[Koha] [Koha-devel] Announcing Koha 3.0 (RC1)

Thu Jun 26 23:16:44 NZST 2008

As you may have heard, we have been working on a manual for the new
version of Koha.  In the true spirit of open source, we are providing
you access to this document as we work on editing it.  We hope that
this document will help you as you prepare for the newest release of
Koha.

As you skim the documentation you will find some documents with
missing information or notes for editors (usually denoted in blue), as
we get closer to completing this guide, you will see fewer and fewer
of these.

You will also notice that some documents on the Table of Contents are
not linked, this is because we have yet to start working on these
documents.

Lastly, we have added some notations to keep track of documents that
have been edited.  You will see characters like asterisks (*) and
exclamation points (!) in front of links on the Table of Contents,
these are so that we can keep track of where we are and have nothing
to do with the contents of the document.

You can access this document
here;:http://sites.google.com/a/liblime.com/koha-manual/Home . If you
have any questions or comments feel free to send them to Nicole Engard
at nce at liblime.com.

I am on vacation right now and have a lot of editing to do based on
the hundreds of emails I have waiting - but wanted to get this out to
you all now.  My hope is that we can put this up on the Plone
documentation site that will allow for easy translations and tracking
of changes.  For now it's on the LibLime domain while we wait for that
new site to be put up.

-- 
Nicole C. Engard
Open Source Evangelist, LibLime
(888) Koha ILS (564-2457) ext. 714
nce at liblime.com
AIM/Y!/Skype: nengard

