A Day Late...: Evergreen 2.9-beta released

Thanks to the efforts of dozens of community members, Evergreen 2.9-beta was released yesterday, August 20, 2015. Please download it and have a go at testing.

New Features in 2.9-beta

• Caching of compiled OPAC templates for performance.
• Support for conditional negative balances.
• Disable Google Analytics in the staff client.
• Add account expiration date to OPAC My Account area.
• More sorting options in OPAC My Account area.
• Ability for staff to clear added content cache.
• Better progress updates when activating a purchase order in acquisitions.
• Ability to assign statistical category entries to items imported through Vandelay.
• Support "blanket" (long-lived, multi-invoice) orders in acquisitions.
• Notify patrons via email of pending account expiration. 
• Add RDA Content Type, Media Type, and Carrier Type attributes.
• MARC tag table service to better teach Evergreen how to use MARC tags.
• Teach record attributes about SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System).

Note: The last two on the above list are currently only useful with the web staff client preview but could be useful to other Evergreen components in the future.

The web staff client preview was updated with "sprint 2" features, including:

• MARC Editor
• Fixed Field Editor
• Flat Text MARC Editor
• Embed Vandelay
• Batch Edit
• URL Verification UI
• Manage Authorities UI
• Monograph Parts UI 
• Holdings View
• Volume/Copy Editor
• Z39.50 Search and Import Interface
• Additional Hot Keys for the web staff client
• Improve Firefox Compatibility
• Add base files for web staff client internationalization/translation.

In addition to the removal of scripted circulation and hold rules that was previously announced, more dead code was removed:

• open-ils.penalty service
• legacy self-check interface
• last of the code from the JavaScript OPAC

One final detail of note, the Acquisitions Administration menu was moved from being a submenu of Server Administration to having its own entry on the Admin menu.

Evergreen 2.9 Upcoming Beta Release Reminder

There will be no alpha release of Evergreen 2.9. With the beta release scheduled to coincide with the monthly maintenance releases next week on Wednesday, August 19, there is little point in doing an alpha release right now.

This message is also meant to serve as a reminder of the beta release and to encourage everyone to have a look at the bugs targeted for the beta. You can find the list of them here:

https://launchpad.net/evergreen/+milestone/2.9-beta

The beta is the cut off point for new features. These are bugs with a "Wishlist" importance in Launchpad, though some of the "Undecided" bugs may fall into that category as well. Any new features not merged by the time the beta is cut will need to wait until the next major release.