VuFind® Change Log

When adding a new release, see the release checklist.

New features:

• Rendering of search results has been improved to take advantage of Javascript where available for a more responsive and accessible user experience. This functionality is on by default but can be disabled if unwanted; see pull request #2929.
• Persistent logins (“remember me” functionality) can now be optionally enabled.
• An optional “explain” feature can now be enabled in Solr-based search backends to visually explain relevance ranking of individual search results; see pull request #3069 for details.
• On-screen virtual keyboards can now be enabled through searchbox.ini if needed; see pull request #2952 for more details.
• The user interface for browsing full facet lists now includes a “filter” text input when the underlying index supports filtering functionality. In this release, only Solr facets with translation disabled are supported. See pull request #2991 for more details.
• Favorite lists now support multi-page selection (i.e. checkbox states persist across multiple pages of results) for bulk actions; this new option is enabled by default but can be disabled. See pull request #3142 for details.
• Translation strings can now optionally use the ICU MessageFormatter syntax to allow more sophisticated conditional translation (e.g. to handle plural forms); see pull request #3286 for details.
• The content, order and behavior of the user account menu can now be customized using the new AccountMenu.yaml configuration file. See pull request #3415 for details.
• The new Databases recommendation module can be used to display links to external databases based on facet values found in search results. It is primarily designed for use with EDS and LibGuides, but it is adaptable to other scenarios. See pull request #3160 for details.
• The new ConsortialVuFind recommendation module can be enabled to search a third-party VuFind® instance using the public API in order to display additional results. See pull request #3270 for details.
• Pagination controls can now optionally be added at the top of search result screens via the new top_paginator setting. See pull request #3034 for details.
• There is now an option to use Solr's “direct” spellchecker instead of the index-based spellchecker; see the dictionaries setting in the [Spelling] section of config.ini (and pull request #3547) for more details.
• Bound-with records can now be displayed in holdings using data retrieved from the ILS (where supported – currently only in FOLIO).
• The new [HiddenSorting] section of backend-specific configuration files (searches.ini, etc.) makes it possible to enable sort options without adding them to the user-facing sort control, for use cases where sort options are valuable in direct links but not through the user interface. See pull request #3237 for details.
• The new Composed ILS driver can be used to pull together functionality from multiple drivers to represent a single system. See pull request #3112 for details.
• The “new items” search can now use a different default sort than other search types, and it can be configured to display facet values for pre-filtering. See pull request #3269 for details.
• When using EZProxy, you can now control which URLs get prefixed and which do not via a web service like ezproxy-url-checker; see pull request #3199 for details.
• The RecordDataFormatter now supports a dataMethodParams configuration option which can be used to pass arguments to the dataMethod. See pull request #3189.
• The RecordDataFormatter can now be configured via RecordDataFormatter.ini, allowing customization of record views without code changes. See pull request #3193.
• The Primo module now supports display of citation/cited-by lists for eligible records.
• There is now a contentsecuritypolicy.ini section for enabling NEL (Network Error Logging) headers. See pull request #3593 for details.
• Deep searching within nested collections can now be enabled with some extra indexing and the new search_container_id_field setting. See the Hierarchies and Collections page and pull request #3182 for more details.
• It is now possible to create an aliases.ini file within a language directory to set up translation aliases; see pull request #3249 for details.
• Language names are now internationalized by default (in facets and record displays); see pull request #3200 for details.
• Māori language support has been added to the user interface.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• The minimum PHP version requirement has been raised to 8.1, as earlier versions are no longer supported by the PHP community. Please make sure your server is running a supported version before upgrading.
• A full reindex of the Solr index is required due to the upgrade to Solr 9.5.0; it will also allow you to take advantage of changes to the schema. See the index schema changelog for details.
• Be sure to run a database upgrade to reflect table changes (see also the database changelog).
• The default theme has been changed from bootprint3 to sandal; the bootprint3 theme will eventually be retired, so if you are using it as the foundation for your local theme, you should consider revisions.
• The new load_results_with_js setting is on by default for all search backends to improve the user search experience. This causes some changes to the user interface, most significantly changing the summary at the top of the search results to include navigation buttons and more concise text. If necessary, this behavior can be changed via settings added to searches.ini and other backend-specific configuration files in pull request #2929.
• The isLoggedIn() method of \VuFind\Auth\Manager and \VuFind\View\Helper\Root\Auth has been deprecated, since returning an object from a method with a Boolean name was potentially confusing. You should use getIdentity() or getUserObject() instead. Use getIdentity() if you only need a basic login status from the RBAC system; use getUserObject if you need to interact with VuFind®-specific user properties.
• The \VuFind\Db\Entity\UserEntityInterface has been introduced as an abstraction to reduce dependence on any specific database framework. Several constructors and methods with \VuFind\Db\Row\User typehints have been updated to use the new interface instead. See pull request #3478, pull request #3500 and pull request #3605 for details.
• Code related to encryption of passwords has been refactored to the \VuFind\Auth\ILSAuthenticator. The getCatPassword() and encryptOrDecrypt() methods of \VuFind\Db\Row\User have been deprecated. Several constructor signatures have changed (\VuFind\Auth\CAS, \VuFind\Auth\ILSAuthenticator, \VuFind\Auth\LDAP, \VuFind\Auth\Shibboleth, \VuFind\Auth\SimulatedSSO, \VuFind\OAuth2\Entity\UserEntity and \VuFind\OAuth2\Repository\IdentityRepository). See pull request #3537 for details.
• Adjustments have been made to both code and configuration to support changing standards around Content Security Policy violation reporting. If you use the report-to[] setting in contentsecuritypolicy.ini, adjustments will be needed. Additionally, the \VuFind\Security\CspHeaderGenerator::getHeader() method has been deprecated. See pull request #3591 for details.
• The \VuFind\Search\QueryAdapter and related query minification/deminification logic has been significantly refactored to eliminate static methods and improve customizeability. This impacts \VuFind\Search\Base\Params, VuFind\Search\Base\Results and their subclasses and \VuFind\Search\Minified as well as the aforementioned QueryAdapter. Since this code was previously difficult to customize, this probably has limited impact on custom code, but if you have customized logic in these areas, see pull request #3358 for details.
• Javascript code driving the autocomplete feature has been refactored and moved from common.js to searchbox_controls.js. If you have customized this code, adjustments will be needed. See pull request #3064 for details.
• The past_days translation string has been revised to use ICU MessageFormatter syntax, and the Yesterday translation has been removed as redundant; if you use or have overridden these translation strings, you will need to make local adjustments. See pull request #3286 for details.
• Some redundant bulk-action-related language strings have been simplified and replaced with aliases (mostly those starting with “bookbag_”); other such strings have been renamed (from a “_selected” suffix to a “bulk_” prefix). If you have customized these strings, adjustments may be needed. See pull request #3239 for details.
• Language strings related to saved items have been renamed and consolidated; the old strings “Favorites”, “My Favorites” and “Your Favorites” have been removed in favor of “default_list_title” and “saved_items”. If you customized any of those old strings, you should move your customizations to the new keys. See pull request #3489 for details.
• The getResultTotal() method of Results objects can now return a -1 value, indicating that a result total cannot be determined (for example, when processing combined search results). If you have custom code using this value, you may need to add handling for this special case.
• The SearchTabs view helper has been significantly simplified and refactored; local customizations may need to be adjusted to match. See pull request #3309 for details.
• Primo Central users are strongly encouraged to switch the api setting in Primo.ini from “legacy” to “rest” to take advantage of newer and more reliable APIs. The legacy connectors will be removed in the next release. See pull request #3255 for details.
• The language translation map used for indexing MARC records has been updated to use labels from the latest MARC standards. You should reindex all of your MARC records to ensure index consistency (and up-to-date language names). See pull request #2933 for details.
• Refactoring of the post-login redirect system has led to the replacement of the \VuFind\Controller\AbstractBase::getFollowupUrl() method with \VuFind\Controller\AbstractBase::getAndClearFollowupUrl(). If you have code that relies on the old method, please review pull request #2941 and adjust it accordingly.
• \VuFind\Auth\Manager has had some minor backward-breaking changes that may require updates to local subclasses or custom code.
  • The constructor signature has changed to accommodate the new LoginTokenManager used by persistent logins.
  • The protected updateUser() method now has a required second argument; see pull request #3432.
• The constructor signatures of the CartController and MyResearchController have been adjusted to reduce direct dependency on the ServiceLocator. Custom subclasses may require adjustments. See pull request #3239 for details.
• Some code has been reorganized to prepare for future database library upgrades.
  • \VuFind\RecordDriver\AbstractBase::addTags() has been deprecated in favor of \VuFind\Db\Service\TagService::addTagsToRecord()
  • \VuFind\RecordDriver\AbstractBase::deleteTags() has been deprecated in favor of \VuFind\Db\Service\TagService::deleteTagsFromRecord()
• The record versions functionality has been simplified for consistency and maintainability. If you have customized any functionality related to versions, adjustments may be needed. See pull request #3295 and #3300 for full details; significant highlights:
  • The \VuFind\Record\VersionsHelper and \VuFindSearch\Command\WorkExpressionsCommand classes are no longer needed and have been removed.
  • The \VuFindSearch\Feature\WorkExpressionsInterface and its implementation in \VuFindSearch\Backend\Solr\Backend are no longer needed and have been removed.
  • Some methods/method signatures have changed in \VuFindSearch\Query\WorkKeysQuery.
  • Links to versions of records that are not found in the Solr index (i.e. legacy links to deleted records) will no longer work.
• The ProxyManager library is no longer being maintained, so code relying upon it has been refactored. This has resulted in changes to the constructor signatures of \VuFind\Auth\ILSAuthenticator and \VuFind\Auth\Manager and to the behavior of \VuFind\Auth\ILSAuthenticatorFactory, \VuFind\Log\LoggerFactory and \VuFind\Session\SecureDelegatorFactory. See pull request #3343 and pull request #3390 for details.
• A new SearchSettings view helper has been introduced to simplify template logic related to the display of checkboxes for the cart and bulk actions. See pull request #3292 for details.
• Some logic has been refactored from \VuFind\Controller\CombinedController into \VuFind\Search\Combined\Options to improve encapsulation. As a result, the constructor signature of the Options class has changed. See pull request #3292 for details.
• The signature of \VuFind\Search\SolrCollection\Params::initFromRecordDriver() has changed; if you have customized this in a subclass, you will need to adjust your method to match. See pull request #3182 for more details.
• The \VuFindSearch\Backend\EDS\SearchRequestModel::endsWith() method has been removed, as it can now be replaced by the native PHP str_ends_with() function. Please switch to str_ends_with() if you were using this method in custom code.
• Code related to displaying hierarchies of collections has been significantly revised and simplified. If you have custom tree-related code, it will likely need revision. See pull request #3277 for full details. Highlights:
  • jsTree is no longer used to render hierarchies and has been removed from the codebase.
  • The JSTree TreeRenderer class has been replaced by a new HTMLTree class.
  • XML hierarchy file support has been removed; all tree data is now stored and processed using JSON.
  • Tree-related styles have been completely rewritten.
• Code related to displaying hierarchical facets has been significantly simplified to eliminate the use of jsTree; if you have customized this code, local changes may be needed. See pull request #3046. Updates include constructor signature changes to \VuFind\AjaxHandler\GetSideFacets and \VuFind\Recommend\FavoriteFacets.
• The signature of \VuFindSearch\Backend\Solr\QueryBuilderInterface::build() has been expanded; custom query builder classes may require adjustment. See pull request #3590.
• The signature of \VuFindSearch\Backend\Solr\QueryBuilder::checkParamConditions() has changed. In the unlikely event that you use or extend this method, changes will be required. See pull request #3590.
• The constructor signature for \VuFind\View\Helper\Root\ProxyUrl has changed; local custom subclasses may require adjustments. See pull request #3199 for details.
• Error handling has been simplified in \VuFind\Controller\AjaxController to reduce the likelihood of errors getting missed; AJAX calls are now more likely to fail in development mode when PHP warnings or notices occur during processing, but this should help catch problems earlier instead of concealing them. See pull request #3267 for details.
• The \VuFind\Search\Base\Options::supportsFirstLastNavigation() method has been deprecated in favor of the more clearly-named recordFirstLastNavigationEnabled() method. The supporting protected $firstlastNavigation property has been removed. Custom code leveraging this code will need to be adjusted; see pull request #3404 for details.
• The signature and input of \VuFind\ILS\Driver\Folio::formatHoldingItem have changed slightly; see pull request #3094 and make adjustments if you locally extend or utilize this method.
• The \VuFind\Bootstrapper::initLocaleAndTimeZone() method has been renamed to initTimeZone(), since local initialization is no longer necessary. See pull request #3526 for details.
• Some constructor typehints have been broadened from \Laminas\Cache\Storage\Adapter\AbstractAdapter to \Laminas\Cache\Storage\StorageInterface. This change impacts \VuFind\Recommend\LibGuidesProfile, \View\Helper\Root\ProxyUrl and \VuFindSearch\Backend\EDS. See pull request #3369.
• The CspNonce view helper has been deprecated in favor of the getNonce method in the Csp view helper, and it will be removed in release 11. The Csp view helper's constructor signature has changed to support this merger. In the unlikely event that you use or modify this helper in custom code, adjustments may be needed. See pull request #3392.
• The alphabetical browse handler has been significantly updated; if you use a custom build of the handler or if you have modified the index-alphabetic-browse scripts, adjustments may be needed
  • The project layout, code and build process have been modernized to use more up-to-date Java conventions, and Leech classes have been renamed to use more standardized terminology. See pull request vufind-browse-handler#48 for details.
  • The index-alphabetic-browse scripts have been updated to use renamed options and classes (see pull request #3253 for details).
  • Some deprecated methods (org.vufind.solr.handler.BibDB::matchingIDs, org.vufind.solr.handler::getIds and org.vufind.solr.handler::setIds) have been removed; see pull request vufind-browse-handler#49.
• The signatures of the \VuFind\Controller\ContentController::getViewFor*() methods have been changed to improve flexibility; in the unlikely event that you have changed/extended these, see pull request #3452 for necessary adjustments.
• Javascript code no longer uses DOM CustomEvents, and event names have been revised. See pull request #3361 if you have custom code that interacts with internal events; it will need to be revised based on these changes.
• The .offcanvas CSS class in the bootstrap3 theme has been renamed to .vufind-offcanvas to prevent conflicts with an .offcanvas class introduced in newer versions of Bootstrap. If you rely on or customize this class in custom code, please adjust accordingly. See pull request #3484 for details.
• The constructor signature of \VuFind\Controller\OAuth2Controller has been adjusted to remove the \LmcRbacMvc\Service\AuthorizationService object, which was not used or needed.
• Code deprecated in release 9.x has now been removed:
  • \VuFind\Auth\AbstractBase::getCannedPasswordPolicyHint() - use getCannedPolicyHint() instead.
  • \VuFind\Recommend\SearchObject - use AbstractSearchObject instead.
  • \VuFind\Search\Solr\InjectHighlightingListener::onSearchPost() - see pull request #3610.
  • \VuFindSearch\Backend\EDS\Backend::debugPrint() and \VuFindSearch\Backend\EDS\Base::debugPrint() - use debug() instead.
• Submit inputs named “submit” have been renamed to “submitButton” to avoid side effects caused by using a reserved word as a name; the CAPTCHA processing code now looks for this new name by default (but maintains backward compatibility with the old name). It is strongly recommended that you update any forms you have built or customized to use submitButton instead of submit.
• The protected \VuFindTheme\ThemeInfo::mergeWithoutOverride() method has been renamed, refactored and moved into \VuFind\Feature\MergeRecursiveTrait::mergeRecursive() for easier reuse. In the unlikely event that you have custom code relying on this method, minor adjustments will be needed; see pull request #3417 for details.
• The \VuFind\View\Helper\Root\RecordDataFormatter\SpecBuilder::setDefaultPrioritizeAlt() method was removed as it is superseded by RecordDataFormatter.ini functionality; this method was introduced in release 9.1 and never used in core code, so the removal is unlikely to affect anyone.
• Historically, the event system has used a mix of “VuFindSearch” and “VuFind\Search” to namespace search-related events. While these old names will still be supported for backward compatibility, it is now recommended that you use \VuFindSearch\Service::class (the class name of the search service) as the event namespace for consistency. See pull request #3497 for details.
• Javascript initialization has been revised and refactored for reduced redundancy and greater flexibility. Significant changes that could impact backward compatibility include refactoring additional logic from search/results.phtml into search/results-scripts.phtml and moving the initResultScripts Javascript function from combined-search.js into common.js. See pull request #2878 for details.
• The “Favorites” controller plug-in now depends on \VuFind\Favorites\FavoritesService, and \VuFind\Favorites\FavoritesService::getListObject is now public, to reduce redundancy. See pull request #2887 for details.
• The \VuFind\View\Helper\Root\RecordDataFormatter class now accepts a configuration object through its constructor; in the unlikely event that you have a custom subclass with a constructor, it will need to be adjusted to match.
• The “tag” help screen was removed, because it was no longer linked anywhere, and the content was out of date. See pull request #3174.

• Minor bug fix release.
• A bug fix to the conditional filter listener required a change to the constructor signature of \VuFind\Search\Solr\InjectConditionalFilterListener (and associated factory code). See pull request #3513 for details.
• The \VuFind\Search\Solr\InjectHighlightingListener::onSearchPost() method has been deprecated, and its functionality has been refactored to \VuFind\RecordDriver\PluginManager and \VuFindSearch\Backend\Solr\Response\Json\RecordCollectionFactory in order to address a bug in highlighting blended searches. See #3614 for details.
• Fixes to date range handling required signature changes to several methods in \VuFind\Search\Base\Params: formatDateForFullDateRange(), formatValueForNumericRange() and formatYearForDateRange(). In the unlikely event that you have extended these methods, adjustments may be needed. See pull request #3465 for details.
• Fixes to the switch_db_hash command line utility required a change to the constructor signature of \VuFindConsole\Command\Util\SwitchDbHashCommand. In the extremely unlikely situation that you have overridden this constructor, adjustments will be needed. See pull request #3476 for details.
• Due to changes in the phpCAS library, users of CAS authentication are encouraged to populate the service_base_url[] setting in the [CAS] section of config.ini. The log setting in the same configuration section is no longer supported and has been removed; CAS messages will now be sent to the standard configured logger.

