Michele Morgan

Release 3.6 Progress

There’s been a lot of activity since our last update. A hugely successful Feedback Fest resulted in 28 patch signoffs and 19 patches committed. Since the last update, 70 patches have been committed. Among these patches are new features which will be available in 3.6, and many bug fixes which will also be available in maintenance releases of 3.4 and 3.5.

New Features

Some great new features are well on their way to being included in Release 3.6. Some that have already been committed:

Angular Staff Catalog

The experimental angular catalog becomes the default catalog for the staff client. Thanks to Bill Erickson his work on this. The traditional staff catalog will still be available under a menu option.

Stripe

Online payment processing via Stripe has been upgraded to use Stripe Elements (V3). This streamlines PCI compliance for libraries and provides enhanced features such as real time validation of payment information for patrons. This development was done by Equinox, funded by CWMARS.

Reports

Another enhancement to statistics provides for Subtotals and Grand Totals in reports. A “Calculate grouping subtotals” checkbox has been added to optionally include a subtotal and grand total when running reports that include counts. Thanks to Mike Rylander and Chris Sharp for this contribution.

In-House Use

Another enhancement to statistics is for counting In-House use. In-House use statistics will now capture the workstation where the use was recorded for enhanced tracking. Thanks to Chris Sharp for this contribution.

Item Status

A handy enhancement is coming to the Item Status screen. It will allow pasting in barcodes separated by commas to retrieve multiple items quickly. Thanks to Josh Stompro for this enhancement.

Developer Note

With the recent updates to Angular and ng-bootstrap, the Tabset directive is no longer supported by the ng-bootstrap project. They instead recommend using the Nav directive. If you have code sitting in a pull request that uses NgbTabset, you can switch it to NgbNav by making the following changes:

1. In the markup, change ngb-tabset elements to <ul ngbNav #tabsetId="ngbNav" class="nav-tabs" (navChange)="...">
2. Change ngb-tab elements to
   <li [ngbHavnItem="'tabIdentifier'">
<a ngvNavLink i18n>Tab Label</a>...
3. Add a <div [ngbNavOutlet]="tabsetId"></div> after the <ul> list to specify where the new nav should be rendered.
4. In the TypeScript file, assuming that you’re binding functions to the tab change event, rather than importing NgbTabset and NgbTabChangeEvent, import NgbNav and NgbNavChangeEvent.

See commit af797425 for a full example of this!

Upcoming Events

Bug Squashing Week is September 21 – 25

Every week is a good week for bug squashing, but Bug Squashing Week focuses community attention on open Launchpad bugs. Everyone is encouraged to devote some time to confirming, testing, fixing, tagging, or providing feedback to bugs during that week. Bug Squashing Week info is always available on the Evergreen Wiki. Look for more about Bug Squashing Week on the mailing lists as the week approaches.

We Welcome Your Feedback!

Please reach out via the Evergreen Developer’s list.

The 3.6 Release Team:
Galen Charleton
Jason Boyer
Terran McCanna
Michele Morgan

Release 3.6 is taking shape quickly in an accelerated timetable

Lots of great features have already been added to the Release 3.6 roadmap. This is the first in a series of biweekly updates as we progress quickly to Evergreen 3.6 which will be released in October.

Release info:

https://wiki.evergreen-ils.org/doku.php?id=faqs:evergreen_roadmap#release_36_october_2020

3.6 Roadmap Highlights:

Angular Acquisitions Rewrite

The Acquisitions Search interface has been rewritten in Angular, replacing the old dojo screens for enhanced functionality and usability.
This development was sponsored by ECDI, the Evergreen Community Development Initiative.

Course Materials Module

On track for Release 3.6 is a built in Course Materials Module, fully and smoothly integrated into Evergreen. In the past, Evergreen libraries have relied on solutions like creative use of bookbags or the separately installed and maintained Syrup application to manage course reserves. Having a fully functional course materials module, smoothly integrated into Evergreen will be an essential tool for academic libraries. Public libraries will also have the opportunity to explore the integrated functionality for Summer Reading materials or Book Groups.
This development is sponsored by Treasure Valley Community College, Linn-Benton Community College, and NOBLE.

Curbside Pickup

Already in use at some libraries, the Curbside Pickup development provides a workflow for appointment based hold pickup. Once patrons are notified that their holds are ready, Curbside Pickup can manage pickup appointments and provide streamlined checkout of held items.
This development is sponsored by PaILS.

Angular Staff Catalog Becoming Default

The experimental Angular staff catalog is slated to become the default in 3.6 for staff-side catalog search. The former AngularJS staff catalog will remain available, but will be marked as the “traditional” staff catalog.

Bootstrap OPAC Redesign

The Bootstrap OPAC redesign spearheaded by Chris Burton of the Niagara Falls Public Library is on course to be in 3.6 as an optional public catalog skin parallel to the current TPAC skin. During the development meeting on August 4th, there was a discussion about when to full switch to the new design. The current proposal on the table is to make the Bootstrap skin become the default in 3.7 and deprecate the TPAC skin. When and if to remove the TPAC skin outright remains an open question.

Recent Big Changes and Commits

The patches for bug 1864371 were pushed recently. They bump up the version of Angular used by the web staff client from 8 to 10. Bill Erickson supplied the following instructions for developers to update their Evergreen environments:

git pull
# change the OS target as needed
sudo make -f ./Open-ILS/src/extras/Makefile.install ubuntu-bionic-developer
cd Open-ILS/src/eg2/
rm -rf node_modules
npm install
ng build --watch # etc.

How you can help

If you have a feature you’ve been meaning to contribute, now is the time! If your contribution can be ready for review by mid September, there’s still time to add it to the Roadmap.

https://wiki.evergreen-ils.org/doku.php?id=faqs:evergreen_roadmap:3.6

If you are a daily user of Evergreen, get familiar with the feature requests and bug reports on Launchpad. Subscribe to bugs that affect you and you’ll receive progress updates. Add your name to the affected users list on bugs that affect your workflow. Add Comments. Activity on a Launchpad bug increases its “Heat”, which tells the community how important it is to Evergreen users.

Upcoming Events

Feedback Fest week August 17th – August 21st

Feedback Fest focuses attention on Launchpad bugs with code waiting to be tested. The goal is to review every outstanding pull request on Launchpad to help establish a clear path forward, tagging, commenting and rebasing code as necessary.

We want to hear from you!

If you have thoughts, questions, or suggestions you’d like to share, feel free to reach out to the Release team by way of the Evergreen Developer’s List.

The 3.6 Release Team:
Galen Charleton
Jason Boyer
Terran McCanna
Michele Morgan