Koha 3.2 Alpha Around the Corner

by Nicole C. on Feb 2, 2010

This message came over the Koha mailing list today from our release manager, Galen Charlton. In short, Koha 3.2 Alpha will be available for download by the end of the week!!!

I have tagged v3.02.00-alpha in Git, thereby kicking off the alpha period for 3.2. The corresponding DB revision is 3.01.00.111; I’ll switch the DBrev to 3.02.00.000 for the beta. I will prepare a tarball tomorrow.

At this point, 3.2 is feature complete and development should now be in pure bugfixing mode. Only the following types of patches will be accepted for inclusion in 3.2, starting now:

• bugfixes
• translations, including a mechanism to translate the new system preference editor
• documentation improvements
• necessary forward ports to preserve enhancements that were added to 3.0.x but which were not submitted to HEAD.

I reserve the release manager’s prerogative to bring in a few more minor enhancement patches that have already been submitted, and also reserve the right to add in one more enhancement I promised a library – permitting bibs to be cataloged without requiring any use or generation of authority records. However, if that should prove too unstable, I will not consider that last enhancement a blocker for the general release of 3.2.

At this point, my criteria for moving to beta are as follows:

• all HEAD and 3.2 blocker bugs are resolved, recategorized, or intentionally targeted for 3.4.
• we have proof of a clean upgrade path from 3.0.0 to 3.2.0.
• we have proof of a clean upgrade path from 3.0.5/6 to 3.2.0 – because of the numerous functionality enhancements in the 3.0.x series, this upgrade path is definitely distinct from the path originating in 3.0.0.
• we have a completely clean pass of all test cases on (at least) Debian Lenny.

Regarding management of branches in git.koha-community.org repository, I intend to start a 3.2.x branch and have bugfixes patches flow from HEAD to 3.2.x. I recommend that patches meant for inclusion in 3.4 be applied to a new 3.4-future topic branch, but leave final word on that up to Chris.

Translators can consider a soft string freeze to be in effect – string changes to fix en-US typos will be accepted, but by and large strings should now be stable.

I’m working on full release notes, but notable improvements in 3.2 include but are not limited to:

• A revamped acquisitions module
• An improved system preference editor
• Improved patron card and item label creator
• email checkout slips
• branch transfer limits
• support for Syndetics, LibraryThing, and Babeltheque enhanced content
• improvements in Koha’s ability to express circulation policies

Some other improvements (made by BibLibre, sponsored by Aix-Marseille universities)

• bulk item editing
• cart ported to staff interface
• CSV profiles and cart CSV export
• fines in days (in France it’s very common -much much much more common than fines in ‚Ǩ- : you’re late X days, you’re debarred X days)
• inventory/stocktaking rewritten
• Detailled circulation policies improvements :
  • hold policies are now on the branch/itemtype/categorycode level : “a student can reserve 3 books at Aix. A teacher can reserve 5 serials at Marseille”
  • renewal policies are now on the branch/itemtype/categorycode level : “a student can renew once books issued at Aix. A teacher can renew 3 times books issued at Marseille”

As with any alpha release, 3.2-alpha is *not* recommend for use in a production environment.

This is all very exciting – and as someone who have been writing the manual as work on 3.2 continued I have to say there are some really awesome improvements to Koha coming!

[tags]koha[/tags]