• Minor bug fix / translation improvement release.
• Adds support for FOLIO's new RTR authentication mechanism (disabled by default until the feature is more widely available; see the legacy_authentication setting in Folio.ini)
• Includes the addition of Mongolian as a new interface language.
• All translations of the tree_search_limit_reached_html string have been adjusted to remove the outgoing link. This rarely-seen link was invalid and has not worked correctly at any point in the project's history, so removing it seemed like the most appropriate solution. See pull request #3274 for details.
• Some method signatures changed as part of a bug fix to the LocalFile cover handler. In the very unlikely situation that you have customized this code, adjustments may be needed. See pull request #3337.
• If you utilize the cover image proxy (most likely only true for Summon users), make sure that the coverproxyAllowedHosts setting in config.ini is set correctly. See pull request #3385 for details.

New features:

• The EBSCO Publication Finder is now supported as a search backend (requires a valid EBSCO subscription).
• Blended Search now supports advanced search.
• Added support for the getUrlsForRecord ILS driver method (currently implemented for KohaRest and the Demo driver).
• Users can now view all of their proxy relationships through the Profile page (if supported by the ILS driver). See pull request #3006.
• Added support for the purgeTransactionHistory ILS driver method (currently implemented for KohaRest, SierraRest and the Demo driver).
• ILS drivers can now report an “uncertain” status in addition to the traditional true/false availability status values. This new feature is currently supported by the Alma and Demo drivers. See the locationTypeItemStatus setting in Alma.ini for related configuration.
• The import-marc.sh ingest script can now accept multiple MARC files in a single call to reduce overhead of starting up SolrMarc. In Linux, the harvest/batch-import-marc.sh script now takes advantage of this by default, adding a -x switch to set the number of files to index per call to SolrMarc. See pull request #2995 for details.
• The util/deletes command line script now supports an –id-prefix option to prefix the IDs of records being deleted.
• Combined search has been enhanced with some new configuration settings to allow the optional inclusion of advanced search links in combined search results (see pull request #3099), to better retain the order of sections on small screens (see pull request #3077), to display side recommendations (see pull request #3135) and to display a “jump menu” at the top of the page (see pull request #3083).
• A new LibGuidesAZ search backend has been added to search Database A-Z lists stored in LibGuides; this serves as a complement to the existing LibGuides search backend, which allows search of regular guides in LibGuides. See pull request #2860 for details.
• It is now possible to configure custom Solr highlighting parameters. See pull request #2927 for details.
• Custom scripts can now be set up to run via the Maintenance page of the Admin module (optional, disabled by default, and permission-controlled). See pull request #2866 for details.
• When records are displayed based on using the record cache in “fallback” mode, a warning message is now displayed. See pull request #2886 for details.
• Turning on debug mode in config.ini now displays ALL messages, not just debug-level messages, to assist with troubleshooting of errors.
• File-based caching can now be disabled by default if desired (see the disabled setting in the [Cache] section of config.ini). Additionally, context-specific caching override settings have been introduced for some services (see pull request #2659 for details).
• It is now possible to add a DirLocations.ini file to the root of a local settings directory in order to customize some of its behavior (adjusting path to configuration files, inheriting from parent directories). See pull request #2947 for details.
• When search tabs are enabled and hidden filters do not match any tab configurations, a “Custom Search” tab will be displayed. This behavior can be disabled by customizing the temporary_search_tab_title translation string to be empty. See pull request #2908.
• A special “debug” language code is now supported to reveal raw language strings in the user interface for troubleshooting and development purposes. See Troubleshooting Language Strings and pull request #3015 for more details.
• It is now optionally possible to include usernames in system-generated logs for diagnostic purposes (off by default – see pull request #3156).
• Sierra users can now configure mappings for patron block codes in SierraRest.ini (see pull request #2856).
• FOLIO users should be aware that the holding_id field in ILS driver responses has been renamed to holdings_id; the original name was a typographical error. Since this data field was not used for anything internally by the driver, the change should not impact users unless they have customized something. Local Folio.ini files should be updated to correct the field name in the HMACKeys setting. See pull request #3101 for details. A similar fix for Alma has been applied in pull request #3102, but this is more careful to retain backward-compatibility since the holding_id value is more likely to be used in production under Alma than FOLIO.
• When indexing course reserves, the FOLIO driver will now exclude suppressed records by default (but this behavior can be changed via Folio.ini). See pull request #2935 for details.
• The new fallback_languages setting can be used to prioritize where translations are found when they are missing from the currently selected language. See pull request #2891 for details.
• Theme configuration now optionally supports multiple favicons (to allow for more than one size); see pull request #2862.
• The installation process now supports selection of a custom Solr port (see pull request #2962).
• Syndetics cover images can now be configured so that the Syndetics-generated placeholder images are only shown when the user “opts in” with the use_syndetics_cover_image_fallback cover setting. This way, if Syndetics has no available image, other configured cover providers will be used.
• The new “LibGuidesProfile” recommendation module can display librarian information from LibGuides; see pull request #2977.
• Updated SolrMarc indexer (version 3.5).
• New interface translation: Northern Sámi.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• Solr has been upgraded to release 9.3.0. A full reindex will be necessary.
• The upgraded version of SolrMarc now interprets translation maps as UTF-8 instead of Latin-1/ISO-8859-1. This new behavior is more consistent with the rest of the project, but it means that if you have local translation maps containing non-ASCII characters, they will need to have their formats converted – e.g. with iconv -f LATIN1 -t UTF-8 my-map.properties > my-map.properties.
• In order to reconcile inconsistent alphabetical title browse and title sort functionality, some changes had to be made to the way the title_sort field is populated by the XML indexer. If you use alphabetical browse or title sorting and index XML records, you may need to adjust any local custom XSLT sheets. See pull request #3024 for details.
• The URL used for establishing an EBSCO Discovery Service session is now a configurable setting in EDS.ini. If you are using a non-standard api_url setting in EDS.ini, you may need to adjust the new session_url setting to match it.
• As part of the update to add advanced search, the Blended Search logic has been moved to its own controller and the old Search/Blended route has been deprecated (though it still works). If you have customized anything related to the old route or SearchController::blendedAction, it will need to be updated. See pull request #3068 for details.
• Hierarchical facet displays have been significantly revised to address accessibility problems with jsTree; if you have customized styles or implementation related to hierarchical facets, adjustments will likely be needed. See pull request #3047 for details.
• Escaping of dynamic values in the icon helper was previously done inconsistently and could cause problems in some rare edge cases. This has been fixed by pull request #3084, which makes some significant changes to all icon-helper-related templates. In the relatively unlikely situation that you have customized these templates or extended the icon helper itself, you should review these changes and make local adjustments to match.
• Some language file parsing/normalization logic and translation strings have been adjusted for compatibility with the Lokalise service. If you have custom language files, you may wish to run the command line normalization tool on them and check whether you have overridden any impacted keys. More details:
  • Purely numeric language file keys are now enclosed in single quotes; see pull request #3044.
  • The “Export to” translation string has been replaced by “export_to”, which includes a target token. The previous version of the translation string relied on whitespace in the translation file and concatenation in templates, which made proper translation more difficult.
• The “with_selected” translation string has been removed, as its use in checkbox/button interfaces was inconsistently applied and confusing. If you have a local template that uses this string, you should adjust your template or reintroduce it as a local custom string. See pull request #2978.
• The system for retrieving alternate record versions from Solr has been revised to fix a bug related to large numbers of keys and to improve performance; see pull request #3087 for details.
• The signature of \VuFind\Auth\EmailAuthenticator::sendAuthenticationLink has been changed as part of a bug fix. In the unlikely event that you have customized this method or use it in custom code, adjustments may be needed. See pull request #3030.
• Some functionality of the laminas-mail library has been locally overridden to compensate for an upstream bug that will not be fixed by the package maintainers. If you encounter problems sending email, please review pull request #3060 in case it is related.
• The hash_passwords setting in config.ini is now set to “true” by default. The normal installation process has always changed this setting from “false” to “true” as part of the “security fix” step, but it originally defaulted to false for backward compatibility with release 1.x. Since direct migration from version 1.x to 9.x is extremely unlikely, the default has been changed to reduce the chances of accidental misconfiguration. If for some reason you have this set to false in your configuration, please use the web-based install tool's security fix option to correct it and hash existing passwords. The normal web-based upgrade process will automatically prompt you to take this action if necessary.
• A few minor changes have been introduced to the EBSCO Discovery Service backend, which will only impact users who have customized low-level code in that service:
  • \VuFind\Search\EDS\Params::createBackendFilterParameters has been refactored to \VuFind\Search\EDS\AbstractParams and has had its second parameter ($options) removed, as it was not used for anything.
  • The edsApiHost property in \VuFindSearch\Backend\EDS\Base has been renamed to apiHost.
  • The facet_limit setting in EDS.ini has been removed, as it never had any effect due to limitations in the EDS API.
  • debugPrint methods have been deprecated, and the debug method should be used instead for logging debug messages (debugPrint is retained for backward compatibility now but will be removed in release 10.0)
• The Google, Orb and Syndetics cover image handlers have been refactored to add caching support, with some impact to their factories and internal methods. In the unlikely situation that you have extended these services, see pull request #2659 and pull request #3154 for details and adjust your local code to match.
• Cart popover displays have been adjusted for validity/accessibility, with minor impact on associated Javascript and styles; see pull request #2838.
• Custom styles associated with the optional cookie consent feature have been significantly refactored; see pull request #2909.
• The GetItemStatuses AjaxHandler has been significantly revised to support a broader range of statuses. See pull request #2857 for details.
• Historic transaction functionality has been refactored to a separate CheckoutsController, and some associated templates and routes have been renamed. Old routes and URLs will redirect to the new ones for backward compatibility, but if you have modified the MyResearchController::historicloansAction() or the myresearch/historicloans.phtml template, you will need to move your changes. See pull request #2779.
• OCLC has shut down the WorldCatIdentities API without providing a replacement, so the WorldCatIdentities recommendation module has been removed from the code along with the supporting \VuFind\Connection\WorldCatUtils class and the \VuFind\Autocomplete\OCLCIdentities handler. Existing configuration referring to WorldCatIdentities or OCLCIdentities should be removed for the sake of efficiency, but it should not break anything, due to aliasing to the “deprecated” recommendation module and the “none” autocomplete handler. Additionally, any custom code that refers to the WorldCatUtils class will need to be removed, as the functionality of this class is no longer supported by OCLC.
• The Alma driver's constructor signature and factory configuration have changed, and its internal availability status logic has been significantly revised. See pull request #2857 for details.
• Improvements to the SierraRest driver have introduced some changes that could impact local custom subclasses: the HOLDINGS_LINE_NUMBER constant has been replaced with HOLDINGS_LOCATION_FIELD; the signatures of the getBibRecord and getItemStatusesForBib methods have changed; and the itemHoldAllowed method has been merged into the isHoldable method (whose signature has also changed). See pull request #2921 for details.
• The bootstrap-custom.css file has been removed from the bootstrap3 theme; this was provided as an example, but it was never used and had grown out of date, so it has been deleted to prevent confusion.
• The \VuFind\Service\ReCaptcha class had to be rewritten for compatibility with the latest release of the laminas-recaptcha component. In the very unlikely situation that you locally extend this class, you will need to make adjustments. See pull request #2911 for details.
• The \VuFind\Recommend\SearchObject class has been deprecated and will be removed in release 10.0; please use \VuFind\Recommend\AbstractSearchObject instead.
• Various templates have had minor accessibility improvements applied. When upgrading, it is strongly recommended that you synchronize these changes to your local templates. See the Upgrading VuFind® Using Git video (or the resources linked from that page) for a possible approach to automating this process.
• Stamen maps have been removed from the examples in geofeatures.ini, as this service has been discontinued. If you are using these maps, see the Stamen x Stadia page.

Press Release

Video Summary

• Minor bug fix release.
• A bug fix to the ChannelsController changes the constructor signature to address an omission; if you have customized this controller or its factory, local adjustments may be needed. See pull request #2989.
• Adds a new “OperatorToFieldPrefix” view helper as part of a bug fix (see pull request #2992).
• The graphical icon used for facet exclusion in the bootprint3 theme has been changed back to a font-based icon matching the bootstrap3/sandal themes for aesthetic reasons including alignment problems (see pull request #2996).

• Minor bug fix release.
• Adds a new “Session” view helper as part of a bug fix (see pull request #2926 for details).
• Eliminates log4j 1.x from SolrMarc to prevent false-positive vulnerability detection.

• Bug fix release: corrects problems with Blowfish encryption migration discovered immediately following the release of 9.0. Please use this version instead of 9.0 if you are switching your encryption method!

New features:

