IRC Meeting The September general IRC meeting will be held on 5 September 2012 at 18:00 UTC. More information, including the agenda, will be available here. PASIFIKA Koha workshop Pacific libraries using or considering using Koha are invited to a free one-day PASIFIKA Koha workshop on Monday 10 September 2012 at the University of the South Pacific Laucala campus based in Suva, Fiji Islands. More info is here. Help Make KohaCon13 a Success! KohaCon13 will be held Reno, Nevada, USA, at a date to be determined. There will be three days of conference, one day of an activity, and three days of hackfest. Main and summary wiki pages have been created. Community members are encouraged to volunteer to help organize the conference. A volunteer IRC meeting has already been held.

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Coding guidelines for command-line scripts
by Chris Nighswonger 29 Aug '12

29 Aug '12

Sorry, forgot the list... On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Owen Leonard <oleonard(a)myacpl.org> wrote: > > Would everyone agree that new command-line scripts must accept > "--help" (and include relevant help, of course) ? > > +1 > Should it also be the standard that command-line scripts should not > perform any action unless an argument is passed? > +1 Kind Regards, Chris

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Re: [Koha-devel] [Koha] Communicating with Koha Session variables
by Chris Cormack 28 Aug '12

28 Aug '12

* sheldon_tappin (thecarterii(a)hotmail.com) wrote: > Hi All, > > I would like to create a web app using php that should communicate with Koha > ILS for authentication purposes. > Can anyone provide the information on how I can talk to the session or > cookie variables in koha. > > Your help will be very beneficial to our library. > Hi Sheldon The cookie won't tell you anything, not even if the person is logged in or not, it you need to check that the session id in the cookie is a valid one in the database. I would suggest you instead write your app to either use SIP2 to authenticate, or the Koha ILS-DI implementation I hope this helps Chris -- Chris Cormack Catalyst IT Ltd. +64 4 803 2238 PO Box 11-053, Manners St, Wellington 6142, New Zealand

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Environment variables
by Paul 28 Aug '12

28 Aug '12

I'm in the process of comparing the Wiki page <http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Koha_on_Ubuntu> with my own notes and am wondering if I am missing a "bigger picture" although I'm pretty sure my findings (3.8.4 on 12.04.1) are reliable. The Wiki suggests editing /etc/cron.d/koha to include KOHA_CONF=/etc/koha/koha-conf.xml, KOHAPATH=/usr/share/koha and PERL5LIB=$KOHAPATH/lib --- then "Alternatively you could ..." edit /etc/bash.bashrc.local to export KOHA_CONF and PERL5LIB I have found on 3.6 and 3.8 you must (rather than "alternatively could") add the two export lines to /home/koha/.bashrc [1] -- if not the variables are lost on reboot and the cron will fail (C4 not found.) The /etc/cron.d/koha does not need the env vars: paul@server: cat /etc/cron.d/koha */1 * * * * koha $KOHAPATH/bin/migration_tools/rebuild_zebra.pl -a -b -z &> /dev/null My notes: CONCLUSION: 3.8.4: cataloguing and zebra incremental cron fully functional. To renew PERL5LIB=/usr/share/koha/lib and KOHA_CONF=/etc/koha/koha-conf.xml after reboot, the 'export' must be in /home/koha/.bashrc; also /etc/cron.d/koha does not require any $ENV statements Am I missing something? tnx - paul [1] I tried all combinations of env vars in /home/koha/.bashrc and /etc/bash.bashrc.local, plus env vars or not in cron. I was a little surprised that the /etc/bash.bashrc.local did *not* restore the env vars to koha after reboot. Could someone running Debian Squeeze let me know if this is a Ubuntu or more general *deb problem? Or if there is a way of forcing 'local' to recognize user=koha?

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BibLibre sandboxes unavailable tomorrow
by Paul Poulain 28 Aug '12

28 Aug '12

Hello Koha users & developers, Tomorrow, we will do some changes to our infrastructure, sandboxes (http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Sandboxes) may be unavailable tomorrow (european work hours) -- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc Tel : (33) 4 91 81 35 08

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Re: [Koha-devel] Environment variables
by Archives and Collections Society 28 Aug '12

