Koha 3.4.x Release Notes

by Nicole C. on Jun 9, 2011

Several librarians have come to me and said that the release notes are great, but they don’t understand them. So I thought I’d enhance the release notes for Koha 3.4 and 3.4.1 with links to the related manual pages (where applicable). Hopefully this will help you find the new features in the newest releases of Koha.

New features in 3.4.0
======================

ACQUISITIONS:

• Can filter budgets by active status and date on the acquisitions homepage
• Can create multiple orders from a staged MARC file (Video Tutorial)
• Warning when ordering from an external source when a catalogue record already exists
• Currency can be set when ordering

ADMINISTRATION

• Many additional granular permissions are added
• Ability to replace the favicon from within the admin interface (OpacFavicon and IntranetFavicon)
• Ability to import and export MARC frameworks (Tutorial Video)
• Separate field for library state/province
• WYSIWYG editor for Koha News
• Ability to add news items to slips (Tutorial Video)
• Label batch edit interface allows entry of items by scanning barcodes
• Can choose the MARC framework when importing records

CATALOGING

• NORMARC support added (Cataloging standard in Norway)
• Edits to Authority records are now logged
• 005 field updated when a Biblio or Authority record is edited (This means that when you save a marc record the 005 is automatically updated to include the date and time you saved the record.)
• Added edit record/edit items to the search result if logged in user has cataloguing privileges (You’ll see some new links on the search results in the staff client for these)
• Add support of record linking by record control number in $w
• 006/008 plugins much improved

CIRCULATION

• Callnumbers are displayed when an item is checked in
• Waiting holds now show the date they were marked waiting
• Show guarantees checkouts when checking out to a guarantor and vice versa
• Show holds waiting for a patron on check in
• New report wizard for Holds
• Syspref to disable the ability for borrowers to choose their pickup library for holds
• Self Checkout supports login
• Ability to set ‘hard’ due dates, which will not allow items to be checked out past that
• Printed receipts can now include the library phone, address and other fields
• Fast Add framework at circulation (Tutorial Video)
• Ability to define due dates in the past
• Checkin page now lists fines owed by patron
• Preferences for defining the fine level when a staff override is needed
• Search to Hold feature (Tutorial Video)

OPAC

• New system preference added to allow the librarians to hide items from the OPAC. See docs/opac/OpacHiddenItems.txt for more information
• Authority display improved in OPAC
• Allow the patron to choose which library they wish to make a purchase suggestion for
• Added the ability to hide the name of a reviewer/commenter in the OPAC
• CSS/HTML and other UI improvements
• Lists respect the XSLT bibliographic display preferences
• Truncation of facets now controllable by a system preference
• Can use 856$u to store an image URI which Koha can then display in the OPAC
• User can renew multiple items at once
• A new librarian-controlled column added to the ‘My Summary’ page on the OPAC (Tutorial Video)
• Recent comments view for the OPAC (allow users to see recently reviewed items) (Tutorial Video)
• Feature to make the OPAC private (allow only logged in users to search/view items)
• Ability to edit what displays when no results are found
• Privacy feature allowing the user to specify when their reading (or circulation) records are anonymised (Tutorial Video)
• opacstylesheet can link to a url anywhere, not just a local file

PATRONS

• Separate field for state/province
• Ability to duplicate a Patron
• Print overdue and hold notices for patrons without email addresses

REPORTS

• Run a report immediately after creation (Tutorial Video)
• The list of saved reports has pagination and can be sorted (Tutorial Video)
• SQL formatting improvements when viewing a report
• Parameters can be set in guided reports (Tutorial Video)

SEARCHING

• NoZebra mode is officially deprecated.
• Added shelf location to the indexes
• Added a search link for analytics to serial records
• Subjects can now search complete subfields (TraceCompleteSubfields and TraceSubjectSubdivisions)
• MARC21 tag 751 (geographical entry) is now searchable
• UNIMARC EAN/UPC/Music fields added to the indices
• usecontrolnumber syspref allows you to link the 78X fields to other names of the same serial