• Support for Blended Search, which can combine results from multiple search backends into a single list.
• Support for a cookie consent dialog box (disabled by default).
• Support for user-provided star ratings of records (off by default; see the rating setting in the [Social] section of config.ini).
• A new “interval” CAPTCHA handler has been added which can be used to restrict user access to specific features based on frequency of activity rather than on a specific input. Useful, for example, to limit the number of emails or text messages that can be sent in a single session.
• Support for proxy requests (i.e. one user places a hold for another user); currently FOLIO-only, but can be added to other compatible ILS systems in future.
• Support for configurable username policies to restrict account names created within the system. See pull request #2581 for details.
• Feedback forms can now be forwarded/persisted using Form Handler plugins. The pre-existing email-based functionality remains the default, but it is now also possible to store form submissions in the database or to build custom integrations.
• Feedback forms can now be configured to allow some fields to be pre-populated using URL query parameters.
• A new administrative module has been created for managing feedback results stored in the database. See pull request #2399 for details.
• Support for using Koha local cover images as a cover image source.
• Support for activating Google Tag Manager via configuration; see pull request #2637 for details.
• The EDS and Primo backends now support facet value filtering, similar to the pre-existing functionality for Solr (see the [HideFacetValue] and [ShowFacetValue] sections in EDS.ini and Primo.ini for details).
• The EDS and Primo backends now support search response caching for improved performance (see the [SearchCache] section in EDS.ini and Primo.ini for details).
• Support for storing MARC records in MARC-in-JSON format in the Solr index.
• The staff view for MARC records can be configured to also display indexed Solr fields (see pull request #2540).
• The new allowUserLogin setting in the [Catalog] section of config.ini can be turned off to disable direct end user login to the ILS; this can improve security in scenarios where user credentials are auto-loaded during authentication, and should never be input directly by the user.
• The new bypass_default_filters setting in the [AlphaBrowse] section of config.ini has been added to solve problems with confusing interactions between default filters and alphabetic browse functionality. This is now on by default, but should be turned off if your default filters include “inverted facets” that expand the result set when applied. See pull request #2538 for details.
• The BrowZine DOI linker plugin now supports the display of retraction notices.
• An administrative API endpoint (featuring cache-clearing functionality) has been added.
• YAML configuration files can now be set up to inherit specific keys from their parents; see Configuration File Inheritance for details.
• Support has been added for using VuFind® as an OAuth2 and OpenID Connect Authorization Server (OIDC Provider). Please see the configuration page for additional information and prerequisites.
• Example import configuration has been added for ingesting XML harvested from SubjectsPlus.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• VuFind® now requires PHP 7.4.1 or newer; please make sure you have an appropriate version installed before upgrading.
  • Note that while PHP 7.4 is supported, PHP 8.0 or newer is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED, as PHP 7 is no longer being supported. The next release (9.1) will fully drop support for PHP 7.
  • To use the new OAuth2 / OpenID Connect functionality, the PHP Sodium extension is also now required.
• The version of Solr bundled in VuFind® now requires Java 11 or newer.
• VuFind® has dropped support for Apache 2.2. Your httpd-vufind.conf file can be simplified as long as you use Apache 2.4 or newer; see pull request #2577.
• Be sure to run a database upgrade to reflect table changes (see also the database changelog).
• Some indexing and dependency changes require a full reindex:
  • Solr has been upgraded to release 9.1.1. You MUST reindex all records to avoid encountering errors related to highlighting within the author/author_variant fields (see pull request #2695 for details).
  • Deprecated Solr fields have been removed. See the index schema changelog for more details.
  • VuFind®'s SolrMarc configuration now populates Solr's fullrecord field using MARC-in-JSON format instead of binary MARC format. This solves problems caused by records exceeding binary MARC's 99,999-character limit, but it introduces an incompatibility with earlier VuFind® releases. If you want a backward-compatible solution, you can customize marc_local.properties to use MARCXML instead.
  • The FormatCalculator SolrMarc custom indexing class has been revised to detect formats more accurately. If you have created a custom subclass of the FormatCalculator, please note that there have been method signature changes to getFormatFromBibLevel, getFormatFromRecordType and isElectronic, plus the getTypeOfComputerFile method has been removed. If you use a custom translation map, note that the FormatCalculator has several new possible output values which you may wish to customize in your map. See pull request #2412 for details.
• Because of the upgrade to Solr 9, Solr will now only bind to “localhost” by default. If you need to connect to Solr from another machine using a hostname, you should set the SOLR_JETTY_HOST environment variable prior to starting Solr. See Taking Solr to Production for more details.
• Blowfish encryption algorithms are deprecated in OpenSSL 3.0, and VuFind® has changed its default encryption method to reflect this. If you have legacy encrypted data (ILS credentials) in your database, you should convert it to a supported method. VuFind®'s web-based upgrade tool will guide you through this, so be sure to access it as part of your upgrade process.
• The PHP-based LESS compiler has been removed due to compatibility problems; “grunt less” is now the only way to compile LESS, and the entire “less” section (including the “active” setting) has been removed from theme.config.php. See the LESS / SASS page for more details.
• The Hunt library is no longer used by themes and has been replaced with the browser-native IntersectionObserver. If you rely on Hunt or have customized functionality related to dynamic data loading into search results, you will likely need to adjust local code – see pull request #2447.
• The global checkSaveStatuses / checkSaveStatusesCallback Javascript functions from check_save_statuses.js have been refactored into the new VuFind.saveStatuses module (to reduce global functions). See pull request #2844.
• To increase flexibility, record drivers can now differentiate between a “source identifier” (the backend where the record resides) and a “search backend identifier” (the backend used to find the record). This distinction makes it possible to have “virtual” search backends which pull data from multiple sources. Supporting this required several changes which may need to be reflected in local custom code:
  • The setSourceIdentifier record driver and record collection methods have been deprecated in favor of setSourceIdentifiers, which allows both IDs to be set. The legacy method will set both IDs to the same value for backward compatibility. These changes affect any classes implementing VuFindSearch\Response\RecordCollectionInterface or VuFindSearch\Response\RecordInterface. The changes have been implemented in VuFindSearch\Response\AbstractRecordCollection and VuFindSearch\Response\RecordTrait for easy reuse.
  • Record controllers (i.e. VuFind\Controller\AbstractRecord and its children) have replaced the $searchClassId property with $sourceId.
• Facet processing has been adjusted to maintain a consistent internal format between the EDS, Primo and Solr backends, with standard processing taking place in the \VuFind\Search\Base\Results class. This simplifies the work of the Blender backend and better conforms to VuFind®'s internal documentation. The changes are most significant in Solr, where the \VuFindSearch\Backend\Solr\Response\Json\Facets class has been removed and replaced by additional methods on \VuFindSearch\Backend\Solr\Response\Json\RecordCollection. Note that some other backends (most notably Summon) still use non-standard facet processing and are presently incompatible with Blender. This may be corrected in a future release. (See pull request #2372).
• The default configuration now includes a username policy that prevents the inclusion of exotic characters. This can be made more or less restrictive through configuration; see pull request #2581. Note that this will not impact existing users or usernames in your system; it will just prevent the creation of new ones that do not match the pattern.
• In support of refactoring related to username policies, VuFind\Auth\AbstractBase::getCannedPasswordPolicyHint has been deprecated and \VuFind\Auth\Database::validateUsernameAndPassword has been removed; if you have custom authentication code relying upon these methods, it should be adjusted.
• The \VuFind\Config\Locator class has been deprecated in favor of a new \VuFind\Config\PathResolver class. Whereas Locator was accessed statically, making some code hard to test or customize, the PathResolver is a full-fledged VuFind® service that can be overridden or extended. This change has resulted in adjustments to the internals of \VuFind\Config\PluginFactory, \VuFind\Config\YamlReader, and other classes; see pull request #2568 for full details.
• Previous VuFind® releases suppressed the display of items without barcodes on the holdings tab of the record view. This restriction has now been lifted by default but can be reintroduced by turning off the display_items_without_barcodes setting in config.ini.
• Record links can now optionally include a search ID, which helps the system more reliably maintain context (e.g. when multiple open tabs are being used to search at the same time). Supporting this feature required a few backward-incompatible chnages: The constructors for \VuFind\RecordTab\CollectionList, \VuFind\Controller\Plugin\ResultScroller and \VuFind\Search\Memory have changed, as has the signature of the \VuFind\Search\Memory::rememberSearch method. Additionally, the recordLinker view helper now accepts a results object as a parameter so that it can add the necessary parameter to record links.
• Laminas no longer uses the deprecated container-interop interfaces for factories; it now uses psr-container instead. This means that all references to the Interop\Container namespace should be replaced with equivalent references to the Psr\Container interface (note that Interop\Container\Exception is replaced by Psr\Container\ContainerException). If you have local factories, or other code that references container interfaces, they should be updated to ensure forward-compatibility. See pull request #2445.
• The Ezb link resolver driver has been renamed to Jop to better reflect the branding of the underlying API. If you use or extend this driver, you should update your configuration and/or code. See pull request #2455.
• Methods and properties related to the HierarchicalFacetHelper have been refactored from \VuFind\Search\Solr\Results to \VuFind\Search\Base\Results, and a HierarchicalFacetHelperInterface has been defined to enable the possibility of consistent hierarchical facet processing across multiple backends. (See pull request #2372).
• Because of Google's migration from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4, the Google Analytics plug-in has been rewritten. If you use this, be sure to update your Google Analytics account to use a GA4 key, and if you rely on the create_options_js setting in config.ini, note that some option names may have changed – e.g. cookieFlags has become cookie_flags. See pull request #2402 for details.
• Code deprecated in release 8.0 has been fully removed:
  • \VuFind\Ils\Driver\CacheTrait has been removed; use \VuFind\Cache\CacheTrait instead.
  • The RecordLink view helper has been removed; use RecordLinker instead.
  • \VuFindSearch\Service::invoke() and the command pattern must be used for all search service calls; the legacy backward-compatibility helper methods have been removed (see the 8.0 changelog for more details).
• The icon system introduced in VuFind® 8.0 is now fully utilized in themes. Icons have been standardized and in some cases changed. Many obsolete styles have been removed. You may notice some minor changes to user interface appearance as a result, but it can all be configured through your local theme.config.php as needed. Additionally, links containing icons have been restructured with new CSS which may require markup changes in local templates; see pull request #2400.
• The constructor signature of \VuFind\View\Helper\Root\Icon has been changed to remove the dependency on the HeadLink helper. See pull request #1962 for details.
• The league/commonmark library used for Markdown rendering has been upgraded to a new major version (2.x). If you have customized markdown.ini or any code related to Markdown processing (particularly the League\CommonMark\MarkdownConverterInterface service, which has been renamed to League\CommonMark\ConverterInterface), you should review pull request #2048 to make sure appropriate adjustments are made.
• The \VuFind\Validator\Csrf class has been replaced by \VuFind\Validator\CsrfInterface + \VuFind\Validator\SessionCsrf to open the possibility of alternate CSRF implementations. If you have customized this class or written code which pulls it from the service manager, you may need to make some adjustments. See pull request #2201.
• The File_MARC dependency from PEAR has been replaced by a new VuFind\Marc library for improved performance and forward compatibility with newer PHP releases. This means that a significant amount of VuFind®'s MARC record processing logic has been revised, and you will have to update any related local subclasses. In particular:
  • The deprecated getMarcRecord() method in several record drivers has been removed (you should use getMarcReader() instead).
  • Some components of the WorldCat search backend have changed.
  • The command line tools for deleting records and linting MARC files have been revised.
• The internals of the VuFind\MarcReader class have been changed; see pull request #2334. In the unlikely situation that you have locally customized this code, you will need to make updates.
• All ILS drivers with a getConfig method have been standardized to use a consistent method signature. If you have customized this method in a local ILS driver, you should adjust your code to match. See pull request #2429.
• Search backend factories extended from AbstractSolrBackendFactory may need minor adjustments due to improvements to the design of configuration loading within the factories. The $solrCore property has been renamed to $defaultIndexName, and the getSolrCore() method has been renamed to getIndexName(). The getSolrUrl() method no longer accepts any parameters.
• The signature and behavior of \VuFind\ILS\Driver\AbstractAPI::makeRequest() has been changed for more consistent and reliable error handling; this impacts the FOLIO and GeniePlus ILS drivers; see pull request #2554 for details.
• During application initialization, VuFind® used to change the working directory to $VUFIND_HOME; code has now been refactored to avoid this, which simplifies some things. If your code relies on expecting a specific working directory, it may need to be adjusted, and if you have custom console commands that extend RelativeFileAwareCommand, they should be adjusted, since this base class is no longer needed. See pull request #2305.
• Two classes have been refactored to use the CurrencyFormatter service, which separates formatting logic from the SafeMoneyFormat view helper for improved reusability. If you have local changes to \VuFind\AjaxHandler\GetUserFines or \VuFind\View\Helper\Root\SafeMoneyFormat, you should review them. See pull request #2217 for details.
• The \VuFind\Controller\Plugin\AbstractRequestBase::getValidIds() method has been superseded by a validateIds() method. If you rely on the old method in custom code (a fairly unlikely situation), you will need to revise your code. See pull request #2206 for details.
• Feedback form processing has been significantly refactored; see pull request #2230 and pull request #2237.
• The signature of \VuFind\Db\Table\Search::saveSearch() has changed to accommodate a fix to prevent duplicate searches in history; see pull request #2460.
• The \VuFind\Search\UrlQueryHelper::buildQueryString() method has been made public and static for easier reuse; in the unlikely event that you have customized this method in a subclass, you will need to adjust your local code accordingly.
• The \VuFindSearch\Backend\Solr\Connector class has been revised: the HTTP client (or a factory function to create HTTP clients) is now a required constructor parameter (and constructor parameters have been reordered accordingly), plus the getTimeout() and setTimeout() methods have been removed in favor of the more flexible callWithHttpOptions() method. If you use the connector directly in custom code, you should review potentially affected logic. See pull request #2229 and pull request #2515 for details.
• Some translation strings have been renamed or split to reduce ambiguity; if you have customized the old strings in local language files, or if you use them in any custom templates/configurations, you will need to adjust your local files to use the appropriate new values. See #2598 for details; summary of changes:
  • “Find More” ⇒ footer_header_find_more
  • “Need Help?” ⇒ feedback_help_label / footer_header_need_help / link_text_need_help
  • “Search Options” ⇒ footer_header_search_options
  • “Send us your feedback!” ⇒ feedback_title
  • “Subject(s)” ⇒ deleted [no longer used/needed]
  • “Thank you for your feedback.” ⇒ feedback_response
• The \VuFind\Db\Table\ExpirationTrait has been revised to prevent a potential problem with infinite looping during database row expiration; if you have a custom class utilizing this trait, revisions will be necessary. See pull request #2450.
• Some function signatures have been more strictly typed based on PHPStan analysis (see pull request #2255, for example). If you have local code that extends core code, it is strongly recommended that you run PHPStan on it to make sure your signatures remain accurate and compatible.
• \VuFind\Search\Solr\HideFacetValueListener has been renamed to \VuFind\Search\Base\HideFacetValueListener, since it is no longer Solr-specific (it is now shared with EDS and Primo).
• The shell/batch scripts in $VUFIND_HOME/import/bin have been removed; these were part of SolrMarc 2.x and were deprecated with the release of SolrMarc 3. If you rely on any of these for your processes/workflows, you should find alternatives. For MARC import, everyone should already be using $VUFIND_HOME/import-marc.sh instead of the obsolete $VUFIND_HOME/import/bin/import.sh.
• The data provided by the GetUserFines AJAX handler has changed, using “total” instead of “value” for the element containing the sum of all fines; the associated logic in account_ajax.js has been adjusted to match. If you have customized anything related to this, please change local code to reflect the change.
• The DOILookup AJAX handler and the BrowZine DOI linker plugin have had their constructor signatures and factories changed; if you have customized either of them, adjustments may be needed. See pull request #2616 for details.
• If you use BrowZine, be sure to update your local BrowZine.ini to reflect the new [DOIServices] section added in pull request #2616; this supersedes the previous DOI “filters[]” setting and allows access to new functionality.
• If you use Git to track your local configuration files, note that changes to the default .gitignore file will prevent local configurations from being committed. See the note at the bottom of the Getting Started with Git documentation for a solution to this problem.
• The factory and constructor expectations for \VuFind\Search\EDS\Options have changed in order to support “on demand” API data retrieval for improved efficiency. If you have customized this code, changes may be needed; see pull request #2643 for details.
• The second parameter ($flatten) of \VuFindTheme\ThemeInfo::getMergedConfig() was not working correctly and has been removed; in the unlikely event that you wrote code which relied on this feature, you should review it. See pull request #2543 for details.
• The original database-driven Sierra ILS driver has been removed as it was no longer being maintained; Sierra users should use the API-based SierraRest driver instead.
• The Record Data Formatter view helper has been adjusted so that the record driver parameter can be passed to the helper invocation instead of as a parameter to the getData method, and this is now the preferred method of using the helper. However, support for the legacy style is retained for backward compatibility. See pull request #2658 for details.
• The book bag feature now requires browser Javascript support for add/remove functionality in result lists (see pull request #2477). Given current standards, this is part of a general move away from universal non-Javascript support.
• The CSS classes used for displaying counts of checkouts and requests in the account side menu have been renamed for clarity (.ok to .account-info; .warn to .account-warning; and .overdue to .account-alert). If you have customized these styles, you will need to make adjustments. See pull request #2481.
• The key generation rule for caching parsed YAML files has been changed to reduce the possibilities of collisions across instances; see pull request #2351.
• The API specification has been updated to use the OpenAPI 3.0.3 standard, and the Swagger UI tool included for API testing has been upgraded. The actual API interface and functionality has not changed (apart from additions noted above) and remains backward-compatible.
• Search backend factories have been refactored to improve extensibility; if you have custom factories, you should review the pull requests linked from VUFIND-1446; there may be opportunities to simplify your code.
• Some aspects of the VuFindApi module were refactored for greater flexibility when admin tools were added; see pull request #2219 for details. This only affects code internals, not the behavior of existing API endpoints.
• The non-tab record action handling in \VuFind\Route\RouteGenerator has been refactored to make it easier to add additional actions in local modules. If you have already customized these types of routes in your instance, adjustments may be needed or simplification may be possible; see pull request #2172.
• The include_facets setting in EDS.ini had no effect in the existing code and has been removed.

Press Release

Video Summary

• Upgrades to Solr 8.11.2, which includes further updates to Solr's bundled log4j library. You should reindex your records after upgrading due to the Solr version change.
• Also includes some other minor bug fixes.

• Minor bug fix/translation improvement release.
• FOLIO users are strongly encouraged to upgrade due to a significant bug fix.

New features:

• A new “custom Solr filters” feature makes it possible to define “inverted facets” which apply filters UNLESS the user applies a specific filter (e.g. if you want to exclude things by default but have an opt-in checkbox). This feature also makes it possible to define more complex checkbox filters without creating unwieldy URLs for the end user. See pull request #2340 and the [CustomFilters] section of facets.ini for more details.
• New fallback record loader to allow VuFind to look up Solr records based on previous IDs when current ID lookups fail (useful for compatibility with legacy URLs after a system migration); must be configured using the new fallback_id_field setting in searches.ini.
• Translated facet values can now be optionally configured to include both the raw and translated values together (see pull request #2352 for details). This can be useful for displaying results based on classification systems.
• Example configuration settings for importing CSV files exported from Scopus; see pull request #2345.
• New ILS driver: support for Lucidea's GeniePlus.
• New cover image service supported: Bokinfo.
• New interface translations: Armenian and Ukrainian.
• Minor accessibility improvements.
• Minor Solr schema additions.
• Improved compatibility with PHP 8.1.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• The default httpd-vufind.conf configuration for Apache has been changed to include a new public assets directory, which is required to apply styles to RSS feeds. It is strongly recommended that you update your local Apache configuration to match. See pull request #2385 for details.
• The “Loading…” message displayed in lightboxes has been visually improved to prevent formatting problems. If you have customized the lightbox Javascript code or your layout template, you should review the changes in pull request #2197 and make sure no incompatibilities have been introduced.
• For compatibility with PHP 8.1, some method signatures have had return types added in some classes implementing PHP standard interfaces. If you have extended any of the impacted classes, you will need to modify your custom code to match. See pull request #2423 for details. Impacted code:
  • Custom session handlers (\VuFind\Session namespace)
  • Solr response wrapper classes (\VuFindSearch\Backend\Solr\Response\Json namespace)
  • \VuFindSearch\Response\AbstractRecordCollection
  • \VuFind\Search\ParamBag (very unlikely to be locally customized)
• The Evergreen ILS driver had become outdated; it has been brought up to speed, but this required some backward-incompatible changes (including drop of support for Evergreen versions before 2.10). Evergreen users should review pull request #2203.
• The KohaRest ILS driver has had changes to its constructor signature to fix a problem related to the SafeMoneyFormatter view helper; it now relies on a new CurrencyFormatter service instead. See commit 8d70097 for details.
• The \VuFind\Record\FallbackLoader\SummonFactory has been replaced by \VuFind\Record\FallbackLoader\AbstractFallbackLoaderFactory. In the very unlikely situation that you rely on this in local code, you will need to use the new factory instead of the old one.
• The ConfigManager used by SolrMarc custom indexing Java has been revised to solve a thread-related bug (see VUFIND-1546). The getSanitizedConfigSection method has been deprecated, and the default behavior of getConfigSection has been changed to always sanitize values. If you have written custom indexing Java which utilizes the ConfigManager, you should review pull request #2376 and adjust your code if necessary.
• Language files and templates were adjusted slightly to improve internationalization of periods of ellipsis. In particular, the translation strings for “More EDS Results”, “More Summon Results”, and “Submitting” were updated to include periods of ellipsis in the language files instead of the templates. If you have customized these strings locally, you may need to review your customizations. See pull request #2381 for details.
• Some minor improvements to the accuracy of the FormatCalculator used during MARC indexing may result in slight changes to format assignment when you next reindex your records, particularly for component parts and electronic resources; see pull request #2403 and pull request #2408 for details.
• The signature of \VuFind\Search\Options\ViewOptionsTrait::initViewOptions() has changed slightly (to make the parameter nullable). In the unlikely event that you have overridden this method, your subclass may need to be adjusted to match. See pull request #2261.
• Default content security policy settings have been changed to improve compatibility with Safari; if you have enabled CSP enforcement, you should review pull request #2153 and consider adjusting your settings to match.
• The HTML title tag now includes the site title for improved accessibility. You should be sure that the title setting in the [Site] section of config.ini is appropriate. See comments above that setting for notes on how to customize this behavior.
• The MultiBackend ILS driver has been refactored significantly to simplify the code. In the unlikely situation that you have built a local subclass of this code, you should review pull request #2154 and make sure your code remains compatible. The biggest internal interface change is the replacement of methodSupported() with driverSupportsMethod().
• Print-related Javascript has been split from common.js into a new separate file, to make targeted customization easier (see pull request #2143). If you have a locally customized common.js, you should be sure to adjust it to match the upstream refactoring.