28 Aug '12

At 09:33 PM 8/27/2012 -0300, Tomas Cohen Arazi wrote: >/etc/environment is a better place for those vars. NoteÂ that a single >koha install on the same box is not the only use case. Then how do you make them user specific? Or should Zebra *not* be 'user=koha' specific? Best - Paul >Regards >To+ >El ago 27, 2012 9:16 p.m., "Paul" ><<mailto:paul.a@aandc.org>paul.a(a)aandc.org> escribiÃ³: >I'm in the process of comparing the Wiki page ><<http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Koha_on_Ubuntu>http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Koha_on_Ubuntu> >with my own notes and am wondering if I am missing a "bigger picture" >although I'm pretty sure my findings (3.8.4 on 12.04.1) are reliable. > >The Wiki suggests editing Â /etc/cron.d/koha Â to include >KOHA_CONF=/etc/koha/koha-conf.xml, KOHAPATH=/usr/share/koha and >PERL5LIB=$KOHAPATH/lib --- then "Alternatively you could ..." edit >/etc/bash.bashrc.local to export KOHA_CONF and PERL5LIB > >I have found on 3.6 and 3.8 you must (rather than "alternatively could") >add the two export lines to /home/koha/.bashrc [1] -- if not the variables >are lost on reboot and the cron will fail (C4 not found.) > >The /etc/cron.d/koha does not need the env vars: > >paul@server: cat /etc/cron.d/koha >*/1 * * * * Â Â koha Â Â >$KOHAPATH/bin/migration_tools/<http://rebuild_zebra.pl>rebuild_zebra.pl -a >-b -z &> /dev/null > >My notes: > >CONCLUSION: >3.8.4: cataloguing and zebra incremental cron fully functional. >To renew PERL5LIB=/usr/share/koha/lib and >KOHA_CONF=/etc/koha/koha-conf.xml after reboot, the 'export' must be in >/home/koha/.bashrc; also /etc/cron.d/koha does not require any $ENV statements > >Am I missing something? > >tnx - paul > >[1] I tried all combinations of env vars in /home/koha/.bashrc and >/etc/bash.bashrc.local, plus env vars or not in cron. I was a little >surprised that the /etc/bash.bashrc.local did *not* restore the env vars >to koha after reboot. Â Could someone running Debian Squeeze let me know >if this is a Ubuntu or more general *deb problem? Â Or if there is a way >of forcing 'local' to recognize user=koha? > >_______________________________________________ >Koha-devel mailing list ><mailto:Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org>Koha-devel(a)lists.koha-community.org >http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel >website : <http://www.koha-community.org/>http://www.koha-community.org/ >git : <http://git.koha-community.org/>http://git.koha-community.org/ >bugs : <http://bugs.koha-community.org/>http://bugs.koha-community.org/

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KOCT reviewed by mozilla and 2 new patches
by Paul Poulain 27 Aug '12

27 Aug '12

Hello koha-devel, During my holidays, someone from mozilla reviewed our koct plugin and found some problems. They've been fixed by Jonathan, I just pushed 2 new patches to koha contrib/global.git repository. It changes nothing to features or translations. -- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc Tel : (33) 4 91 81 35 08

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Koha 3.8.4 released
by Chris Cormack 27 Aug '12