SERIALS

• 50 bugs fixed in serials management 5508

STAFF INTERFACE

• Enumchron added to the biblio detail page
• Improvements to suggestion management
• Can use 856$u to store an image URI which Koha can then display in the staff interface (Display856uAsImage and OPACDisplay856uAsImage)
• Cart is emptied when a user logs out
• IntranetUserCSS preference added to allow styling of staff interface

INTERFACE

• New icon set for itemtypes (Nimes)
• LibLime kids iconset resized to consistent size
• Seshat itemtype iconset added (Naropa College)
• CSS classes added to the XSLT results to enable styling

INTERNATIONALIZATION

• New initialization SQL files for Norwegian

INTERNALS, PACKAGING AND PERFORMANCE

• Koha now uses Template::Toolkit rather than HTML::Template::Pro
• Improvements to test case coverage
• .packages file for Ubuntu Maverick
• Testing using Test::Perl::Critic
• CGI::Session can now be stored in Memcached
• mod_deflate added to save bandwidth
• Move items out of biblioitems

COMMAND LINE UTILITIES

• Script to update all items and biblio
• Script to set and get system preferences from the command line

BUGFIXES

• Approximately 633 tracked bugs and enhancement requests are addressed in this release

System Preferences
======================

The following system preferences are new in 3.4.0:

• AllFinesNeedOverride
• AllowFineOverride
• AllowPurchaseSuggestionBranchChoice
• AllowSelfCheckReturns
• AlternateHoldingsField
• AlternateHoldingsSeparator
• AuthoritiesLog
• COinSinOPACResults
• Display856uAsImage
• displayFacetCount
• FacetLabelTruncationLength
• FineNotifyAtCheckin
• HoldNotifyAtCheckin
• IntranetFavicon
• IntranetUserCSS
• itemBarcodeInputFilter
• maxItemsInSearchResults
• maxRecordsForFacets
• OPACAllowUserToChooseBranch
• OPACDisplay856uAsImage
• OpacFavicon
• OpacHiddenItems
• OPACMySummaryHTML
• OPACNoResultsFound
• OpacPrivacy
• OpacPublic
• SelfCheckHelpMessage
• SelfCheckTimeout
• ShowReviewer
• StaffAuthorisedValueImages
• TraceCompleteSubfields
• TraceSubjectSubdivisions
• UseAuthoritiesForTracings
• UseControlNumber
• UseTablesortForCirc
• WaitingNotifyAtCheckin

Highlights of 3.4.1
======================

• 5995 Glitch with checkauth
• 6001 batchRebuildBiblioTables.pl crashes when GetMarcBiblio fails.
• 6257 MARC documentation links cause javascript error
• 6263 shelf browser doesn’t work in 3.4
• 6265 Search for records linked to an authority not exact in OPAC
• 6282 HomeOrHoldingBranchReturn syspref missing from *.pref file

Bugs fixed in 3.4.1
======================

• 2941 Transfers cannot be canceled once initiated.
• 3543 Spine labels – NLM call numbers not splitting
• 5445 Acq: No way back to order from z39.50 result page
• 6153 Imprint subfields displayed out of order on OPAC
• 6194 Empty Parens on Serials pages
• 6295 misaligned columns in opac suggestions list
• 6320 Generate Next button doesn’t generate next issue
• 3202 Creating new “child” category patrons – library not defaulting to the correct branch
• 6152 Authority-zebra-indexdefs.xsl should indicate it’s automatically generated
• 6218 patron login gets an initial dot added when no first name
• 6228 Show active currency in system preferences
• 6330 holds saying on hold ‘until’ instead of ‘since’
• 6315 depreciation warnings in C4::Serials in new perls
• 6312 login/password shouldn’t be labeled as ‘opac’