Press Release

• Minor bug fix release, addressing problems with session management (see VUFIND-1532) and long binary MARC records (see VUFIND-1534).

• Upgrades to Solr 8.11.1, which addresses multiple security vulnerabilities in Solr's bundled log4j library (see CVE-2021-44228). You should reindex your records after upgrading due to the Solr version change.
• Also includes some other minor bug fixes.

• Minor bug fix release.
• Note that this release adds a new dependency (the composer/semver library, used to fix a bug in version number comparison during the upgrade process); if you are manually upgrading via Git, don't forget to run “composer install.” If you are installing from a package, no extra action is necessary.
• Note that fixes to a problem with hierarchy tree displays in right-to-left languages required significant changes to some styles; if you have customized tree displays, you should review pull request #2151.

• Bug fix / improved translation release.
• Addresses “out of memory” errors caused by Laminas Cache under certain circumstances.

New features:

• It is now possible to import data directly to VuFind's Solr index from CSV files (to complement existing support for MARC and XML indexing).
• New “Bookplates” Related module for displaying bookplate images on the record view. See pull request #1834 for details.
• Significant performance improvements for internal handling of MARC records and search result rendering.
• Citation generation has been significantly updated and improved.
• Support for Matomo analytics (for use with Matomo 4 and up; the pre-existing Piwik support remains for legacy versions). See pull request #1943 for details.
• New (optional) SolrPrefix autocomplete handler for making suggestions through the edge n-gram tokenizer (see pull request #1850).
• Optional support for caching Solr query results (see pull request #1854).
• Sitemap generation has been improved to (optionally) include alternate-language versions of pages, as well as static content. See pull request #1904.
• Expanded holds functionality (for supporting ILS drivers): the ability to freeze holds until a start date, and the ability to edit fields in existing holds.
• Support for call number prefixes (which are displayed, but do not affect sorting/searching), for supporting ILS drivers.
• Improved support for rendering alternate-script versions of titles (and retrieving other data from MARC 880 fields).
• Improved handling of punctuation in author names in MARC records (with some new associated configuration settings); see pull request #2028 for details.
• More flexible Javascript configuration in theme.config.php, including better control over loading order, plus the ability to load Javascript in the page footer as well as the HTML header (see pull request #1863 and pull request #1799).
• There is now a [ShowFacets] setting in facets.ini which complements the [HideFacets] setting by making it possible to create a fixed list of legal facet values, for fields where only certain specific values are meant to be displayed. See pull request #2013 for details.
• Restored support for XHProf profiling (in addition to existing Tideways support).
• It is now possible to link multiple user library accounts from multiple Shibboleth IdP's; see Shibboleth and Library Cards and pull request #1823.
• The new GlobalExtraParams section in searchspecs.yaml makes it easier to configure custom boosts and other Solr parameters. See pull request #2104.
• The new “Content” view helper makes it easier to utilize VuFind's system for displaying internationalized content inside other templates; see Embedding Static Content for more details.
• Cover images can now be loaded from the Orb service (with an appropriate subscription); see pull request #1949.
• Cover images can now have associated attribution messages, when required by a provider (currently used for ObalkyKnih).
• The optional Memcache session handler now supports both of PHP's Memcache client libraries: \Memcache and \Memcached. Users can configure which one they prefer to use. See pull request #1945.
• All of the XML import example XSLT files have been updated to support both single-record and multi-record import. This means that if you are harvesting via OAI-PMH to index XML, you can turn on the combineRecords setting in oai.ini to save records in batches rather than as separate files, and your subsequent indexing should be significantly faster.
• The XSLT import examples have also been updated to make it significantly more convenient to enable change tracking support; see pull request #2100.
• Feedback forms have some minor improvements: overrideable email senders, date fields, and improved validation.
• Dewey indexing rules have been updated to use DDC 23 instead of DDC 22 by default (but DDC 22 mappings are retained for backward compatibility).
• VuFind now supports loading templates from modules as well as loading templates from themes; this will make it easier to build and distribute third-party VuFind plugins that can be loaded via Composer. See pull request #1424 for details.
• The new Icon view helper makes it easier to configure and customize icons used in the user interface; for this release, it is only being used for loading spinners, but future releases will leverage it more widely.
• Further improvements to accessibility.
• Further improvements to PHP 8 compatibility.
• Upgraded to Solr 8.9.0.
• Upgraded to SolrMarc 3.4.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• VuFind now requires PHP 7.3 or newer; please make sure you have an appropriate version installed before upgrading.
• VuFind has dropped support for MySQL versions earlier than 5.7.7 (or MariaDB 10.2.2); these versions have reached end of life and should no longer be used under any circumstances.
• MySQL/MariaDB databases will now be encoded using utf8mb4 instead of utfmb3, to allow compatibility with more characters; the database portion of the web-based upgrade process will correct this for you. Some key lengths have been reduced to accommodate the larger size of utf8mb4 characters; in the unlikely event that this introduces a problem to your database, the upgrade process will inform you with an error message.
• Legacy support for latin1-encoded MySQL databases (which was provided for compatibility with VuFind 1.x installations) has been removed. You must use utf8 encoding. In the very unlikely situation that you still have a VuFind 1.x database that you need to connect to, please upgrade to VuFind 7.x or earlier first, then migrate to VuFind 8.
• The Solr schema has changed, the Solr version has been upgraded, DDC call number mappings have been updated, and author indexing has been adjusted, so records MUST be reindexed after an upgrade. See the index schema changelog for more details.
• The Solr “split-on-whitespace” setting has been changed to true by default, to improve the accuracy of search results; however, this will cause problems if you use multi-word synonyms. See pull request #1937 for details on new configuration options if you need to restore the old behavior.
• VuFind now expects browsers to support ES6; see the browser support statement for details.
• Several changes have been made in relation to VuFind's caching layer (see pull request #2054):
  • The \VuFind\Cache\Storage\Adapter\NoCacheAdapter has been removed, because the core Laminas BlackHole adapter serves the same purpose.
  • Support for caching in APC has been removed, because APC is obsolete as of PHP 7.
  • Several deprecated storage adapters are no longer being installed through Composer (and were never needed to begin with).
  • The constructor signature of \VuFind\Cache\Manager has changed for compatibility with the latest release of the laminas-cache component.
• MARC record handling in record drivers has been refactored to use the faster VuFind\Marc\MarcReader instead of the File_MARC library; this has resulted in some changes to MARC-related support methods like getSubfieldArray(). If you have custom MARC handling in a local record driver, you may need to replace getMarcRecord() calls with getMarcReader() and adjust some other details. See pull request #1776 for details.
• Pre-existing record driver traits (HierarchyAwareTrait, IlsAwareTrait, MarcAdvancedTrait and MarcBasicTrait) have been moved into the VuFind\RecordDriver\Feature namespace (from VuFind\RecordDriver) to improve code organization; if you have a custom driver which incorporates these traits, you'll just need to adjust your use statements. See pull request #2008.
• Functions deprecated in earlier versions of VuFind have been removed; these include CallNumberTools::getFullCallNumber and CreatorTools::getParsedTagList in the SolrMarc custom indexing Java code, and \Db\Row\UserList::getTags and \Db\Table\ResourceTags::destroyLinks in the PHP code. See pull request #2014 for details.
• VuFind\View\Helper\Root\AbstractClassBasedTemplateRenderer has been replaced by VuFind\View\Helper\Root\ClassBasedTemplateRendererTrait, and the signature of the protected resolveClassTemplate() method has changed. If you have a custom view helper that extends this base class, you should revise it to use the trait instead. See pull request #1747 for details.
• Text normalization logic has been factored out of the VuFindSearch\Query objects and into a separate class for greater flexibility/extensibility/separation of concerns, and the VuFindSearch\Query\QueryInterface has been changed to reflect this. If you have custom query objects or custom code that deals with query text normalization, some adjustments may be required. See pull request #1714 for details.
• The VuFindSearch\Service has been refactored to use the Command Pattern; you can now send command objects to the service's invoke method instead of calling more specific search/retrieve/etc. methods. These command objects are also shared with search listeners. The command system makes it easier to customize search behavior without having to rewrite the search service itself. This has been implemented in a mostly-backward-compatible way, but the old way of doing things is deprecated in this release and will be removed in VuFind 9.0. If you make calls to the search service in your code, and/or if you have written any custom search listeners, you should update your code to use command objects instead of the old techniques. When using command objects, some event details will be different (some arguments may not be present, and the event target will also be different). See pull request #1967 for details and examples, and pull request #2108 for some subsequent revisions to event targets.
• The HTTP behavior of the VuFindSearch\Backend\Solr\Connector class has been simplified. It now accepts a client object as a constructor parameter, and the setAdapter and setProxy methods have been removed. If you use Solr connectors in custom code, you may need to adjust your logic. See pull request #2011.
• The classes used for sending messages to Solr have been rewritten for greater flexibility; see pull request #1952. If you have custom code using any classes from the \VuFindSearch\Backend\Solr\Document namespace, or if your code interacts with the \VuFind\Solr\Writer or calls \VuFindSearch\Backend\Solr\Connector::write(), some adjustments may be required.
• Direct access to search backends through the BackendManager (which bypasses the normal event-driven search service) is STRONGLY DISCOURAGED because it can lead to inconsistent event-related behavior. All existing VuFind code following this anti-pattern has been refactored, which has resulted in constructor signature changes in these classes:
  • \VuFind\Autocomplete\EDS
  • \VuFind\ChannelProvider\Channels
  • \VuFind\Content\Covers\BrowZine
  • \VuFind\DoiLinker\BrowZine
  • \VuFind\Hierarchy\TreeDataSource\Solr
  • \VuFind\Recommend\MapSelection
  • \VuFind\Record\FallbackLoader\Summon
  • \VuFind\RecordTab\HoldingsWorldCat
  • \VuFind\Solr\Writer
• The RecordLink view helper has been replaced by the RecordLinker view helper (see pull request #2072). RecordLink will be maintained for backward template compatibility until release 9.0, when it will be removed. However, any local subclasses of RecordLink should be rewritten as subclasses of RecordLinker. The changes in RecordLinker include:
  • The deprecated getHoldUrl() method has been removed
  • All methods returning URLs return raw URLs, not HTML-escaped versions; you are responsible for escaping this output when using it in HTML. This makes the methods more flexible and eliminates some inconsistencies from the previous helper
  • getBreadcrumb() has been renamed to getBreadcrumbHtml() to indicate that it returns HTML rather than a plain link
  • The \VuFind\OAI\Server::setRecordLinkHelper() method has been renamed to setRecordLinkerHelper().
  • The \VuFind\RecordDriver\DefaultRecord::getXML() method has been adjusted to accept the new helper class instead of the old one.
• \VuFind\Record\SourceAndIdList::getRecordPosition() has been replaced with \VuFind\Record\SourceAndIdList::getRecordPositions(). If you are using the old method (which is extremely unlikely, unless you have customized \VuFind\Record\Loader), you will need to adjust your code.
• \VuFindTheme\View\Helper\HeadThemeResources::parseSetting() has been moved to \VuFindTheme\ResourceContainer::parseSetting() and will eventually be deprecated; in the unlikely situation that you rely on this method, you should revise your code.
• The “cssBuilder” command line utility has been deprecated; use the “grunt less” command to compile LESS instead. See pull request #1925 for related discussion.
• The VuFind\Db\Table\Tags::getForUser method has been renamed to getListTagsForUser to improve clarity. In the unlikely case that you use this method in custom code, you will need to change your call to use the new name. See pull request #2017.
• The MyResearchController is being split up to improve code organization and clarity. If you extend/customize this controller, you may need to revise your code. Specific changes:
  • Holds-related functionality (the holdsAction method) has been moved to a separate HoldsController, and the myresearch-holds route now redirects to holds-list.
  • The getDriversForILSRecords and collectRequestAccountStats support methods have been moved to a new ilsRecords() controller plugin.
  • The getRefreshResponse method has been refactored to the AbstractBase controller for reuse elsewhere.
• The Laminas dependency plugin has been removed; if you have not fully migrated local legacy Zend Framework code to Laminas, you may have problems with this release.
• The code to delete expired rows from database tables (old searches, sessions, etc.) has been refactored to reduce complexity and improve performance (see pull request #1815). In the unlikely event that you have built any custom expiration tools, you will need to adjust them to match.
• If you have customized the extensions setting in markdown.ini, you should make sure that the Autolink, DisallowedRawHtml, Strikethrough, Table and TaskList extensions are enabled in your extensions setting; these are now active by default and are required by default behavior. See pull request #2006 for details. If you have not customized this setting or do not use Markdown for content rendering, no action is needed.
• The endroid/qr-code library has changed significantly; if you have custom QR code logic, you will need to adjust it. See pull request #1954 for details.
• VuFind\Log\Logger, VuFind\Resolver\Driver\Ezb, VuFind\Role\PermissionProvider\IpRange, and VuFind\Role\PermissionProvider\IpRegEx now explicitly depend upon VuFind\Net\UserIpReader; this dependency was previously optional. If you have customized any of these classes, minor adjustments may be needed. See pull request #2009.
• Some typehints have been changed on the VuFind\Search\Solr\DeduplicationListener constructor; if you have a custom subclass, you should adjust it to match. See pull request #1844.
• Typehints referring to \Laminas\ServiceManager\ServiceManager have been replaced with more generic ContainerInterface references to improve flexibility in the future; consider making similar adjustments to ServiceManager typehints in local custom code. See #1848 for more details.
• Locale/language detection is now achieved using the slm/locale module, reducing VuFind-specific custom code. If you have custom locale detection logic, you may need to adjust your code. See pull request #1885.
• Initialization of the Laminas i18n system has been streamlined and standardized; if you have a custom translator factory or have customized the DisplayLanguageOption view helper (both unlikely situations), you may need to make some adjustments. See pull request #1928 for details.
• A new mechanism has been added for showing/hiding long elements of the display (see pull request #2121). This is used for SideFacets, TopFacets and WorldCatIdentities recommendation modules, replacing the old registerMoreLessFacetsEventHandlers() function in facets.js. If you have any custom code relying on this function, you should refactor to use the new mechanism.
• The constructor signature of the JsTranslations view helper has changed; in the unlikely situation that you have overridden it, you will need to adjust your subclass to match. See pull request #1981.
• The \VuFind\Sitemap\Generator class has been drastically refactored to improve code organization, extensibility and testability. This includes changes to the class' constructor signature; you will have to adjust custom subclasses to match, if you have any, and some logic may need to be moved to plugins. See pull request #1904 and pull request #2037 for details.
• The getCancelHoldDetails, getCancelHoldLink, getCancelILLRequestDetails and getCancelStorageRetrievalRequestDetails methods have been updated across ILS drivers to consistently accept a second ($patron) parameter. If you have customized any of these methods in a subclass, you will need to make sure the signatures match.
• To support embedding static content, some potentially backward-incompatible internal changes have been made to the VuFind\ContentBlock\TemplateBased class, its associated template, and the HelpText view helper. In the unlikely case that you have locally customized any of these things, you should review your changes with reference to pull request #1874.
• The LBS4 ILS driver has been removed due to incompatibility with PHP 7 and a lack of demand for an updated version of the code. Please reach out to us if you still need it for any reason!
• The Aleph ILS driver's [duedates] configuration section (and associated functionality) has been removed; this was using the duedate field inappropriately, and seems likely to be unused by the vast majority of users. See pull request #1989.
• The “Expires” translation string has been split into several different strings to reduce ambiguity; if you have customized this string, you will need to make adjustments. See pull request #1976.
• The [Advanced_Facets] section of EDS.ini has been replaced with a new advanced_limiters setting in the [General] section. The original version was not implemented correctly and had no effect; the new version provides the ability to filter and reorder limiters on the Advanced EDS search screen. See pull request #2044 for details.
• Due to changes in an upstream library, the name and location of the configuration key for ignoring specific exceptions in the Whoops error handler have changed; see pull request #1993 if you need to use this setting. (This only applies to development mode, and it is unlikely that it is being locally customized).
• The $forceOverride parameter of UrlQueryHelper::setDefaultParameter now defaults to false instead of true; this is unlikely to impact most users. See pull request #2015.
• Templates for search results and other lists of records have been refactored to use HTML list tags for better accessibility; if you have customized these templates (or some record driver templates that interact with them), your custom code may need to be adjusted; see pull request #1931.
• A bug in VuFind 7.1.x was preventing advanced Shibboleth configuration from loading correctly; it has been corrected by pull request #2064. If you previously worked around this problem by renaming Shibboleth.ini to shibboleth.ini (changing the case of the first letter), you should now change it back, as the correct filename will now load as intended.
• \VuFind\Ils\Driver\CacheTrait has been renamed to \VuFind\Cache\CacheTrait. The old name will continue to work in VuFind 8.x but will be removed in VuFind 9.0.
• If you use ojs-multirecord.xsl in your ojs.properties file for ingesting harvested XML from OJS, you should change the setting back to the default ojs.xsl. The base ojs.xsl file correctly handles both single-record and multi-record ingests now, so the ojs-multirecord.xsl file has been removed as redundant.
• The \VuFind\Form\Form constructor signature has changed to load configuration differently; see commit 50642b. Additionally, the getElements() method has been renamed to getFormElementConfig() to resolve a conflict with the base class (see pull request #2120).
• The Linkify view helper now uses the UrlHighlight library instead of the Linkify library for converting URLs into links inside text; see pull request #1709.
• The Aleph driver no longer supports sorting of historical transactions, because it is incompatible with pagination (see pull request #2126).
• The KohaILSDI driver has been updated to correctly retrieve fine data from Koha version 19.11 and up; earlier versions (which are no longer supported by the Koha community) are no longer compatible.
• Code specifically designed for decoding binary MARC records in Solr XML responses has been removed, as VuFind no longer uses Solr XML responses (JSON is now favored). If you use XML in Solr for some reason (very unlikely), you may need to compensate for this change. See pull request #1900.
• Support for passing an array of breadcrumb data (instead of an HTML string) to the layout has been removed; it is very unlikely that this feature was ever used, so it should not impact anyone. See pull request #2098 for details.
• The English language files have been adjusted to replace the term “favorites” with “saved items” for a more consistent user experience. See pull request #2020
• The TopFacets recommendation module's output has been restructured, so the top_cols configuration setting (found in facets.ini and equivalent .ini files for other backends) is no longer meaningful and has been removed.
• Javascript translations have been refactored to a separate layout/js-translations.phtml to simplify layout/layout.phtml; you may wish to adjust your local theme to match if you have customized your layout. See pull request #1691.