27 Aug '12

The Koha release team are proud to announce the release of 3.8.4. This is a maintenance release, and contains a lot of useful bug fixes. You can download the release from http://download.koha-community.org packages will be available shortly at http://debian.koha-community.org Please read below for the release notes. RELEASE NOTES FOR KOHA 3.8.4 22 Aug 2012 ======================================================================== Koha is the first free and open source software library automation package (ILS). Development is sponsored by libraries of varying types and sizes, volunteers, and support companies from around the world. The website for the Koha project is http://koha-community.org/ Koha 3.8.4 can be downloaded from: http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.08.04.tar.gz Installation instructions can be found at: http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Installation_Documentation OR in the INSTALL files that come in the tarball Koha 3.8.4 is a bugfix/maintenance release. Highlights of 3.8.4 ====================== 7943 blocker Untranslatable strings in OPAC's authority search 8486 blocker Critical error in Koha::Calendar::days_between calculation 8162 critical packaging scripts create user incorrectly 8251 critical Patrons are systematically debarred at checkin 8439 critical Printing basketgroup does not work on plack 8520 critical Authorities display incorrectly in staff results 8576 critical Software error on authority edition when using merge 8172 major Missing dereference marker for buildQuery parameter in addbooks.pl 8329 major GetLostItems in C4::Items.pm has a SELECT * 8414 major Intranet header toplinks display white rather than blue in < IE8 8448 major Holds Awaiting Pickup : Cancelling a hold on a waiting item with multiple holds displays a blank screen instead of a warning prompt 8503 major Software error n edit items with EasyAnalyticalRecords 8513 major OPAC detail page broken with XSLT 8547 major Enabling star ratings causes javascript errors that cause IE to have a boo boo 8572 major Attempting to view an invalid authority in the OPAC gives an error instead of 404 Bugs fixed in 3.8.4 ====================== 3383 normal Item due reminder digests - cannot display title information 6617 normal table of contents not printing right if entered right 7628 normal Required format is not enforced for Patron Categories 8391 normal Cannot view reading record through staff client 8419 normal Suspended holds appear on the daily holds queue 8434 normal Notice generation fails for Advanced Notices, Item Due, and Overdues when run in shell (due to error in Letters.pm) 8455 normal Check ins processed through "Check Out" tab of the Patron Record ignore Circulation System Preferences 8458 normal $stemmed_operand in C4::Search _build_stemmed_operand is not initialized. 8514 normal Display of patron results changed display order 8522 normal Markup errors cause problems with customized CSS 8532 normal Old/iffy data causes error checking out 8550 normal Z39.50 searches for ISBN/ISSN problematic 8573 normal Translation difficult in picture-upload.tt due to nested sentence in if/foreach/if/elsif - construction 8575 normal Number of items expected is wrong 8586 normal Small bug in die if no mapping in framework for biblioitems.biblioitemnumber 8590 normal checked out from missing on patron detail 3701 minor If the ReturnToShelvingCart syspref is on, and something needs to go in transit, the shelving cart setting is overriding the transit. 8062 minor Cart email broken for non english templates 8322 minor Removing space between end of marc data and fullstops 8351 minor fix wording when undoing an import 8357 minor UNIMARCslim2OPACDetail.xsl, title without class and too links to views 8392 minor Memberentry is not enforcing birthdate restrictions 8421 minor patron images fail when barcode for patron has a + 8422 minor Fix impossible warning in circulation.pl when OverduesBlockCirc set to Block 8440 minor Dates does not appear in suggestions management 8470 minor remove depreciated H:T:P test file 8476 minor Little bug in OPAC XSLT on OPACURLOpenInNewWindow 8518 minor Self checkout does not display debt amount if syspref AllowFineOverride is set to allow 8556 minor "Mark seen and continue" not translatable in inventory.tt 6655 trivial Sorting order of serial issues in OPAC 7143 trivial Bug for tracking changes to the about page 7367 trivial General OPAC typo omnibus 7368 trivial General staff client typo omnibus 8453 trivial need spaces after radio buttons on inventory 8544 trivial Make RSS icon styleable 7153 enhancement Show Open Library as Search Target in "More Searches" in OPAC detail page 8204 enhancement Authority viewer in OPAC ugly, unfriendly, and mostly useless New sysprefs in 3.8.4 ====================== * OPACSearchForTitleIn System requirements ====================== Important notes: * Perl 5.10 is required * Zebra is required Documentation ====================== As of Koha 3.2, the Koha manual is now maintained in DocBook. The home page for Koha documentation is http://koha-community.org/documentation/ As of the date of these release notes, only the English version of the Koha manual is available: http://manual.koha-community.org/3.8/en/ The Git repository for the Koha manual can be found at http://git.koha-community.org/gitweb/?p=kohadocs.git;a=summary Translations ====================== Complete or near-complete translations of the OPAC and staff interface are available in this release for the following languages: * Arabic (100%) * Armenian (100%) * Chinese (Taiwan) (100%) * Danish (75%) * English (New Zealand) (96%) * English (USA) * French (100%) * French (Canada) (69%) * German (100%) * German (Switzerland) (100%) * Greek (69%) * Italian (100%) * Norwegian Bokmål (68%) * Portuguese (Brazil) (91%) * Spanish (91%) Partial translations are available for various other languages. The Koha team welcomes additional translations; please see http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Translating_Koha for information about translating Koha, and join the koha-translate list to volunteer: http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-translate The most up-to-date translations can be found at: http://translate.koha-community.org/ Release Team ====================== The release team for Koha 3.8 is Release Manager: Paul Poulain <paul.poulain(a)biblibre.com> Documentation Manager: Nicole C Engard <nengard(a)gmail.com> Translation Manager: Frédéric Demians <frederic(a)tamil.fr> QA Manager: Ian Walls <koha.sekjal(a)gmail.com> QA team: Marcel de Rooy <M.de.Rooy(a)rijksmuseum.nl>, Jonathan Druart <jonathan.druart(a)biblibre.com> Mason James <mason(a)kohaaloha.com> Bug Wranglers: Katrin Fischer, Magnus Enger Release Maintainer (3.4.x): Chris Nighswonger <cnighswonger(a)foundations.edu> Release Maintainer (3.6.x): Jared Camins-Esakov <jcamins(a)cpbibliography.com> Release Maintainer (3.8.x): Chris Cormack <chrisc(a)catalyst.net.nz> Credits ====================== We thank the following individuals who contributed patches to Koha 3.8.4. 1 Tomas Cohen Arazi 1 D Ruth Bavousett 10 Jared Camins-Esakov 2 Colin Campbell 5 David Cook 4 Chris Cormack 1 Elliott Davis 1 Frédéric Demians 2 Jonathan Druart 2 Nicole Engard 1 Magnus Enger 1 Chris Hall 4 Kyle M Hall 1 Mason James 2 Owen Leonard 1 Julian Maurice 1 Dobrica Pavlinusic 1 Meenakshi R 2 Marcel de Rooy 8 Fridolyn SOMERS 5 Robin Sheat 3 Mark Tompsett 4 Marc Veron 1 Savitra sirohi We also especially thank the following individuals who tested patches for Koha 3.8.4. 1 Joseph Alway 1 Tomas Cohen Arazi 7 Jared Camins-Esakov 1 David Cook 68 Chris Cormack 1 Elliott Davis 2 Frédéric Demians 7 Jonathan Druart 2 Nicole C. Engard 5 Katrin Fischer 5 Kyle M Hall 9 Owen Leonard 1 Julian Maurice 1 Dobrica Pavlinusic 28 Paul Poulain 1 Marcel de Rooy 1 Zeno Tajoli 3 Mirko Tietgen 3 Marc Veron We regret any omissions. If a contributor has been inadvertantly missed, please send a patch against these release notes to koha-patches(a)lists.koha-community.org. Revision control notes ====================== The Koha project uses Git for version control. The current development version of Koha can be retrieved by checking out the master branch of git://git.koha-community.org/koha.git The branch for this version of Koha and future bugfixes in this release line is 3.8.x. The last Koha release was 3.8.3, which was released on July 22, 2012. Bugs and feature requests ====================== Bug reports and feature requests can be filed at the Koha bug tracker at http://bugs.koha-community.org/ Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini

