NCIPServer and OpenSRF 2.5+

Thanks to Jason Boyer of Indiana Evergreen, it was brought to my attention that if you use the recommended Apache configuration with NCIPServer, Evergreen, and OpenSRF version 2.5.0 or later, NCIPServer crashes whenever you access its URL with the following error message:

Warning caught during route execution: Use of uninitialized value in scalar assignment at /usr/local/share/perl/5.22.1/OpenSRF/DomainObject/oilsMessage.pm line 246.

The reasons are a bit arbitrary and technical. The solution, however, is simple. To correct the situation, add the following directive inside the <Location /NCIP/> block in your eg_host.conf:

PerlSetEnv DANCER_ENVIRONMENT "production"

If you're upgrading to Evergreen 2.12 and OpenSRF 2.5, then you need to add the above to your configuration. Even if you are not planning an upgrade in the near future, adding that line will not hurt anything and it will help when you do eventually upgrade. Really, that directive should have been in the recommended configuration from the start, but was ignored owing to an oversight on my part.

The README has been updated to include the addition of the above line for configuration of both Apache 2.2 and Apache 2.4.

NCIPServer: better_abstraction branch merged into master

The Evergreen ILS driver for the NCIPServer software reached a milestone with the merge of the better_abstraction working branch into the master NCIPServer repository. (NCIPServer is a NCIP version 2.02 responder for processing ILL transactions.) This merge comes after many months of production use with the Massachusetts Commonwealth Catalog.

While this merge marks the end of development on the better_abstraction branch, it is not the end of the road for NCIPServer development with Evergreen. For one thing, NCIPServer needs documentation. The README is just a placeholder. Jason Boyer of Indiana is working on improvements to the request item response messages. Also, we've given up on any pretense of compatibility with Koha, so there is code to be deleted and examples to be updated. Finally, it would be nice to have an installation method better than just copying files into place and manually editing the configuration.

It is recommended that those using the better_abstraction branch in production switch to the master branch of the main repository.

Parameters Spreadsheet Utility Updated

Coincident with the move to github, the parameters.pl program in my Evergreen utilities suite received a code update. It now lists all of the fields from the circulation and hold matrix matchpoint tables. Prior to this update, it only output those fields used by MVLC. This change makes the script more useful to other Evergreen sites.

Evergreen Utilities Moved to github

I have made a clone of my Evergreen ILS Perl and SQL utilities on github. The new location is https://github.com/Dyrcona/evergreen_utilities. If you have been using these utilities, you may want to change your remotes to the new location.

I can't say how long the repository will be available at the old location, but as far as I know there are no plans to take it down any time soon.

I will have another post ready shortly that explains a recent update to the utility that builds a spreadsheet of your circulation and holds parameters.

Evergreen 2.9.0 Upgrade Script Problem

Chris Sharp, of Georgia Pines, detected a problem with the upgrade from Evergreen 2.8.4 to 2.9.0.  It would fail because of a table being modified while data was being also being inserted into it.

This problem has been corrected and a new release uploaded to the public download server: http://evergreen-ils.org/egdownloads/

If you have already downloaded Evergreen 2.9.0 from that location and plan to upgrade, you must download it again or the upgrade will fail.

If you are planning to upgrade using git, the public repositories have been updated, so doing a git pull will get you the fixed upgrade script.

As the release manager for 2.9, I apologize for any inconvenience this causes.


In my defence, this is the largest upgrade script in Evergreen history so far.

Evergreen 2.9 Release Candidate Available

Thanks to the efforts of dozens of community members, Evergreen 2.9-rc release candidate was released today. Please download it and have a go at testing.

The release candidate contains fixes for the following bugs since the beta release:

Fines are not calculating until after circulation is closed

remove legacy_script_support from sample SIPServer configuration

authority data may be deleted during propagation with current values of authority.control_set_authority_field

WARNING for Penalty.pm during make install

The final release of Evergreen 2.9.0 is scheduled to coincide with the next monthly update releases of the 2.8 and 2.7 Evergreen series in two weeks on Wednesday, September 16, 2015.

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.

Evergreen 2.9-alpha Release Postponed

As release manage for the Evergreen 2.9 release, I decided to postpone yesterday's planned alpha release pending some resolution of two new Launchpad bugs:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1479107

https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1479110

Both of these affect the conditional negative balances features, and I thought it better to wait for some progress on those fronts rather than releasing something that will change quite a bit in behavior in a few weeks.

Furthermore, the release notes for the conditional negative balance feature have not been rolled out, yet, as those notes also depend upon what happens with the above two bugs.

Evergreen 2.9 RM Update: Goodbye Scripted Circ and Hold Rules

This update is to inform everyone that your humble Evergreen 2.9 release manager has pushed Bill Erickson's code branch to remove JavaScript circulation and hold rules in preparation for the 2.9 alpha release later this month. This means that if your site currently uses the JavaScript circulation and hold rules, you must switch to in-database circulation and hold parameters when you upgrade to Evergreen 2.9.

The plans to eliminate the JavaScript circulation and hold rules have been in the works for some time. It was decided at the March 12, 2013 Evergreen developers' meeting to deprecate the feature in the upcoming 2.4 release and to tear it out by the 2.6 release. Unfortunately, this announcement did not make it into the release notes for 2.4.

A Launchpad bug was created in April of 2014 to track progress of this effort, and it was added as a goal to the 2.7 release roadmap. Removal of such a large feature takes time, and so the 2.7 and 2.8 releases came and went before the efforts were finally realized earlier this year. In keeping with the goals for the 2.9 release, I have tested and pushed this branch.

Many thanks go to Bill Erickson and to the others who have worked on this project. The elimination of JavaScript circulation and hold rules also removes several prerequisite modules from the Evergreen installation process. This lightens the load and makes Evergreen easier to install.

Coming soon, to a TPAC near you....

It is now finished.

Having received the approval from MassLNC, the project sponsors, I have pushed a cleaned up branch of the code to the Evergreen working repository and added a "pullrequest" tag to the LaunchPad bug.These are the first steps in getting something accepted into the official Evergreen code base. With any luck, this will make it into the 2.3.0 final release.

This project was generously funded by MassLNC.

Almost There

As the above screenshot shows, I basically have this working. There are a few rough edges to be smoothed over such as redirecting to the search page after adding a record to bookbag and making similar changes on the individual record view, but most of the hard stuff is finished. A couple of currently missing features still need to be implemented.

Looks like the work will definitely be finished by the July 1 deadline.

Some Progress to Show

I can report some progress on the add to permanent book list feature for TPac. There is now actually some code that does something visible in my repository.

So far, I believe I have worked out how to set a bookbag/list to be a patron's default list. When a logged in patron accesses their lists in TPac for the first time, they will see this:

You can see above that the patron in question, me, has no default list chosen. After clicking the "Make Default List" button next to the "My List" entry, the patron's list screen will look like this:

I know you are probably thinking, "That's it? What has he been doing for the past couple weeks?" "Working on other things," is the answer. I was hoping to get more time to work on this, but other things have come up. It should be done real soon, now, on the order of a week or two depending on how much free time I can steal at home.