Press Release

• Minor bug fix / improved translation release.

New features:

• The new Record Versions feature provides links between different editions or versions of the same work; this is on by default but can be disabled through the display_versions setting in searches.ini if it is not needed.
• PHP 8 compatibility has been improved.
• Tags can now be applied to user lists as well as resources; this feature is disabled by default (see the listTags setting in config.ini). The ListItems channel provider now has new options to take advantage of list tags for channel selection. See pull request #1645 for details.
• Facet values can be filtered natively in Solr (by prefix or regular expression) using the new facet_prefix_by_field and facet_matches_by_field settings in facets.ini; see pull request #1694.
• Solr has been upgraded to version 7.7.3.
• The Shibboleth authentication handler has been significantly revised and improved, with some new features and settings added; see pull request #1617 for details.
• The XCNCIP2 ILS driver has been significantly revised and improved.
• If you wish to render a custom template instead of displaying a specific “no cover” image when a cover graphic cannot be found, you can use the useCoverFallbacksOnFail setting in combination with the ajaxcovers setting in config.ini; see pull request #1679.
• Permissions (and associated permission denied behavior) can now be applied to columns within combined search results. See pull request #1707 for details.
• Specific values can be moved to the tops of the advanced search facet lists for Solr (for example, to highlight commonly-used values) using the new limitOrderOverride setting in facets.ini. See pull request #1807 for details.
• A new log writer has been added for Office365 webhooks (for notifications into Microsoft Teams); see pull request #1757.
• The Solr field used for storing full MARC records in the index is now configurable (see pull request #1813).
• Some settings controlling the VuFind API are now more easily configurable (see pull request #1838).

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• Be sure to run a database upgrade to reflect table changes (see also the database changelog).
• Be sure to reindex your records due to the Solr upgrade and to ensure that Record Version functionality is set up correctly.
• If you use VuFind's optional sharding support, note that some additional Solr configuration may now be needed due to the upgrade; see “Configuring the ShardHandlerFactory” in the Solr documentation for details.
• VuFind\Db\Row\UserList now has the VuFind\Tags service as a constructor parameter; in the unlikely case that you have a custom subclass/factory, be sure to adjust it accordingly. See commit 2b05cef for details.
• VuFind\ChannelProvider\ListItems now has the VuFind\Db\Table\ResourceTags table object as a constructor parameter; in the unlikely case that you have a custom subclass/factory, be sure to adjust it accordingly. See pull request #1645 for details.
• The Symfony YAML library has been updated from version 3 to version 4, which has more strict validation rules; if you have custom YAML configurations, you should make sure that they still load correctly, and fix them if they contain errors.
• If you use a custom version of the Shibboleth authentication handler, local customizations may need to be adjusted to match the refactoring in pull request #1617.
• If you use the XCNCIP2 ILS driver, you should review pull request #1672 and make sure that the changes and fixes there do not conflict with any local customizations.
• The EDS integration now stores search options in the cache; this improves performance and stability by reducing reliance on the API, but it also means that you may need to clear your local cache if you change settings in EBSCO's admin panel.
• The constructor signature of the KohaRest ILS driver has been changed to make the money format helper optional; in the very unlikely case that you have customized this, your subclass will need to be adjusted to match. See commit b4edee8 for details.
• The constructor signature of the GetRecordCover AJAX handler class has been changed to fix a bug; in the very unlikely situation that you have extended this class, you will need to adjust your custom code to match. See pull request #1842 for details.
• A new transEscAttr() view helper has been added (see pull request #1820) to escape translated text for use in HTML attributes. This should not introduce any backward compatibility problems, but if you are inserting translated text into HTML attributes in local custom templates, you should use this helper to ensure proper escaping with concise code.
• VuFind's Markdown processor (league/commonmark) has been upgraded to version 1.5; this deprecates the “inner_contents” setting for the HeadingPermalink plugin, replacing it with “symbol.” In the unlikely event that you have customized this setting in markdown.ini, you should update its name accordingly.
• VuFind\Db\Row\UserList::getTags() has been deprecated in favor of VuFind\Db\Row\UserList::getResourceTags(). VuFind\Db\Table\ResourceTags::destroyLinks() has been deprecated in favor of VuFind\Db\Table\ResourceTags::destroyResourceLinks(). The deprecated methods will be removed in VuFind 8.0. See commit 2b05cef for details.

Press Release

• Minor bug fix release.
• Solr has been upgraded to version 7.4.0 in order to fix VUFIND-1459. A reindex should not be necessary, but may be a good idea as a precaution.
• Some style and template details have changed to fix a bug in the Channels interface; see pull request #1787 for details. This is unlikely to impact you unless you have customized this optional feature.
• An incompatibility between content security policy support and the asset pipeline has been resolved. If you are using both features, be sure to set the new asset_pipeline_max_css_import_size setting appropriately and/or adjust your CSP rules. See pull request #1719 for details.
• A fix for the KohaRest ILS driver added a parameter to the constructor, which introduced a change to the corresponding factory; if you have a custom subclass of this driver, minor adjustments may be needed.

• Minor bug fix release.
• Includes updates to several dependencies (Laminas components, etc.).
• To fix problems related to IP detection behind a proxy, the allow_forwarded_ips and forwarded_ip_filter settings have been added to config.ini. If you run VuFind behind a proxy and rely on IP detection, you should review these settings (and the related security wiki page) carefully. Some constructor signatures have changed to support this functionality, but backward compatibility breaks are unlikely; see pull request #1681, #1682 and #1687 for details.

New features:

• Static pages can now be built using Markdown as well as PHP templates.
• New Content Block plugin: TemplateBased, which allows you to embed a template that will behave similarly to a static pages in terms of supporting internationalization, Markdown, etc.
• VuFind now supports configurable Content Security Policy headers, for improved security. These default to “report only” mode to avoid breaking existing installations, but administrators are strongly encouraged to turn these to enforcing mode in production.
• VuFind now supports CAPTCHA plug-ins, maintaining the pre-existing ReCaptcha support while making it possible to use alternative mechanisms for blocking automated agents. See pull request #1574 for additional details.
• ArchivesSpace integration (support for ingesting Dublin Core records harvested from ArchivesSpace over OAI-PMH; see pull request #1623).
• Improved ILS drivers: the FOLIO driver is now production-ready, and the new KohaRest driver provides richer support for Koha (compatible with Koha 20.05+ using the koha-plugin-rest-di plugin).
• When using the optional link shortener feature, you can now configure how shortlinks redirect to full URLs (HTML-based, header-based, or conditional URL-length-based redirection). See pull request #1533.
• VuFind's integration with EBSCO Discovery Service has been significantly improved, with a large number of bug fixes and added support for citation and export functionality.
• New view helpers (“slot” and “parentTemplate” / “templatePath”) make it easier to extend and customize core templates. See pull request #1454 and pull request #1458 for details.
• Custom Feedback Forms now support help text both before and after form elements through new pre/post help configuration settings.
• Unpaywall DOI links now include both PDF and non-PDF resources (previously, only PDFs were linked).
• It is now possible to obtain links from multiple DOI handlers (either in sequence or merged together); see pull request #1560.
• You can now choose between extra-short and more private short links via the url_shortener_key_type setting in config.ini; see pull request #1549 for details.
• VuFind's plugin generator can now build controllers, controller plugins, and Symfony console commands.
• The NoILS driver can now extract data from more than one MARC field at a time (for displaying status/call number information). See pull request #1622.
• VuFind's API now offers access to the secondary Solr index configurable through Search2.ini as well as the website index.
• Support routines have been developed for indexing geographic data from dc:coverage fields in XML records; it may be optionally turned on in the DSpace indexing example. See pull request #1465 for details.
• The ObalkyKnih cover image provider is now supported as an external content source.
• In VuFind's browse module, the display order of browse options is now controlled by the order of configuration settings in the [Browse] section of config.ini.
• VuFind's Mailer class now supports multi-part messages (though this capability is not being used in the core code yet). See pull request #1610 for details.
• The util/scssBuilder command line utility has been added for users who wish to use SCSS instead of the default LESS for building VuFind's CSS.
• VuFind now sets the SameSite attribute on cookies for improved browser compatibility; see pull request #1664.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• Be sure to run a database upgrade to reflect table changes (see also the database changelog); if you are using the shortlinks feature, be sure to run the web-based upgrade even if you are using PostgreSQL to back-fill hashes properly.
• The Solr schema has changed to remove the deprecated recordtype field, so records should be reindexed after an upgrade. See the index schema changelog for more details.
• VuFind now requires PHP 7.2 or newer; please ensure you have a compatible version installed before upgrading.
• Zend Framework has become Laminas; this upgrade has caused significant changes throughout the code because of class and package name changes. You should update your local code to match. See pull request #1537 for details.
• The Laminas\Console component has been deprecated, so all command line tools have been migrated to use Symfony\Console instead; see pull request #1571 and the console migration blog post for more details.
• The ZfcRbac module has been replaced with LmcRbacMvc to reflect the Laminas migration; custom authentication code may need minor adjustments to reflect the namespace change and the switch of the configuration key from zfc_rbac to lmc_rbac. See pull request #1657 for details.
• VuFind's default Solr port has changed from 8080 to 8983, to better reflect Solr best practices and to reduce port conflicts with other applications; it can easily be changed back as needed.
• As noted above, you are strongly encouraged to configure a content security policy for improved security. Note that adjustments to local custom themes may be needed to conform to security requirements; for example, Javascript event attributes (onclick, etc.) should not be used, and all scripts should be loaded through the Laminas headScript or inlineScript helpers instead of with hand-written script tags.
• If you are using ReCaptcha, several configuration settings have been renamed; the automated configuration updates through the web-based upgrade tool will take care of this, but if you are using a different mechanism to upgrade, you may need to make some adjustments to config.ini; see pull request #1574 for details.
• The recaptcha view helper has been replaced by a more generic helper. If you have custom templates referencing this view helper, you will need to update them; see pull request #1574 for details.
• VuFind's session handler code has been significantly refactored to improve extensibility and testability; see pull request #1506 for details. If you have built a custom session handler, it will likely need to be adjusted; otherwise, this should not impact you.
• VuFind's jQuery version has been upgraded from 2.1.1 to 3.5.1; if you have custom jQuery code, you should double-check its compatibility.
• Several templates have been rewritten to use the slot view helper instead of view variables, improving readability and extensibility; if you have extended these templates yourself, the code may need to be adjusted. See pull request #1454 details.
• The record/cover.phtml template has been moved to RecordDriver/DefaultRecord/cover.phtml, so that cover thumbnail rendering is now record-driver-specific. See pull request #1566 for details.
• Support for Amazon cover images and reviews has been removed; the ZendService\Amazon library has been deprecated, and there was insufficient demand to take the time to port the code to a new library. If you need Amazon support, please open a new JIRA ticket.
• The \VuFind\Search\Base\Params::getFilters() method, which was deprecated in release 6.1 (see pull request #1489), has now been completely removed; use \VuFind\Search\Base\Params::getRawFilters() instead.
• The constructor signature of the \VuFindTheme\Initializer has been changed so that it can now optionally accept a service container instead of an MVC event object; if you have subclassed the Initializer, you will have to adjust your method signature to match. See pull request #1600 for details.
• The \VuFindSearch\Backend\Eds\Zend2 class has been renamed to \VuFindSearch\Backend\Eds\Connector to prevent Laminas-related confusion; this should only impact you if you have made low-level changes to the EDS integration. See pull request #1546.
• The sitemap generator now uses the search service instead of direct access to the Solr connector; to support this, the constructor signature of \VuFind\Sitemap\Generator has changed, and the service is now constructed using a factory instead of hard-coded controller logic. If you have customized any of this, adjustments may be needed; see pull request #1486.
• The way feedback forms do text translation has been refactored; if you have customized this code, you may need to adjust to match. See pull request #1565.
• AJAX item status loading has been improved and refactored; in the unlikely event that you have customized or extended this Javascript code, you may need to make adjustments. See pull request #1663.
• The Javascript cookie management library used by the book bag feature has been replaced with something more up-to-date; see pull request #1673.
• Because score values are never used in core code (except when dumped out in non-MARC staff view tabs), the default field list retrieved from Solr has been changed from “*,score” to simply “*”. There is now a default_record_fields setting in searches.ini (and other equivalent Solr backend configurations) which can be used to customize the field list. See pull request #1568 for details.
• The SierraRest ILS driver now defaults to API version 5 instead of API version 3 to reflect deprecations in the Sierra platform. See pull request #1659 for details.
• Some internals of the Primo Central integration have changed slightly; see pull request #1653.
• Some configuration settings have been renamed to use more inclusive terminology: whitelist/blacklist in Voyager.ini and VoyagerRestful.ini are now include_list/exclude_list; domain_whitelist in config.ini is now legal_domains. Legacy values will still be acknowledged for backward compatibility, but new values will take precedence. See pull request #1671 for details.
• The EBSCO Discovery Service integration now uses POST instead of GET for search API requests; the legacy GET behavior can still be accessed through an EDS.ini setting. See pull request #1627 for details.
• The \VuFind\RecordTab\TabManager::zendConfig property has been renamed to legacyConfig to prevent Laminas-related confusion; because this property is only used for accessing obsolete configuration settings, the impact of this change is expected to be minimal… but if you have customized the TabManager, you should check for issues. See this commit for details.

Press Release

• Minor bug fix / improved accessibility release.
• Note: when using this release, you may see a warning about MySQL SSL configuration while indexing MARC records; this is a side effect of improved MySQL 8 compatibility, but it is harmless. MySQL SSL configuration will be addressed in more detail in a future release; see VUFIND-1395.
• Because of accessibility improvements/fixes, there are some LESS/CSS and template changes in this release; you should review custom themes in case they are impacted.

• Minor bug fix / improved accessibility release.

