[Koha-announce] someone knocks at the door. who is it ? It's koha 2.2.4 !

[Paul POULAIN]

http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=362377

RELEASE NOTES
=============

Koha is the 1st Open-Source Integrated Library System.
Released at first in New zealand, in 2000 januaray, it is maintained by 
a team of volunteers from around the globe, the Koha system is a full 
catalogue, opac, circulation and acquisitions system.

Koha 2.2 is more than 247 000 lines of code, developped by more than 30 
differents developpers (excluding translators).

With the 2.2 version, Koha is now a mature product, with a lot of nice 
features. It's used in more than 50 libraries, from all kinds (public, 
schools, search, religious...), of all size (from 1 to 8 branches, from 
1000 to 300 000 items).

Koha 2.2.4 should be the last release of the 2.2 branch with new 
features. Koha 2.2.5 should contain only bugfixes.
However, Koha 3.0 is already on the way and should give libraries a new 
great experience ;-)

========
WARNINGS
========
* The librarian interface is tested only with mozilla/firefox. Should 
work (partially) with IE. OPAC should work fine with any navigator.
* The installer is *wrong* on languages available. In this release, 
french & english are uptodate. Other language po files are provided in 
the package. If you update/complete one of them, please send it at 
paul.poulain @ free.fr, it will be included in a 2.2.4b release !

KNOWN BUGS :
******
Critical/blocking : none
see bugs.koha.org for more information. Please report any problem in 
bugs.koha.org

=======
DIFFS
=======
Diff 2.2.3 => 2.2.4
*******************

DB MODIFS :
***********

DB structure :
* field note added in serial table.
* field branchcode added in aqbookfund and aqbasket table.
*
DB content :
* systempref IndependantBranch added (see detail below)
* systempref ReturnBeforeExpiry added (see detail below)
* systempref Disable_Dictionary added (see detail below)

Koha opac stylesheets :
* no new stylesheet class, but the official stylesheet has been highly 
modified

BUGFIXES
=== CATALOGUING ===
* created a plugin & tools to manage the MARC leader.
* fixing a bug in subfield order when MARCgetbiblio
* adding some diacritic decoding (Ä, Ü...)
* removing -s parameter in z3950 client, as it does not work for FreeBSD 
servers
* Managing multiple URLs in normal view : if you type more than 1 URL in 
856$u (same field in both marc21 and unimarc!), the normal view will 
show multiple URL, not a single one with all urls concatenated.
* Fixing a bug in MARC editor for fields >200 characters.
* fixing a bug in MARC editor when there are more than 1 list of the 
same type (lang, branch...)

=== OPAC ===
* getting rid with "Internal Server Error" that happends when there is 
no stopwords
* Removing a 'request' button in opac-detail, that was here even if 
there was no items for loan
                
IMPROVEMENTS
=== ACQUISITION ===
* budget can now be branch dependant : when you define a bookfund, you 
can choose a branch. If you don't, the bookfund can be used by any 
librarian in acquisition. If you choose one, only a librarian from the 
branch can use this bookfund. Note that librarians with superlibrarian 
flag can always order from any bookfund.
* adding the number of orders & line count in acquisition history.
* if the library defines Asort1 or/and Asort2 (A for Acquisition) 
authorized values category, the free fields sort1 and sort2 will be a 
list containing what the authorized value category contains. If they are 
not defined, the behaviour does not change : the value in sort1 and 
sort2 is a standard input

=== CIRCULATION===
* added a ReturnBeforeExpiry systempreferences. If set to yes, then the 
returndate will be limited to the expirydate of the borrower card. If 
set to no, then the returndate can be after the expirydate of the 
borrowercard. This was the previous behaviour, but some libraries have 
expirydate that means "the student will leave the school at this date", 
so the return limit must be properly set.

=== CATALOGUE ===
* when displaying ISBN, - are automatically added where needed. 
(Internally, ISBN are sill without -)
* some graphic modifs in MARC view : colors & font weight + when a field 
has only 1 subfield, the subfield name & code is not repeated, as it is 
useless.

=== CATALOGUING ===
* getting rid with the limit "biblionumber & biblioitemnumber must be in 
the same tag". So, we can put biblionumber in 001 (field that has no 
subfields, so we can't also put biblioitemnumber in this field), and use 
biblionumber as identifier in the MARC biblio too.
* adding a script misc/migration_tools/build_authorities.pl to rebuild 
authorities after a bulkmarcimport. This script is highly faster & 
better than build_6xx.pl that is still here, but just for historic purposes.

=== MEMBERS ===
* adding the number of member & line count in searching members screen
* if the library defines Bsort1 or/and Bsort2 (B for Borrower) 
authorized values category, the free fields sort1 and sort2 will be a 
list containing what the authorized value category contains. If they are 
not defined, the behaviour does not change : the value in sort1 and 
sort2 is a standard input.

=== OPAC ===
* Adding reading history button when the user is identified.
* Adding page to let patron change it's password.
* Adding an 'exact search' checkbox in advanced search. Will search 
exactly what the user type.
* improving subject links for libraries with complex/complete authority 
management.
* Re-introduced exact search to do a search on terms exactly like the 
user type it.
* added volumdeddesc to result list, will be more friendly for books in 
X parts.
* added Disable_Dictionnary systempref. If set to yes, there is no more 
dictionnary button in OPAC.
* added SortItemsBy systempref.

=== SERIALS ===
* when recieving a serial, 2 options have been added (not issued & 
delete. Options added to waited, arrived, missing & late). Not issued 
means "book not issued, will never arrive at the library. "delete" 
deletes the entry. It's useful when you are waiting for Issue #511 and 
Issue #512 and recieve a Issue #511-512 : you change issue # for one of 
them & set "recieved" and delete the other.
* a note field has been added for each serial. You can use it to store 
some information on a given (waited/late) serial. For example, you can 
note "bookseller called on 8/21/05, serial will be sent next month".
* detailled history view ported from OPAC to librarian interface as well.
* the history view is ordered by year, but also by subscription, to see 
all issues of a given subscription at once.
* the feature to delete a subscription ONLY when no issues has been done 
has been removed : you can delete a subscription at any time (it deletes 
issues & history as well, be careful when deleting ;-) )

=== SYSTEM PREFERENCES ===
* adding tabs to systempreferences screen : displaying preferences 
category by category (admin, acquisition, authorities, catalogue, 
circulation, members, OPAC and others). That makes systempreferences 
system easier to use
* Adding a "IndependantBranch" systempref. If you select it, then your 
branches are considered as independant, and the librarians from a branch 
can't change things from another branch :
	- items owned by branch A can't be modified/deleted by a librarian from 
branch B
	- items, bookfunds and borrower created by a librarian can only be 
attached to it's own branch
	- borrowers from a branch A can't be modified/deleted by a librarian 
from branch B
Note that issues are not concerned by this limit : a borrower from 
branch A can issue/return book from anywhere and, of course, transferts 
can always be done too.
Also remember that librarians with superlibrarian privilege can alway 
work on every branch

=== ALL ==
* adding a small image with Koha egg to have the egg in window title bar 
& get rid with those pesky "can't find favicon.gif" in apache logs.


--
Paul POULAIN
Consultant indépendant en logiciels libres
responsable francophone de koha (SIGB libre http://www.koha-fr.org)