Evergreen 2.4 overview

This is a major release, which means that new features can be introduced and significant architectural and infrastructural changes can occur.

Minor releases are limited to bug fixes; no new features are allowed.

• Bugfix support ends: September 2013
• Security support ends: January 2014

• Alpha release: February 27, 2013
• Beta release: March 13, 2013
• Final release: April 3, 2013
• Bugfix support ends: April 2014
• Security support ends: July 2014

The following features have already been committed to the release branch and were generated by walking through the git commit log for master as of February 14, 2013.

• Show Hold Patron Name in TPac: When looking up patron information for hold placement via the staff client in TPac the hold patron name is now shown next to the entered barcode
• Add graphic 880 field support for search result and record details display

• Make patron indicators (such as “See notes”) in the Patron user interface clickable.
• Display, and enable sorting by, call number affixes in the Simplified Hold Pull List
• Warn that a patron’s card is about to expire when their account is brought up in the staff client (warning threshold is configurable)

• Support barcode autocompletion in copy buckets
• Add Item Attribute Editor to Local Admin menu so that administrators can create and modify copy templates without having to load an actual copy
• Add a link checker to verify that links in 856 fields are still valid

• EDI acquisitions architectural change: reduce external dependencies with a streamlined, Evergreen-specific EDI Perl module

• Add SIP option to use SIP date format for due dates
• Make many more interfaces capable of being translated (requires further work to expose the translatable strings and to actually translate them)
• Sample data set that includes bibs, call numbers, copies, patrons, and transactions to simplify testing and reproducing bugs
• Add a preference for default search pane (for example, Numeric or Expert instead of Advanced)
• Add workstation-level preferences for search library and preferred library (overriding the staff account preferences)
• Support RDA 264 field for publisher info and publication date
• QueryParser rewrite and full-text search rewrite to address limitations in advanced search and to improve search performance

The following features are drawn from the branches that have been proposed for the 2.4 release (specifically the wishlist subset) and have code waiting to be tested and committed. If the code is found to contain significant problems that cannot be fixed and retested as clean, or if there is no testing performed for a given feature, then the code will not be integrated into the 2.4 release.

If there are particular features that we would like to see make it into the 2.4 release, we should be putting resources towards testing and providing feedback on these branches. If there are features that we desire that are not on this list, we should be putting resources towards creating those feature branches.

• Support linking to a library via shortname instead of just numeric ID
• Add “Google Books Preview” to the new TPAC (in progress)

• Prevent creating user accounts with “bad” barcodes (where “good” is defined via a per-library setting)
• Generate a list of phone numbers for automated calling systems to advise patrons of holds and overdues
• Ability to purge holds history for patron privacy
• Prevent users from editing their email address / user name / phone notification preference fields (per skin)
• Add an option to prevent users from following links to sites outside of the catalogue itself (intended for public catalogue kiosks)
• Include “wrong pickup library” holds in clear-expired-holds list
• Show pre-catalogued barcode in warning dialogue to enable staff to recognize whether the barcode was misscanned
• Support finer-grained floating behaviour for copies (so they can float within just a system, or a set of libraries, rather than across the entire consortium)
• Add the ability to print a receipt for a single item, rather than for all items checked out to a user
• Add more user name fields to simplified hold pull list

• Add a tiling option to edit two bib records in side-by-side mode

• Support authenticated Z39.50 servers in MARC federated search
• Add a per-provider setting for the default number of copies to order
• Support default record-matchpoint settings on a per-library basis when loading records

• Create an “Standalone Client” shortcut in the Windows installer
• Teach Fieldmapper (Perl) to record and expose field datatype
• SIP: Identify if an item was captured for a hold queue
• Update Dojo attributes in anticipation of future Dojo compatibility requirements
• Staff client: Make CTRL-Click in staff client open results in a new tab
• Reports: Alphabetize fields contained in each source
• Remove some hardcoded install settings that inhibit proper packaging on major Linux distributions
• Prevent invalid notification templates from being saved
• SIP: Support “Renew all” action
• SIP: Support “Cancel hold” action