Evergreen 3.2 first beta release available


The first beta release of Evergreen 3.2 is available from the downloads page.

Evergreen 3.2 will be a major release.  Some highlights include:

  • Auto-Renewal of loans
  • Emergency closing handler
  • Patron preferred names
  • Custom permission group display in patron editor
  • Persistent (server-stored) browser client settings
  • Catalog batch record actions
  • Invoice close date tracking
  • Significant improvements to patron acquisitions requests
  • Support for copy last inventory date
  • Inclusion of new parallel record ingest script
  • MARC batch import (Vandelay) import progress improvements
  • Introduction of new Angular browser client components

For more information on these and more, please read the initial draft of the release notes.

This is the first Evergreen release to be packaged without a XUL staff client.  The community has been consistently finding and repairing browser client “blocker” bugs over the last few months in anticipation of promoting the browser client as the One-True-Client.  We recommend all users migrate to the browser client.

From the release notes:

The legacy XUL staff client is no longer supported in Evergreen 3.2.x and the server-side installation no longer supports a direct connection by a version XUL client by default. All users of Evergreen 3.2.x are strongly urged to complete their switch to the web staff client as part of upgrading to 3.2.x.

Evergreen administrators who for some reason continue to wish to deploy the XUL staff client can do so at their risk by supplying STAFF_CLIENT_STAMP_ID during the make install step and using make_release to create installers for the staff client. However, no community support will be provided for the XUL client.

 

At the same time, we introduce new Angular technology to Evergreen as part of our ongoing mandate to keep the Evergreen infrastructure up to date for improved security and usability.  The new Angular components take the form of a set of Acquisitions administrative interfaces, which were previously built using the defunct Dojo code.  Apart from slightly different look and feel, the new interfaces should integrate seamlessly to the existing browser client.  An example of one such interface can be found under Administration -> Acquisitions Administration -> Cancel Reasons.  See the release notes for the full list.

Evergreen admins installing the beta or upgrading a test system to the beta should be aware of the following:

  • The minimum version of PostgreSQL required to run Evergreen 3.0 is PostgreSQL 9.4.
  • The minimum version of OpenSRF is 3.0.
  • Until a new OpenSRF bug fix release is available, Evergreen 3.2 requires the the “open-ils.auth_proxy” service be running (but not necessarily “enabled”) to avoid browser client login errors.   This service runs by default in disabled mode, so changes are only necessary if the service was manually removed from the active services list in opensrf.xml (see Launchpad Bug 1755258).
  • Some configuration changes (mainly Apache) and reports modifications are required.  See references to “upgrade” in the release notes.