New features:

• An optional Email Alerts feature can be enabled to allow users to subscribe to saved searches in order to be notified about new search results.
• Combined Multi-Column Search now optionally supports search types (author, title, subject, etc.).
• Users can now change their email addresses in their accounts (though this feature is disabled by default – see the config.ini change_email setting and pull request #1401 for details).
• The filter interface changes introduced in release 6.0 have been further improved, making the user experience more consistent.
• Added “Email” authentication method to allow login by receiving a link in an email (see pull request #1409 and pull request #1520).
• Added “PasswordAccess” authentication method to allow login using a single credential rather than a username/password combination (see pull request #1394).
• Added “RecommendLinks” recommendation module, offering a simple mechanism for displaying a static link list.
• You can now embed meta tags for Google Scholar and other services by configuring metadata.ini (see pull request #1529 for details).
• It is now possible to limit site permissions on a global or controller-specific basis through configuration files, making it easier to manage protected content. See pull request #1395 for details.
• Improved support for running VuFind behind a reverse proxy (such as Apache's mod_proxy); see pull request #1429 for details.
• Added a DOI Linker plugin for Unpaywall.
• Added support for storing VuFind sessions in Redis.
• Hierarchical facets sort options can now be configured independently for search results, home page listings and advanced search options; see pull request #1389.
• Various Alma ILS driver improvements (including the ability to use Alma as an OpenURL resolver).
• ILS drivers can now differentiate between electronic and physical holdings (see the getHolding driver method documentation for details). This is currently supported by the Alma driver.
• The Solr search configuration in searchspecs.yaml now supports munge rules for Dismax queries (see pull request #1419).
• Upgraded to SolrMarc 3.3, fixing some bugs and adding some new syntax features.
• The OAI-PMH Server now supports a new “delete_lifetime” setting to expire old deleted records, preventing them from slowing down harvests (see pull request #1496).
• Added Croatian and Hindi language support to the user interface.
• Added support for ISMNs (International Standard Music Numbers) and National Bibliography Numbers to the cover image loader (see pull request #1451).
• Introduced the Wikimedia Composer Merge Plugin to help developers add dependencies to local VuFind instances more easily. This has no impact on end users; see pull request #1425 for more details.
• VuFind's controllers and controller plugins now respect the same “-aware” interfaces as other VuFind plugins, making it possible to auto-inject loggers, etc. (see pull request #1441).
• The “Search2” secondary Solr backend (see Combining Search Types) is now fully compatible with Hierarchies and Collections; see pull request #1478.
• Support for profiling (a tool for developers) has been updated; see pull request #1487.
• Improved PHP 7.3 and 7.4 compatibility.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• Be sure to run a database upgrade to reflect table changes (see also the database changelog).
• The new email login capability adds some new features to the authentication logic along with some minor refactoring; if you have custom authentication code, you should review pull request #1409 to be sure you are not impacted by it.
• Templates related to search filters have been changed significantly to fix a bug introduced in release 6.0 and to improve the revised functionality; if you have customized the filters.phtml template, or a template that includes filters.phtml, you should adjust to match the changes in pull request #1482, pull request #1499 and pull request #1500 (plus this subsequent bug fix commit).
• Low-level filtering/validation of parameters was introduced by pull request #1518. This should have no impact on normal activity within the system, but if you encounter unexpected parameter processing behavior, you should investigate these changes.
• The itemLimit setting used for paginating holdings in some ILS drivers (Alma/Demo) has been moved from the “Holds” configuration to the more appropriate “Holdings” configuration. If you have taken advantage of this feature in a custom driver or if you have changed it in your driver's .ini file, you should move the setting – see PR #1463.
• To fix a minor bug, the $messages property of VuFind\Form\Form has been redefined – it now contains raw, untranslated messages instead of fully translated messages (see pull request #1534). If you have extended the class and added values to this property, you may need to make adjustments to avoid double translation.
• Some minor improvements have been made to item status display logic; if you notice an unexpected change in behavior, see pull request #1466 for details.
• Some changes to record collection creation have been made for performance reasons, but they should not change behavior; see #1488 for details.
• The title_sort field MARC indexing rule has been made more explicit, instead of using a custom method. In the unlikely event that you have customized the getSortableTitle method in SolrMarc, you may need to adjust your settings. See pull request #1393.
• The default controller permission is now “null” rather than “false” – this is functionally identical, but it is a change needed to support the new configuration options in pull request #1395. In the unlikely situation that you have customized a controller with an accessPermission property of false, you will be unable to override it with the new configuration settings unless you change the value to null first.
• Also related to pull request #1395: if you have extended a controller simply to change its accessPermission value, you should now be able to use the new permissionBehavior.ini controllerAccess setting instead to reduce the amount of custom code in your instance.
• The mechanism for detecting when VuFind is in lightbox mode has been unified; this should not impact downstream code, but if you encounter lightbox problems, see pull request #1405.
• The HierarchicalFacetHelper::sortFacetList method's signature has changed slightly, but in a backward-compatible way. In the very unlikely event that you have extended this service, you may need to make adjustments. See pull request #1389.
• The way the VuFind theme system overrides Zend Framework functionality has been simplified significantly (see pull request #1436), but there should be no functional differences.

Press Release

• Minor bug fix release.
• Includes some minor security improvements.

New features:

• Significant improvements to the display of active filters in search results, moving the list out of the facet sidebar and into the space beneath the search bar for clarity, and replacing the confusing “Retain Current Filters” checkbox with a more intuitive “Reset Filters” button.
• Optional integration with the third-party Overdrive eBook service.
• Introduction of an optional (off by default) mechanism to shorten links shared in text messages and emails (see pull request #1372).
• Minor improvements to the custom feedback form feature (support for new input elements, better translation, etc.).
• Minor improvements to the OAI-PMH server (including better performance and the new default_query, page_size and record_format_filters settings).
• Improved format determination for MARC records (see pull request #1209).
• Improved compatibility with MySQL 8 (though legacy authentication mode / default_authentication_plugin=mysql_native_password is required).
• Users can now be optionally required to verify their email addresses when registering for accounts in VuFind's internal user database. (This is disabled by default – see pull request #1354).
• New settings have been added to searchbox.ini to support optgroup grouping in the combined search handler drop down menu.
• Added a new “ComponentParts” tab to the record view (disabled by default), which can be enabled in combination with simple container linking to display whole/part relationships in more detail. See pull request #1339.
• Added a new recommendation module for linking to third-party searches (for example, to direct to an external site when an internal search yields no results). See pull request #1385 for details.
• An example of batch-loading XML records from OJS is now included (see pull request #1352).
• Significant improvements (and new configuration settings) for the Alma and SierraRest ILS drivers.
• Addition of simple “lint_marc” command line utility for detecting errors in MARC files.
• The ability for the user to set a preferred home library can now be disabled through the set_home_library setting in config.ini (see pull request #1347).

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• VuFind now requires PHP 7.1 or newer; make sure your server can support this before upgrading!
• The Solr schema has changed, so records must be reindexed after an upgrade. See the index schema changelog for more details.
• Be sure to run a database upgrade to reflect table changes (see also the database changelog).
• As noted above, the display of active filters has been significantly redesigned; if you have customized this, you may need to revise your local templates. See pull request #1265 and pull request #1377 for more details.
• Facet labels are now displayed based on a labelSections configuration setting instead of through hard-coded activateAllFacets() methods in the Search Params classes. This makes it easier to ensure that facet fields are labeled correctly in all contexts. Be careful that you remove any references to activateAllFacets from custom code/templates, as the method no longer exists. See pull request #1291 for details.
• Record tabs are now configured through a RecordTabs.ini file, instead of through the Zend Framework module.config.php files. This makes configuration significantly less complicated – see pull request #1370. If you have any custom tab configurations, you should move them out of your local module's configuration and into a local copy of RecordTabs.ini.
• The signature of the getHolding ILS driver method has been changed to include an options array, and the return format has been adjusted to support optional pagination. Custom drivers may need to be adjusted for compatibility with these changes. See pull request #1358 for details.
• Several methods deprecated in earlier releases have been removed; see pull request #1314 for details.
• OAI-PMH server classes are now defined as top-level services so they can be more easily extended/overridden. This has changed the constructor signature and added an init method. Additionally, responses are now constructed in a different way for improved performance, replacing the showResponse() method with a createResponse() method. If you have customized OAI-PMH server code, you will have to adjust to match; see pull request #1237 and pull request #1356 for details.
• As noted above, pull request #1209 changes the default format determination rules for MARC records; if you have customized this or have a custom marc.properties, you may wish to double-check that the new method is being used and meets your needs.
• The constructor signature of the VuFind\Record\Router has changed, because it no longer depends upon the VuFind\Record\Loader (see pull request #1364).
• Buttons for performing actions on records have been re-styled for consistency and easier customization; if you have changed markup or styles on these controls, you may need to revise your customizations. See pull request #1379 for details.
• The VuFindSearch\Query\QueryInterface has been expanded to account for text normalization. Custom subclasses are unlikely, but if you have built one, it will need adjustment. See pull request #1391 for details.
• The custom Java indexing code for tracking record changes has been updated to use java.time.LocalDateTime instead of java.util.Date for clarity; see pull request #1349 for details.
• All static factory methods have been replaced with standard reusable Zend Framework factory classes. This shouldn't break anything, but if you have overridden any factories, you should review whether you can eliminate that local code and simply reuse an existing class.
• The 'suppressDisplay' attribute of filters (originally introduced to hide certain advanced EDS parameters) was not working correctly and was not needed (since seeing these parameters is actually useful), so it has been eliminated; see this commit.
• The 'vufindrecord' route definition has been removed (see this commit); this was intended for legacy compatibility after standardizing the name of the default record source from 'VuFind' to 'Solr' in release 3.0 and is very unlikely to still be needed in correctly upgraded instances.

Press Release

• Minor bug fix/translation improvement release.
• The automatic LESS to SCSS conversion process has been refined to eliminate bugs in the output. Special comment-based markers are now used to differentiate LESS-specific from SCSS-specific code in the few cases where automatic conversion is not possible. See pull request #1316 for details.
• SolrMarc full text indexing has been adjusted to prevent a crash caused by newer versions of Tika; see VUFIND-1330.
• Some problems with the new AJAX account information feature from 5.1 have been corrected; if you are using this new feature, please upgrade.

New features:

• Status updates on fines, holds, overdues, etc. can now load dynamically into the user account menu to highlight important information; an alert icon can appear in the header even when the user is outside of the account area. This feature is on by default but can be disabled through the enableAjax setting under [Authentication] in config.ini. (See pull request #966 for implementation details).
• New “SideFacetsDeferred” option to load facet data asynchronously, which may improve performance in some environments (off by default; see pull request #1246 for details).
• ILS drivers can now report “last pickup” dates for holds (currently supported by SierraRest driver).
• New DOI Linker plugin interface for providing full text links and contextual information based on record DOIs; currently implemented using the BrowZine service. See this commit and this commit for more details.
• New Configurable Feedback Forms, greatly extending the existing feedback functionality.
• New Plugin Code Generator to automatically create and configure custom VuFind plugins; see also pull request #1247.
• VuFind's OAI-PMH server now supports an oai_vufind_json metadata format which allows harvesting of JSON objects formatted using VuFind's API configuration. This is disabled by default but can be turned on using the vufind_api_format_fields setting in config.ini. See pull request #1241 for details.
• An experimental, proof-of-concept FOLIO ILS driver has been created; best practices for data loading still need to be determined, and some details may change as the FOLIO platform develops further.
• VuFind now deals more gracefully with changes to Summon record IDs (a normal side effect of reindexing on the Summon side).
• Added cover image loader plugin using BrowZine service to fill in cover images based on ISSN when enabled.
• Added example configurations for importing DSpace DIM metadata (see pull request #1238).
• Added Vietnamese language support to the user interface.
• Upgraded to SolrMarc 3.2 (improves Java 9/10 compatibility).
• Upgraded to Bootstrap 3.4.0 (fixes some minor problems).

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• Be sure to run a database upgrade to reflect table changes (see also the database changelog).
• The default retrieval mode in sitemap.ini has changed from “terms” to “search.” This is because the “search” mode is more broadly compatible (“terms” ignores hidden filters). However, the “terms” mode is much faster. If you do not need the full-featured “search” mode, you may wish to adjust this configuration if you regularly generate sitemaps but do not already have a custom sitemap.ini.
• The data format returned by VuFind\ILS\Connection::getMyTransactions has changed to support pagination. The underlying ILS driver interface is backward-compatible; drivers can be upgraded to support pagination, but this is not strictly necessary. If you have custom code calling this function, you will need to adjust it.
• Some facet-related templates and Javascript functions have been moved around and adjusted for greater flexibility. (See, for example, this commit and pull request #1246). If you have customized the SideFacets recommendation module, some adjustments may be needed.
• The behavior that hides the facet sidebar in narrow screen widths (such as mobile size) has been adjusted to use a button instead of a wide border (see PR #999). This may impact custom templates and CSS if you have made significant layout customizations.
• The internals of VuFind\Sitemap\Generator have been refactored and improved; if you have overridden this class, you may need to adjust your subclass to match.
• The internals of the VuFind\Record\Loader have been refactored for clarity; however, none of the method signatures have changed. If you have overridden any methods in a custom subclass, you should review this commit.
• All cookies except for those related to the book bag functionality are now flagged as HttpOnly to help prevent XSS attacks; this should not affect anyone unless they have custom functionality to edit cookies in Javascript code. The feature can be disabled through config.ini if necessary but is enabled by default. See pull request #1243 for more details.
• The MyResearch/Fines display's template has been refactored for greater flexibility; if you have customized it, you may wish to make adjustments (though the underlying data structure has not been changed). See pull request #1251.
• The import-marc-auth scripts (for both Linux and Windows) now correctly account for the solr.indexer.properties setting in import_auth.properties, appending to it rather than completely overriding it. If you do authority record importing, you should double-check that it still works as expected, though behavior changes are unlikely unless you have customized something.

Press Release

• Minor bug fix release.

New features:

• Users can view their circulation history in “My Account” (when supported by the ILS and enabled in the configuration). This is disabled by default for privacy reasons. See pull request #1031 and getMyTransactionHistory in the ILS driver spec for implementation details.
• Users may now delete their own accounts through the “Profile” page (when the new account_deletion setting is turned on; this is disabled by default). See pull request #1105 for details.
• User session data may now be encrypted by turning on the secure setting in the [Session] section of config.ini (see pull request #1200).
• Last login date and method are now stored in the database to assist with user management.
• The Channels interface has been significantly improved, with bug fixes and a more streamlined look and feel.
• New ILS-driven channel providers: new items, recently returned items, trending items.
• The content of the search home page (facet lists, ILS status warnings, etc.) is now much more configurable and easier to customize through the introduction of a new Content Block plugin mechanism.
• Geographic functionality now uses Leaflet instead of OpenLayers and has some richer functionality, including better representation of search results and the ability to choose custom base maps.
• The Ex Libris Alma ILS is now supported.
• The new “Search2” backend allows a second Solr index to be configured in VuFind through a new Search2.ini file. This is useful for connecting to a third-party Solr index or for managing two separate indexes in a combined search scenario.
• Support for Relais interlibrary borrowing (see pull request #1137).
• Support for loading summaries and tables of contents from Syndetics. See pull request #456 for details.
• A new 'extendclass' generator has been added, making it easier than ever to override services and plugins in your custom module.
• The RecordDataFormatter view helper now supports a new 'Multi' renderType which offers new options for customizing record displays of complex data.
• The AuthorityRecommend module now returns more complete suggestions (see pull request #1166).
• Hierarchical collections now support advanced facet features consistent with other modules of VuFind (see pull request #1040).
• Upgraded to Solr 7.3.1.
• Upgraded to SolrMarc 3.1.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• The minimum required PHP version has been raised to 7.0.8; make sure you are running an up-to-date version before upgrading.
• You should rebuild your index due to the new Solr version. If using authority records, be sure to reindex those as well and confirm that any custom solr_auth.properties file includes a “record_format = marc” line (see the changes to the authority Solr schema).
• The new Solr version may issue a warning about operating system limits; see Starting and Stopping Solr for some notes on how to configure around these warnings.
• Be sure to run a database upgrade to reflect table changes (see also the database changelog).
• Some changes have been made to support the upgrade to Zend Framework's Service Manager v3.
  • Because the new ServiceManager has case-sensitive service names, the way VuFind retrieves most services has changed significantly. See the service name migration page for details. If you have services overridden in a custom module, you will need to adjust your names to match.
  • VuFind's static initializer methods in VuFind\ServiceManager\Initializer have been replaced with Initializer classes (see pull request #1066).
  • Default plugin manager configurations have been moved out of module.config.php and into the appropriate plugin manager classes. These settings can still be overridden through module.config.php as before, but this makes the core VuFind module configuration significantly more concise.
  • Many static factory methods have been replaced by factory classes for cleaner design.
  • The factory classes for Search Params and Results objects assume that the Options/Params/Results trio exists in the same namespace. If you override a Params object without overriding the corresponding Options, or if you override Results without also overriding Options and Params, you can set up aliases in your configuration to map the custom namespace to point to the appropriate core classes.
  • Adding a setPluginManager method to a plugin no longer auto-injects the plugin manager; use a factory instead (see pull request #1069).
  • A VuFind\Search\BackendRegistry class has been added to replace the scoped service manager that was previously used (scoped service managers are no longer supported). See pull request #1068.
  • The initialization of the ResultFeed view helper (used for building RSS feeds) has been adjusted (see pull request #1072).
  • The getSuggestions() method has been moved from \VuFind\Autocomplete\PluginManager to a new \VuFind\Autocomplete\Suggester class for cleaner design.
• The record driver class hierarchy has been refactored so that non-Solr drivers inherit from DefaultRecord instead of from SolrDefault. If you have custom SolrDefault templates in your theme, you should rename their folder to DefaultRecord. You should also double-check custom SolrDefault record tab settings in module.config.php, and any custom classes you have built extending SolrDefault. Note that for Solr-based records, extending SolrDefault is still the correct course of action. See this pull request for details on the refactoring.
• The authority-related record driver has been refactored to allow support of non-MARC authority records. If you have a custom subclass of \VuFind\RecordDriver\SolrAuth, you should change it to extend \VuFind\RecordDriver\SolrAuthMarc. If you have custom templates in the RecordDriver/SolrAuth directory, you should move them to RecordDriver/SolrAuthDefault or RecordDriver/SolrAuthMarc. See pull request #1215 for details.
• Record driver / ILS connectivity is now set up with the help of VuFind\RecordDriver\IlsAwareDelegatorFactory. If you extend/override the VuFind\RecordDriver\SolrMarc class, be sure to configure this delegator for use with your subclass in your local module's module.config.php. If you set up a new subclass using the extendclass code generator, this will be done for you automatically.
• It is now possible to build AJAX functionality as AJAX Handler plugins; the AjaxController has been refactored to use this new mechanism. See pull request #1138 for details.
• AJAX responses have been revised in two important ways: all data values are now keyed arrays to support better extensibility, and internal status codes have been eliminated in favor of using standard HTTP statuses. If you have custom AJAX Javascript and/or handlers, they may need to be adjusted. See pull request #1189 for more details.
• Templates for displaying lists of facet values have been refactored for clarity and consistency; local customizations may need to be adjusted.
• When enabled, the “change password” option is now a button on the user Profile page rather than an option in the account side menu.
• VuFind's templates now use full <?php open tags instead of short <? open tags. This complies with best PHP practices and makes compatibility with php-fpm in newer Linux distributions easier. You can use php-cs-fixer to automatically update your own templates if you need to.
• The HoldingsILS RecordTab template has been significantly refactored for greater flexibility; see pull request #1100 for details.
• The RecordDataFormatter view helper's getData method return value format has changed; see pull request #1168 for details. Some custom templates may need to be adjusted to match.
• The VuFind\Cover\Loader now accepts a VuFindHttp\HttpService object instead of a Zend\Http\Client object through its constructor (to facilitate better handling of HTTP proxies).
• The search/home.phtml template has been refactored into a collection of Content Block plugins. Custom home pages should be reimplemented using this mechanism.
• Caching of facet values for home page / advanced search use has been completely refactored; see pull request #1165 for details.
• Methods for activating facet configurations have been simplified by using smarter defaults, which may impact custom search Params objects; see pull request #1198 for details.
• The \VuFind\Date\Converter class has been moved to a separate vufind-org/vufinddate project for improved reusability. Its constructor signature has been changed, and the accompanying \VuFind\Exception\Date has been renamed to \VuFind\Date\DateException for cleaner namespacing. Minor adjustments may be needed to custom date processing code (most likely to be found in custom ILS driver subclasses).
• RefWorks exports now use a POST form instead of a URL callback; you may wish to re-test your integration, especially if you use a custom RefWorks URL in config.ini.
• The default RefWorks URL has been changed to use HTTPS instead of HTTP; if you have customized this, you may wish to adjust accordingly.
• Two unused view helpers have been removed: jqueryValidation (see this commit) and mobileUrl (see this commit). If your custom theme relies on these, you should either replace them or copy them into your local module.
• ILS driver internal caching behavior has been moved from VuFind\ILS\Driver\AbstractBase to VuFind\ILS\Driver\CacheTrait, since the logic is used by a minority of drivers. If you need this functionality in your custom driver, just add an appropriate “use” statement to the top of your driver class.
• The markup and styling for record tabs has been adjusted slightly for greater flexibility; adjustments may be needed if you have custom CSS or code in this area. See PR #1158 for details.
• If you are using geographic capabilities, it is recommended that you move configuration settings from the [Content] section of config.ini and the [MapSelection] section of searches.ini into the new geofeatures.ini. Also note that custom Javascript and templates will need to be adjusted due to the transition from OpenLayers to Leaflet.
• The ChannelsController has been significantly refactored to improve the quality of the channel loading code (see PR #1174). The front-end channels code has also been completely rewritten to leverage third-party code, improve look and feel, and fix several bugs (see PR #1190).
• Cover loading and generation has been significantly rewritten for better extensibility (see pull request #1181).
• QR code generation has been significantly rewritten to use the endroid/qr-code library (see pull request #1183).
• The getRelated method has been removed from the record drivers; the logic is now part of the related view helper. See this commit for details.
• The AuthorityRecommend module now returns data in a different format (headings only, instead of associative arrays), so custom templates may need to be adjusted; see this commit.
• The Horizon and HorizonXMLAPI ILS drivers have been updated to use PDO instead of the deprecated mssql_* functions. This may require installation of different PHP modules on your system.
• The AJAX methods getSalt and login have been removed, along with the VuFind\Crypt\RC4 class that supported them; all of this code has been unused for quite some time.
• The ClaviusSQL ILS driver is no longer being maintained or used and has been removed; it is available in a legacy/clavius branch on GitHub if anyone wishes to revive it.
• The Solr query builder is now smarter about which fields it highlights. In support of this, the setCreateHighlightingQuery() method has been deprecated in favor of a new setFieldsToHighlight() method. See pull request #1078 for details.
• Search history management has been refactored to a service, instead of being built into the SearchController; see pull request #1018.
• The $marcRecord property of the SolrMarc record driver (deprecated since release 2.5) has been completely removed; use getMarcRecord() instead.
• To improve performance, hierarchy support for non-Javascript browsers has been turned off by default; it can be enabled with the nonJavascriptSupportEnabled setting in config.ini. See pull request #1145 for details.
• The ZF2_PATH environment variable is no longer supported (though it is unlikely anyone ever used it). Loading an external copy of Zend Framework components does not make sense now that VuFind relies on Composer.