http://liblime.com
http://blogs.liblime.com/open-sesame/

On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 12:15 PM, Joshua Ferraro <jmf at liblime.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm happy to announce that a packaged RC1 release of Koha 3 is now
> available. You can download from the usual location:
>
> http://download.koha.org/koha-3.00.00-stableRC1.tar.gz
> http://download.koha.org/koha-3.00.00-stableRC1.tar.gz.sig
>
> You can check the integrity of the package; either by verifying the provided
> GPG signature (.sig) or by comparing the MD5 checksum:
>
> 5cc0914c5e8250c2491f4dbcf27d4301  koha-3.00.00-stableRC1.tar.gz
>
> I've also tagged this in Git as "version 3.00.00 stableRC1" v3.00.00-stableRC1
>
> This is the third packaged release of Koha 3. Prior to the official stable
> release of Koha 3.0, translations will be updated; additional issues and bugs
> may be be addressed. A list of these are documented on Koha's Bugzilla:
>
> http://bugs.koha.org
>
> and organized on the 3.0 RM's QA notes Wiki page:
>
> http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=en:development:qanotes3.0
>
> The release notes for this RC1 version are pasted in below, and will also
> on the koha.org website sometime soon.
>
> Cheers,
>
> --
> Joshua Ferraro
> Koha 3.0 Release Manager
>
> ==============================================================================
> RELEASE NOTES FOR KOHA 3.0 RC1
> ==============================================================================
> Koha 3 is the next-generation release of the award-winning Koha open-source
> integrated library system.
>
> You can obtain Koha 3.0 RC1 from the following URL:
>
> http://download.koha.org/koha-3.00.00-stableRC1.tar.gz
>
> These Release Notes cover What's New in Koha 3, information about the new
> Revision control system (Git), and Version-release process, pointers to
> Download, Installation, and Upgrade documentation, a brief introduction to the
> new Templates, a call to Translation and Documentation writers, and finally,
> Known Issues with this version.
>
> ==============================================================================
> WHAT'S NEW IN KOHA 3?
> ==============================================================================
>
> 1. Zebra plugin - Zebra is a high-performance, general-purpose structured
> text indexing and retrieval engine. It supports large data sets (tens of
> millions of records) and includes support for SRU, Z39.50 and several query
> languages: CCL, CQL, and PQF. For more information about Zebra, please see:
>
> http://indexdata.dk/zebra
>
> Koha's new search engine, built on top of Zebra, supports features such as
> relevance ranking, field weighting, truncation, stemming, use of fuzzy
> operators, language-specific indexing, sorting, etc.
>
> Indexes are updated in real-time with circulation transactions, enabling
> limits by availability and statuses.
>
> Faceted refine-by limits are available from both staff and opac interfaces.
>
> For libraries that don't want the overhead of maintaing Zebra, Koha 3 ships
> with a NoZebra option, in which bibliographic and authority data is indexed
> in the RDBMS.
>
> 2. New installer - based on the common Perl module ExtUtils::MakeMaker, the
> new installer makes it a snap to get Koha running on just about any platform.
>
> The installer comes complete with a Developer's Toolkit target ('dev') that
> can be used to get a development environment linked directly to revision
> control, to support rapid prototyping and an agile development process.
>
> 3. Standard APIs - Koha 3 supports a number of important library search and
> retrieval standards and microformats, such as SRU/W, Z39.50
> (http://www.loc.gov/standards/sru/), UnAPI (http://unapi.info/) and
> COinS/OpenURL
> (http://ocoins.info; http://www.niso.org/committees/committee_ax.html).
>
> Also supported is the popular Internet standard: OpenSearch
> (http://opensearch.a9.com/) created by Amazon's A9.
>
> Records are stored internally in an SGML-like format and can be retrieved in
> MARCXML, Dublin Core, MODS, RSS, Atom, RDF-DC, SRW-DC, OAI-DC, and EndNote;
> and the OPAC can be used by citation tools such as Zotero. Creating new
> export formats is a trivial exercise in writing XSLT; records can be passed
> through XSLT transformations either directly out of the index, or via a
> separate parsing function.
>
> To retrieve and interact with Circulation and Patron data, Koha 3 includes
> support for 3M's Standard Interchange Protocol (SIP2), using the OpenNCIP
> libraries (http://openncip.org).
>
> There are also an ever-expanding set of native REST APIs to handle
> interoperability with external tools such as third-party cataloging clients.
> These APIs provide authentication as well as add/edit/delete control over
> bibliographic data within a Koha system. For more information, see:
>
> http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=en:development:web_services
>
> Koha 3 also includes pluggable authentication - easy integration with LDAP and
> Active Directory via the Auth_with_ldap module.
>
> The Amazon.com module can be enabled to enrich bibliographic data with jacket
> covers, professional reviews, ratings and comments from Amazon users, as well
> as point to 'Similar Items' within the catalog. OCLC's xISBN, and
> LibraryThing's ThingISBN can likewise be enabled to provide an 'Editions' tab
> on item detail pages. New with Koha 3 is service throttling for these services,
> to keep within subscription limits.
>
> 4. Cross-platform, multi-RDBMS, Web-server agnostic - Run Koha on the platform
> of your choice: Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Solaris. Koha 3 also
> includes better support for multi-RDBMS (MySQL 5.0 and PostgreSQL), and runs
> under Apache2, IIS, or the web server of your choosing.
>
> 5. Multi-lingual support - Koha was designed from the ground up for multilingual
> libraries. Koha 3 can handle Chinese, Japanese, and even right-to-left languages
> such as Arabic and Hebrew with ease (BiDi).
>
> Koha's index engine (Zebra) can handle record formats containing any UNICODE
> compliant script, such as Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese and Korean. Zebra