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improving install instructions
by Linda 27 Aug '12

27 Aug '12

All, We've been using the multiple instances instructions from the wiki. In general they've been very good. The problem we've had is with permissions in zebra. As as newbie, I'd appreciate any clarification on how to get that right during the install. Thanks. -- Linda Culberson lculber(a)mdah.state.ms.us Miss. Dept. of Archives and History Archives& Records Services P.O. Box 571 Jackson, MS 39205-0571 Phone: (601) 576-6873

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Re: [Koha-devel] 3.8.4 interim [was: koha-zebra-daemon not starting]
by Paul 27 Aug '12

27 Aug '12

A tad of clarification. I had written: >However, I have (after asking our staff to try it out), got a very weird >dilemma: from the new test machine, all NEW records (biblios and items, >both Z39.50 imports and manual entries) are saving to our *PRODUCTION* >server (3.6.1) -- all EDITS of existing biblios/items are saving correctly >to the *TEST* server (3.8.4). > >Both servers are on the same LAN, but under different computer names >'server' and 'nelson', different IPs 192.168.0.91 and .95, different db >names 'koha' and 'koha384', different URLs 'http://koha' and >'http://koha-admin' compared to 'http://koha3' and 'http://koha-admin3', >hosts files all updated, router updated (static, no DHCP). From the install log of the production machine (passwords snipped): # This file contains settings used # during the installation of Koha. # It is meant for use during future # upgrades of Koha, and should not # be edited. KOHA_INSTALLED_VERSION=3.06.01.000 LOG_DIR=/var/log/koha DB_TYPE=mysql DB_NAME=koha306 DB_HOST=localhost DB_USER=koha WEBMASTER_EMAIL=webmaster@nelson WEBSERVER_DOMAIN=nelson WEBSERVER_HOST=nelson The same from the test machine: # This file contains settings used # during the installation of Koha. # It is meant for use during future # upgrades of Koha, and should not # be edited. KOHA_INSTALLED_VERSION=3.08.04.000 LOG_DIR=/var/log/koha DB_TYPE=mysql DB_NAME=koha384 DB_HOST=localhost DB_USER=koha WEBMASTER_EMAIL=webmaster@server WEBSERVER_DOMAIN=server WEBSERVER_HOST=server Similarities are that I restored a mysql dump from production to test and therefore users/staff logins/passwords are the same. The test machine is saving something: we experimented with entering a new book by an existing author; on the "1 tab" when cataloging and checking the "authority" (little red box at the end of the 100$a line) it correctly incremented the number of times "Used" from 4 to 5 - 6 - 7 each time we saved that book - but a subsequent "authority" search only found the 4 again. However, now (accidentally) checking the production machine, an "authority" search finds all 7 !!! with the associated biblios and items. Anyone got any thoughts? Is there something is the mysql "restore" that points to the wrong db? [I used 'mysql --user=<me> --password=my_pw koha384 < /usr/share/koha/koha361dump_1jan12.sql] I have fairly detailed installation notes if anyone would like them... but as I'll probably do another complete reinstall (before upgrading the production machine mid-September), I will verify and refine them -- then try and assist with the "documentation project." Thanks - Paul

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