Press Release

• Minor bug fix/translation update release.
• Fixes PHP 7.2 compatibility issues.

• Minor bug fix/security release.

• Minor bug fix release.

New features:

• Added support for searching BrowZine from within VuFind; useful for adding a “Journals” column to a Combined search screen.
• New Alphabrowse channel provider to allow a simple form of virtual shelf browsing.
• The Channels home page may now be cached to improve performance (on by default; see channels.ini).
• Improvements to performance of the asset pipeline.
• Integration of the Whoops error handler for more detailed debug information after unexpected exceptions (only active in development mode).
• More flexible configuration options for permission handling; you can now configure how denied permissions are managed in templates and controllers. See Permission Options for documentation.
• Alphabetical browse options can now be configured to be included in the default VuFind search options drop-down on every page. See the includeAlphaBrowse setting in searchbox.ini.
• "Mix-in" feature allowing discrete packages of templates and assets (JS/CSS/etc.) to be easily shared and incorporated into themes.
• Command line theme compiler tool which can flatten a hierarchy of themes into a single theme for improved performance.
• Theme generator command line tool.
• New “SierraRest” ILS driver: an alternative to the existing Sierra driver that adds more functionality using the product's RESTful API.
• Default Vagrant configuration to offer a simple option for creating a development instance.
• Geographic feature improvements, including an improved drag-and-drop selection interface, an optional graticule setting, and an upgrade to OpenLayers 4.2.0.
• Minor upgrades to several Zend Framework components; should not introduce any backward compatibility breaks.
• Added Galician translation (not yet 100% complete).

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• AJAX routines for item status, save status and automatic OpenURL embedding now only retrieve information for visible elements, in an effort to improve responsiveness and reduce server load. Custom AJAX code in your theme may need to be adjusted to match. See pull request #950.
• Access to Primo Central is now controlled by an access.PrimoModule permission. By default, this permission is configured to be allowed for everyone; if you have a custom permissions.ini, you may need to copy the relevant block from the default version.
• VuFind\Controller\AbstractBase::forceLogin() has been changed from protected to public. If you have overridden this in a subclass, you will need to adjust your code to match.
• The translated_facets[] setting is now turned on by default for supported fields in facets.ini, EDS.ini and Summon.ini to provide a more consistent i18n experience. If you have customized these config files, review and make sure that the setting is appropriate for your situation.
• The Koha ILS driver now uses VuFind's date converter to format date strings; if you have a custom subclass, you will need to switch your service configuration to use a factory instead of an invokable.

Press Release

• Minor bug fix / translation improvement release.

New features:

• New serendipitous browsing module: the Channels interface.
• New (beta) theme: sandal, featuring a more modern, flat look than bootprint3.
• Swagger-based APIs for retrieving search results and record details programmatically.
• Recommendation module to detect DOIs in search queries and redirect the user to a resolver.
• Support for hosting static, i18n-capable pages within the VuFind framework.
• New LocalFile cover loading option to retrieve thumbnails from disk using a path pattern (see this commit).
• Support for using VuFind to authenticate EZproxy users.
• Support for Shibboleth single logout.
• Support for configurable placeholder text inside search boxes (see [SearchPlaceholder] section in config.ini).
• Improved, more mobile-friendly “add to book bag” interface (see bookbagTogglesInSearch in config.ini; on by default but can be turned off to restore legacy interface).
• Dynamic covers now support multiple sizes through extra configuration (see this pull request).
• Upgraded to Solr 6.4.2.
• Upgraded to use newer Zend Framework components.
• Added support for profiling with Tideways as an alternative to the outdated XHProf.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• This release requires at least PHP version 5.6; please make sure you have this before upgrading.
• You should rebuild your index due to the new Solr version and minor schema changes (see also the schema changelog).
• Be sure to run a database upgrade to reflect newly added tables (see also the database changelog).
• Newer versions of Zend Framework no longer support the ServiceLocatorAwareInterface. Many services in VuFind have been refactored to receive their dependencies through their constructors, and many factories have been adjusted accordingly. You should review any custom services/plug-ins you have built and adjust them as needed. Also note that getServiceLocator() should no longer be used in controllers; instead, access the serviceLocator property directly (or better yet, refactor controllers to use dependency injection so that they do not need direct service locator access at all). For some examples, see pull requests #900, #909, #910, #918, #919 and #929.
• The jquerymobile theme has been removed due to obsolescence. If you need it, you can still access it as an unsupported legacy branch in Git.
• VuFind's built in statistics-gathering functionality has been removed; it is recommended that Google Analytics or Piwik be used instead, as these are more scalable and feature-rich. The old code can be restored from a legacy branch in Git if actually needed.
• Row gateway objects are no longer constructed by table gateway objects; instead, they have their own plugin manager. If you have customized any database row classes, you may need to adjust your configuration.
• A new RecordDataFormatter view helper has been introduced to help make displays of tabular record data more configurable. This should make many common customizations easier to maintain while also allowing more granular customization on a per-record-driver basis; however, it also adds a learning curve to customizing some templates. See the wiki page for technical details. If you have custom record driver templates, they may need to be updated. (See also this commit, which changes the way authors and their roles are rendered, and this commit, which finalizes the return format of the helper).
• The UrlQueryHelper used for generating query parameters for VuFind searches has been significantly revised for more flexibility; see pull requests #850 and #851 for details. Most significantly, the removeFacet() method has had its parameter order changed, requiring adjustments to the TopFacets.phtml and SideFacets.phtml Recommend templates.
• Some CSS styling and HTML structure has been revised in the Bootstrap-based theme to simplify markup; you should double-check your custom templates against the core versions to be sure they are in sync (see also, the css changelog).
• Some HTML markup related to the search box has been changed; previous VuFind versions had some responsive design features that required two copies of the search box to be included on the page. This caused problems, so the box has been reduced to a singleton. See this pull request.
• The data-lightbox-onclose and data-lightbox-onsubmit attributes no longer support arbitrary Javascript code; instead, for better security, you must pass in a function name. See the lightbox page and this pull request for more details.
• Some HTML markup has been revised to use the form attribute to reduce the possibility of problems related to nested forms. See this commit for details.
• Encryption functionality has been changed to use OpenSSL instead of the obsolete Mcrypt module. For most users, this should be a seamless change. However, if you are using a custom encryption method other than aes, blowfish, des, camellia, cast5 or seed, you will need to convert to one of these methods prior to upgrading. See pull request #895 for details.
• Google Maps support has been removed; use the more robust OpenLayers functionality instead. Additionally, some Solr schema changes have been made related to geographic features.
• The Voyager ILS driver now connects to the database more efficiently, and the $db property has been eliminated. If you subclass Voyager or VoyagerRestful, you must change all $this->db references to $this->getDb().
• The Voyager/VoyagerRestful ILS drivers now block patron login if the barcode status code is not 1 or 4. If your Voyager installation uses non-standard codes, you can configure this in the relevant driver .ini file. See this commit for details.
• The getAllSubjectHeadings record driver method has been given a new $extended parameter, and some implementations have been refactored to improve extensibility; if you have customized this method, see this pull request for details.
• The format for search tab data used by the SearchBox view helper has changed slightly to accommodate placeholders; if you have customized tab functionality, you may wish to consult this commit.
• Due to changes in the zend-mvc component, the 'viewmanager' service is no longer used to retrieve view-related dependencies; instead, relevant components are retrieved directly using direct service names: 'ConsoleRouteNotFoundStrategy', 'ViewResolver', 'ViewRenderer' and 'ViewHelperManager'.
• Some integration details for the zend-eventmanager component have changed to support the 3.x version; see this commit for details.
• Link Resolver Drivers have been restructured; the DriverInterface now supports some new methods, and an AbstractBase class has been introduced to provide useful default implementations. If you have a custom link resolver driver, you will likely need to update it.
• VuFind no longer ships with BeanShell indexing scripts for SolrMarc; these are redundant now that the Java code for custom routines is bundled with VuFind and compiled on-the-fly. The Java code has been refactored for ease of maintenance/readability. See SolrMarc: Custom Java Best Practices for some advice on managing your own custom Java. Note that you can still use BeanShell scripts if you wish – but switching to Java will improve performance.
• A new version of the ReCaptcha library used by VuFind has been installed; some details have changed, so custom ReCaptcha code may need to be adjusted; see this commit and this commit for details.
• If you use the @parent_yaml setting in any of your YAML files, you must put the setting name in quotes – e.g. change @parent_yaml: “file” to “@parent_yaml”: “file”. This is necessary to comply with stricter syntax checking in the latest version of the Symphony/Yaml library.
• VuFind's session cookie is now VUFIND_SESSION by default, instead of the generic PHP_SESS_ID. This can be configured through the session_name setting in config.ini. This will prevent data contamination during upgrades, since some Zend Framework objects have changed. See this commit.
• A new service has been created for saving favorites, instead of allowing the record driver object to handle this functionality; see this commit for details.
• The VuFind\Log\Logger is now built and configured by a factory; built-in self-configuration logic has been removed. If you have customized the logger, see this commit and rearrange your code accordingly.
• The $left property of VuFind\View\Helper\AbstractLayoutClass and its subclasses has been renamed to $sidebarOnLeft for clarity. If you have created a custom subclass, you may need to make adjustments.
• For clarity of naming and consistency with current Solr examples, the default Solr configuration has been changed so that the Terms component is accessible at a /terms URL instead of the old /term. This is only used for sitemap generation and should not cause any problems as long as your solrconfig.xml comes from the same version as the rest of your VuFind code.
• Switching VuFind into “ILS offline” mode has been significantly redesigned to detect a broader range of possible problems; this should not introduce any backward compatibility breaks (unless you are overriding the VuFind\ILS\Connection class, which is unlikely), but it may cause VuFind to behave differently under some failure scenarios. See this commit for details.
• Command line utilities now make better use of native Zend Framework routing, and the custom VuFind-specific filename-based router has been eliminated. See this pull request.
• The logic for dealing with account blocks in the ILS driver has been revised. If your ILS driver uses the special 'block' value when handling requests (holds, recalls, etc.) it will need to be revised to implement the getRequestBlocks method instead. See this pull request.
• The format of the data array returned by the \VuFind\ILS\Logic\Holds class (usually accessed through the getRealTimeHoldings record driver method) has been revised; it now contains 'blocks' and 'holdings' keys instead of simply consisting of holdings. Custom templates may need to be adjusted to match.
• \VuFind\ILS\Driver\VoyagerRestful::getRemoteCallSlips has been renamed to getCallSlips and given a parameter to allow optional retrieval of local as well as remote slips. This should only affect you if you have subclassed the VoyagerRestful driver and customized functionality related to callslips.
• \VuFind\ILS\Driver\Voyager::processHoldingData has had the default value of the $patron parameter changed from false to null; if you have subclassed the driver and overridden this method you should adjust to match. See this commit.
• The “terms” method of the Solr search backend has been made more flexible, but it should be fully backward-compatible. See this commit for details.
• Some no-longer-used custom indexing code/configuration related to an obsolete OCLC system serving LC name authority records has been removed. See this commit.
• The default holdings_grouping setting in the [Catalog] section of config.ini has been changed from “holdings_id” to “holdings_id,location” for improved accuracy (most users will be unaffected).
• The checkILLRequestIsValid / checkRequestIsValid / checkStorageRetrievalRequestIsValid ILS driver methods now can optionally return an array with a custom status message. This does not break backward compatibility with the old boolean return values.
• Some status-related blocked*Action() controller methods have been eliminated, as they are no longer needed.

Press Release

• Minor bug fix release.

• Minor bug fix/translation expansion release.

• Minor bug fix/translation expansion release.
• Includes upgrade to SolrMarc v3.0.6.

• Minor bug fix release.
• Includes upgrade to SolrMarc v3.0.2.