> has this support via the ICU libraries created and maintained by IBM.
>
> You can translate Koha into your language using the built-in translation tools,
> or by visiting http://translate.koha.org.
>
> 6. New templates - Koha's staff and patron interfaces are developed with a
> template system that's easy to theme. The default templates are composed of 100%
> valid XHTML and CSS. Koha aims to meet or exceed U.S. Government Section 508 and
> W3C's WAI-AA standards for sight and motor impaired individuals. All
> Javascript usage comes with fallback modes that work in any web browser.
>
> 7. Koha 3 has quite a few new modules, as well as enhancements to existing
> modules, including: news writer, label creator, calendar, OPAC comments, MARC
> staging and overlay, notices, transaction logs, guided reports with a data
> dictionary and task scheduler, classification sources/filing rules.
>
> ==============================================================================
> REVISION CONTROL
> ==============================================================================
>
> With Koha 3, we've started using a new distributed revision control system
> called Git; it's the same system in use by many other projects, including the
> Linux Kernel. To learn more about how to develop Koha using Git, please see
> the Wiki page:
>
> http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=en:development:git_usage
>
> ==============================================================================
> VERSION NUMBERING
> ==============================================================================
>
> With Koha 3, version numbering has been changed to use a method similar to
> Perl's:
>
> major.minor[.revision[.build]]
>
>  * major:    one digit
>  * minor:    two-digit
>  * revision: two-digit
>  * build:    three-digit
>
> This release of Koha 3.0 is versioned 3.00.00.092. Every database change
> or significant enough code change requires an update to the 'build' number,
> and developers will be able to easily upgrade their systems using the built-in
> updater.
>
> Koha 3.0 Release Schedule:
>
> This release of Koha 3.0 includes the following general improvements over
> the beta release:
>
>  * General Bugfixing (everyone)
>  * New messaging enhancements (acmoore)
>  * Lots of nomenclature cleanup
>  * New testing suite (acmoore and gmcharlt)
>  * SIP2 and LDAP fixes (atz)
>  * Improved I18N/L10N, lang detection (kados)
>  * Additional translations
>  * Lots more, consult git.koha.org for the complete changelog
>
> This release candidate of Koha 3.0 will be followed by a stable release.
> Subsequent releases of 3.0 will be bugfix releases, and won't include any new
> features.
>
> New features will be available in Koha 3.2 and subsequent releases.
>
> ==============================================================================
> UPGRADING FROM A PREVIOUS VERSION OF KOHA
> ==============================================================================
>
> The upgrade process from a previous version of Koha is documented on the Wiki
> at the following page:
>
> Upgrading from 2.2 or earlier version:
>
> http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=22_to_30
>
> Upgrading from a previous version of 3.0:
>
> Please consult INSTALL files for details on how to upgrade
>
> ==============================================================================
> TEMPLATES
> ==============================================================================
>
> You may have heard that the templates for Koha 3 have been re-skinned; there
> is also the start of a template style guide on the Wiki:
>
> http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=en:documentation:templates_style_guide
>
> Kudos to Owen Leonard and the Nelsonville Public Library for their
> contributions!
>
> ==============================================================================
> TRANSLATIONS
> ==============================================================================
>
> Koha 3.0 (this release) currently has complete translations for the following
> languages:
>
> OPAC: de-DE (German), el-GR (Greek), es-ES (Spanish), en (English),
> fr-FR (French)
>   hu-HU (Hungarian), it-IT (Italian), pt-PT (Portuguese), tr-TR (Turkish),
>   ru-RU (Russian), uk-UA (Ukranian)
>   zh-Hans-CN (Simplified Chinese in China), zh-Hans-TW (Simplified
> Chinese in Taiwan)
>
> Staff Client fr-FR (French), en (English), hy-Armn (Armenian),
>   ru-RU (Russian), uk-UA (Ukranian)
>   zh-Hans-CN (Simplified Chinese in China), zh-Hans-TW (Simplified
> Chinese in Taiwan)
>
> Additionally, Koha 3 (this release) has partial translations for the following
> languages:
>
> OPAC: am-Ethi (Amharic), bg-Cyrl (Bulgarian), fa-Arab (Persian), fi-FI (Finnish)
>   gl (Galego), he-Hebr (Hebrew), id-ID (Indonesian), ja-Japn (Japanese),
>   kn-Knda (kannada), ko-Kore (Korean), mi-NZ (Maori), pl-PL (Polish),
>   tet (Tetum)
>
> Staff Client: de-DE (German), el-EL (Greek), es-ES (Spanish), hu-HU (Hungarian),
>   ja-Japn (Japanese), tr-TR (Turkish),
>
> The Koha Team welcomes additional translations; please see
> http://www.kohadocs.org/usersguide/apb.html for information about
> translating Koha, and join the koha-translate list to volunteer:
>
> http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/koha-translate
>
> ==============================================================================
> DOCUMENTATION
> ==============================================================================
>
> User-contributed documentation for Koha 3 is available on the Koha Wiki
> (http://wiki.koha.org). The Koha Team welcomes documentation contributions;
> please join the Koha-devel list to volunteer:
>
> http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel
>
> ==============================================================================
> KNOWN ISSUES
> ==============================================================================
>
> Known bugs are documented on the Koha wiki: http://bugs.koha.org and at the
> 3.0 RM's QA notes Wiki page:
>
> http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=en:development:qanotes3.0
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