New features:

• New optional mechanism to explore/sort facet lists (currently supported for Solr and Summon). See this pull request for details.
• New optional “asset pipeline” to combine and compress CSS and Javascript files for improved performance. Off by default; see the new asset_pipeline setting in config.ini (and this commit) for details.
• The SolrMarc indexing tool has been upgraded to version 3.0.1, a major release that adds greatly improved performance and significant new features.
• Indexing of MARC relator terms has been improved.
• New optional feature (off by default) to dynamically embed full record information into search results and favorite lists instead of loading a separate record page. See this commit for details.
• Improved geographic functionality: existing Google Maps functionality has been updated to reflect API changes, and new experimental OpenLayers-based modules have been added which include more robust features. See pull request #722 for details/history.
• New (somewhat experimental) KohaILSDI ILS driver, which uses Koha's ILS-DI API for augmented functionality. The plain Koha driver still remains for users with older Koha systems that do not support the API.
• New PAIA ILS driver, implementing the PAIA specification as an extension of the DAIA driver.
• New settings to enforce specific password patterns; see this commit.
• Optional setting to link displayed call numbers to a specific browse index. See this commit.
• Added optional first/last navigation to supplement next/prev navigation on the record page (for moving through the current set of search results); see the first_last_navigation setting in config.ini.
• Tag search now supports wildcards.
• Support for faceting authority records using new RDA values.
• Improvements to web accessibility within Bootstrap3 theme.
• Sidebar facet lists now stay collapsed/expanded across searches/pages for more consistent user experience.
• Frequently used record tabs may now be auto-loaded in the background to improve the user experience (this is off by default but can be configured through module.config.php – see this commit for details).
• Optional support for the Solr MoreLikeThis handler allows similar item results to be displayed for sharded indexes; see this commit for details.
• The Voyager and VoyagerRestful ILS drivers are no longer dependent on the poorly-supported PDO_OCI PHP module.
• User comments may now optionally be protected with ReCaptcha.
• Logger integration with Slack.
• Search specification YAML files now support a @parent_yaml property for manually-chained inheritance.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• The new release of SolrMarc has been designed with backward compatibility in mind, but because it is a major revision, watch carefully in case of backward-incompatible changes. As of this writing, the only known differences are some minor changes to the handling of punctuation in the topic and title_sort fields, both of which seem to improve results slightly. Also note that the log4j configuration has been adjusted, so if you have customized your own logging settings, these may need to be re-examined.
• Indexing of relator terms has become more complex to support the rich data available in some records. If you see warnings during indexing time about “Unknown relators” you may need to make some adjustments to the author* settings in marc.properties and/or the synonym mappings in author-classification.ini. See comments in both of those files for details.
• Removed getController() method from the Record view helper; this has served no purpose since VuFind 2.4.x, but some meaningless references to it have lingered in templates through 3.0.x. Remove any references from your local custom templates!
• Search result and list templates (result-list.phtml and list-entry.phtml in record driver template directories, plus the wrapping templates/search/list-list.phtml) have been switched to use Bootstrap's media objects. Visual anomalies may occur if custom templates are not adjusted to utilize new styling. See this commit for details.
• Tags are now case-insensitive (and displayed in all-lowercase) by default. This works around some strange MySQL behavior in previous releases, but it marks a change in behavior for PostgreSQL users. All database platforms are now capable of supporting either case-sensitive or case-insensitive tags. If this is important to you, to ensure proper data and configuration, it is recommended that you first run the upgrade script to upgrade the configuration only (skip the database step). Then select your desired case sensitivity setting in the [Social] section of config.ini. Finally, re-run the upgrade script, skipping the configuration step. You may be prompted to merge duplicate tags (if you are moving from a case-sensitive PostgreSQL instance to a case-insensitive configuration). See VUFIND-1187 for more history on this issue.
• VuFind\View\Helper\Root\Record now has a dependency on VuFind\Cover\Router for thumbnail URL generation; if you have a custom subclass of this helper, make sure to adjust your factory to inject the additional dependency. See this commit for details.
• VuFind's session handlers must implement a disableWrites() method. This is handled in the current abstract base handler. If you have a custom subclass of VuFind\Session\AbstractBase, you should rename your write() method to saveSession(). See this commit for details.
• The formatCacheKey() ILS driver method introduced in release 3.0 has been renamed getCacheKey(). If you have a custom driver implementing this method, please rename it. See pull request #698 for details.
• The LBS4 ILS driver is now a subclass of the DAIA driver in order to allow more complete/reliable functionality; some additional configuration in LBS4.ini will be necessary to enable communication with the DAIA API.
• The Piwik view helper has been improved to track lightbox behavior in the Bootstrap3 theme; if you have customized the helper, you may need to make adjustments.
• Due to changes to the Google Maps API, all existing map-related functionality has been revised to require an API key in config.ini. See the googleMapApiKey setting in the [Content] section.
• VuFind's OAI-PMH harvester has been moved to a separate project. It is still included with VuFind as a Composer dependency, so no functionality has changed. If you have customized the harvest code, however, you may need to adopt a different strategy.
• The display of the format list in the Bootstrap-based themes has been significantly simplified. Custom templates might need minor adjustments.

Press Release

• Minor bug fix release.

• Minor bug fix release.

• Added missing ReCaptcha support to Feedback module.
• Expanded translation support (including new full Bengali translation).
• Minor bug fixes.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• The Feedback controller and related templates were significantly changed to fix broken functionality.
• Some details of the Javascript autocomplete control were adjusted to resolve bugs.

New features:

• Optional record cache to improve speed/integrity of favorites by keeping local copies of records in the database.
• Optional “privacy mode” to disable storage of personally identifying information in the database (disables many features).
• More detailed and flexible indexing of author (and other creator) information.
• Improved ipv6 support in permission system.
• Dynamic debug mode: by defining the access.DebugMode permission in permissions.ini, selected users may be allowed to turn on debug with ?debug=true in the URL.
• The combined search module now supports column-specific filtering, and multiple columns using the same search backend. Search tabs also support multiple tabs using the same search backend for compatibility with combined search. This allows tabbing between different filtered views of a single index.
• New “RemoveFilters” recommendation module (see this commit) for recommending that users remove filters to obtain more results; this is now on by default for no-results searches.
• New “SwitchTab” recommendation module (see this commit) for recommending that users try a different tab (when multiple tabs are enabled).
• New optional “delimited facets” feature to allow greater control over Solr facet display and ordering (see this commit).
• Support for more granular item availability status messages using new optional available services feature in ILS drivers.
• Improved support for publication information in MARC 260/264 fields (see this pull request).
• Added Buchhandel.de cover support (may require local template customization for terms of service compliance).
• Added simple libraryh3lp recommendation module (to allow chat box on “no results” screen).
• Upgraded to Solr 5.5.0.
• Upgraded to SolrMarc 2.10.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• Some changes have been made to the resource table of the database; records previously stored with a 'source' value of 'VuFind' are now stored with a value of 'Solr' (for improved consistency). This breaks database compatibility with VuFind 1.x, so you can no longer share a database between 1.x and 3.x – use a 2.x release if you need this capability. You MUST run the web-based update tool (http://your-vufind-url/Upgrade) to adjust database structure and contents when upgrading from a previous release (unless you prefer to manually alter the default value and contents of the resource table's source field).
• Some other, lesser, database changes have also been made; see the database changelog for full details.
• All of VuFind's YAML Solr search specification files have been adjusted to favor the eDisMax handler when appropriate. This should result in better, more consistent search results. All legacy configurations will continue to function, but if you have customized searchspecs.yaml or one of its sibling files, you may wish to revise it to match the new defaults in order to take full advantage of eDisMax.
• The getResourceSource() method of the record drivers is now deprecated; use getSourceIdentifier() instead.
• VuFind's representation of authors has been made significantly more flexible, leading to several record driver changes:
  • getCorporateAuthor() has been replaced by getCorporateAuthors()
  • getHighlightedAuthor() has been replaced by getPrimaryAuthorsWithHighlighting()
  • Use of getPrimaryAuthor() is now discouraged in favor of getPrimaryAuthors()
• The Javascript code in the bootstrap3 theme has been significantly revised. Custom Javascript and templates in your own theme may need to be adjusted to match.
• The vufind.sh/vufind.bat control scripts for Solr have been replaced with solr.sh/solr.bat for greater naming clarity.
• Session handling has been made more efficient. If you use \Zend\Session\Container objects in your custom code, be sure that you inject them with the correct session manager instance upon construction. If you make use of \VuFind\Controller\AbstractBase::writeSession() in a custom controller, note that it has been replaced by \VuFind\Controller\AbstractBase::disableSessionWrites().
• Hidden filter functionality has been moved from the Search Options classes into the Search Params classes; any custom code calling getHiddenFilters or addHiddenFilter will need to be adjusted accordingly.
• The SearchTabs view helper has been significantly refactored; local customizations will need to be adjusted.
• The “Editions”/“WorldCatEditions” related record modules (previously on by default) and all related support functions have been removed due to the shutdown of OCLC's xID services. See VUFIND-1142 for details.
• The GetLastSearchLink view helper has been removed, replaced by a new SearchMemory helper that contains additional functionality.
• Functionality related to remembering user search parameters has been moved from \VuFind\Search\Base\Options to \VuFind\Search\Memory; thus, Options::getSession(), Options::rememberLast*() and Options::getLast*() methods no longer exist. See pull request #576 for more detail/background information.
• Some changes have been made to the Solr schema which will require reindexing – see the Schema Changelog for details.
• The default Apache configuration has been changed to use a <Location> section instead of a RewriteBase directive. This makes directory-based multi-site configuration easier. See this commit.
• The Debian package has been renamed from vufind2 to vufind, and the default path in some places has been changed from /usr/local/vufind2 to /usr/local/vufind. Keep this in mind if upgrading using packages – you can install the new “vufind” package, move over your customizations from your “vufind2” installation, then uninstall “vufind2.”
• In config.ini, the [BulkExport] enabled/options settings are now deprecated in favor of an expanded syntax in the [Export] section. If you have customized these settings, please update your configuration accordingly.
• The cover loader now accepts an array of settings in place of a long parameter list. The old parameter list is still accepted for backward compatibility, but if you have added custom parameters in a subclass, you will need to adjust the code. See this commit.
• The Primo Central backend configuration now uses the standard VuFind permissions system for authentication/authorization instead of its old custom IP regular expression logic. Additionally, the apiId and port settings have been replaced by a single url setting for connecting to the API. VuFind's configuration upgrade tool will automatically adjust for all of this, but if you use Primo and are upgrading manually, you will need to update your Primo.ini and permissions.ini appropriately. Details in this commit and this commit.
• The holdings data passed to RecordTab/holdingsils.phtml is now formatted slightly differently for simplicity; see this commit.
• The config.ini cache_dir setting in the [Cache] setting has been replaced by a VUFIND_CACHE_DIR environment variable in httpd-vufind.conf. If you use this setting, please relocate it from config.ini to httpd-vufind.conf. See this commit.
• The SwitchQuery recommendation module no longer supports “transform” methods. Now, everything is a “check” method, and a property controls which checks are opt-in and which are opt-out. Subclasses with custom transform methods will need to be adjusted. See this commit.
• The WorldCatTerms recommendation module has been removed due to the shutdown of the API that powered it.
• If you used makeDynamicCovers = 'solid' in your config.ini file and want things to look the same as before, you should look at the new [DynamicCovers] section of the configuration and adjust some settings to replicate the old behavior.
• The controller method “preDispatch” has been changed to have more descriptive names in all of the places where it is used; this prevents inheritance from causing unanticipated conflicts between event handlers. See this commit for details.
• Default Solr facet sorting has been changed to always sort by count unless otherwise specified (see VUFIND-1128).
• The “notes” element in the return value of getHolding in ILS drivers has been deprecated in favor of separate holdings_notes and item_notes elements. Not all drivers support this yet; for now, the old “notes” field is treated as an alias of “hodlings_notes.”
• \VuFind\Db\Table\Search::setSavedFlag() has been removed.
• The signature of \VuFind\Db\Table\Search::saveSearch() has changed slightly.
• \VuFind\Search\Memory::retrieve() has been deprecated in favor of \VuFind\Search\Memory::retrieveSearch().
• \VuFindSearch\Backend\Solr\Response\Json\NamedList::remove has been removed – it was only used in one place and did not work correctly, so this is unlikely to affect anyone (see this commit).
• The \VuFind\ILS\Driver\VoyagerRestful::getRemoteHolds() method has been replaced by getHoldsFromApi(). It is unlikely that anyone relies on this in a custom subclass, but if anyone does, adjustments will need to be made.

Press Release

• Minor Ubuntu 16.04 / PHP 7 compatibility release.

• Minor bug fix / PHP 7 compatibility release.

• Minor security fix release (see VUFIND-1143).

• Minor bug fixes.
• Changed default configurations to disable functionality tied to deprecated OCLC services (see VUFIND-1142).
• Expanded translations.

New features:

• Improved user interface for tagging records; users now have the ability to remove the tags they created and easily +1 tags created by others.
• Permissions-based Solr filters can now be managed using the [ConditionalHiddenFilters] section of searches.ini.
• New “offcanvas” menus for responsive bootstrap3/bootprint3 theme, optionally activated via offcanvas setting in Site section of config.ini.
• Improved phone number validation in SMS dialogs using libphonenumber.
• Users can manage multiple ILS accounts within a single VuFind account through the optional “library cards” feature.
• New AlphaBrowseLink recommendation module to display a link to the alphabetical heading browse above search results.
• New configuration option to use special default sort for empty searches, since relevance does not apply in this context (Solr/Summon-only).
• New configuration option (coversize in [Content] section of config.ini) to customize or disable thumbnail display without modifying themes.
• Support for image-based linking – display of a graphic in response to a set of OpenURL parameters (where supported by the link resolver).
• New link resolver driver for ReDI.
• Ability to customize translation strings on a per-theme basis.
• Added Arabic translation courtesy of KnowledgeWare Technologies, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
• Added basic right-to-left support for Arabic/Hebrew (Bootstrap3/Bootprint3 themes only).
• New “high availability” options (multiple Solr URLs may be specified in config.ini to allow failover; a new AJAX system status endpoint has been introduced to assist load balancers).
• Upgraded to Solr 4.10.4.
• Upgraded to Zend Framework 2.4.6.
• Upgraded bootstrap3/bootprint3 themes to version 3.3.4 of the Bootstrap library.
• OAI-PMH harvester is now more error-tolerant and can resume an interrupted harvest.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• As noted under release 2.4, the old Blueprint theme has now been removed.
• A new \VuFind\Search\SearchRunner class has been added to manage the process of setting up Options/Params/Results objects to perform a search. See this commit for details. Possible impacts:
  • Recommendation module handling is now driven by an event system. The interface of the modules has not changed, but the way they are configured and loaded is now more streamlined. Customizations of recommendation logic in existing Options/Params/Results classes will need to be adjusted and calls to obsolete methods such as Params::recommendationsEnabled() will need to be removed.
  • The signature of the SearchObject abstract recommendation module's constructor has changed. This may impact customizations to CatalogResults, SummonResults and WebResults, or local custom modules extended from this base.
• Due to the Solr upgrade, all records should be reindexed after upgrading.
• Due to the Solr upgrade, the SolrMarc “direct write to index on disk” feature is no longer available; all indexing must be done over HTTP. (This has been the default VuFind behavior for the entire 2.x release series, so few if any users should be affected).
• OpenURL handling has been significantly rewritten. The OpenUrl view helper has taken on more responsibility in order to simplify templates using OpenURLs, a new configuration file has been added which may remove the need for some custom record driver code, the “embed counter” has been eliminated, and several record driver methods related to OpenURLs have been added, removed or renamed. Renamed methods have changed “OpenURL” to “OpenUrl” for greater consistency with function naming conventions in Zend Framework 2. If you have done any OpenURL customization, you should review it in light of these changes. See this commit for key details (with some further adjustments here, here, here and here).
• The advanced search templates have been significantly revised in the bootstrap3/bootprint3 themes. Users with customized advanced search screens may need to rework local code.
• ReCaptcha support has been updated to use the latest version of Google's API. This eliminates some functionality from the previous version (including several themes, and the ability to create a custom theme). If you use a theme option unsupported by the new version, you will get the new default instead.
• The \VuFind\Hierarchy\TreeDataSource\Solr class has been substantially refactored for improved performance. Any customizations to this class will have to be refactored to match. The new implementation uses raw Solr data instead of record drivers to reduce overhead (at the cost of some slightly redundant code) and uses separate formatter classes to produce JSON and XML output with less redundant logic.
• In the Browse module, the data sent back from the controller now has separate 'value' and 'displayText' keys instead of a single 'result' value to properly account for translation. If you have custom templates, they need to be updated. See this commit.
• The DAIA ILS driver configuration changed in release 2.4, and legacy support for the previous configuration format has been removed. If you have an old DAIA configuration, please update it. Additionally, the constructor signature has changed, so if you have overridden the driver with a local subclass, some adjustments may be needed.
• The PICA ILS driver has been removed; it seems likely that no one has ever used it, and the code was never well-maintained in the VuFind 2 code base.
• The \VuFind\I18n\Translator\TranslatorAwareTrait has been restructured to add support for text domains.
• Related to the TreeDataSource refactoring, the getHierarchyPositionsInParents() and getTitlesInHierarchy() record driver methods are no longer needed and have been removed to prevent confusion.
• The marcRecord property of the SolrDefault record driver has been deprecated. Use the getMarcRecord() method instead. This may affect custom subclasses of SolrDefault and WorldCat record drivers.
• The [Delimiters] section of MultiBackend.ini is no longer used; configurable delimiters never worked correctly, so the feature has been removed.
• The addition of the coversize setting (see this commit) has introduced template refactoring related to thumbnail display. Prior code should continue to work, but custom templates should be updated to use the new mechanism in order to take advantage of configurability.

Press Release

• Several bug fixes; see JIRA for details.
• Expanded translation files.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• The \VuFind\Hierarchy\TreeRenderer\JSTree class has been significantly rewritten to address some encoding bugs; see PR #350.

New features:

• A new default theme: bootprint3 offers a look similar to the old blueprint theme with the added benefit of Bootstrap's responsive design.
• Piwik analytics support.
• DPLA recommendation module.
• Similar items carousel on record view.
• Support for logging in with Facebook.
• Improved Zend Framework configuration to optimize production performance.
• Expanded layout configuration options for combined search module.
• Improved “send email” configuration options (allow multiple recipients, allow user-edited subjects; see the [Mail] section of config.ini).
• Support for hierarchical (nested) facets in Solr (see facets.ini).
• VuFind's RSS feed now includes OpenSearch response elements to allow more API-style functionality
• Updated LibGuides module for compatibility with LibGuides2 (v1 also still supported).
• RIS export support.
• More flexible set definition in the OAI-PMH server.
• Improved locale support and new configuration option for default currency (see [Site] section of config.ini).
• New highlighting/display options in alphabetical heading browse (see this commit).
• Improved handling of call numbers.
• Added code generators to help automate certain common development/customization tasks.
• Upgraded to SolrMarc 2.8.
• Upgraded to Zend Framework 2.3.7.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• This version will require at least PHP version 5.4, a higher requirement than previous releases.
• The blueprint theme is now deprecated and will be removed in a future release; it is strongly recommended to revise your local theme to derive from either bootstrap3 (a bare-bones base theme) or bootprint3 (a more fleshed-out theme resembling blueprint) in order to make future upgrades easier.
• The AJAX authentication mechanism now sends base64-encoded passwords to solve a Unicode compatibility problem. If users have an old cached version of common.js (in bootstrap3) or lightbox.js (in blueprint) the upgrade may cause login problems.
• Call number improvements required changes to the Solr schema, so records must be reindexed after an upgrade. See the index schema changelog for more details.
• Zend Framework 2.3 changes the structure of the translator classes; any references in custom code to \Zend\I18n\Translator\Translator should be replaced with \Zend\I18n\Translator\TranslatorInterface.
• Spelling suggestions are now displayed through a recommendation module rather than being hard-coded into the search results templates. This offers greater flexibility and configurability, but requires some configuration changes to ensure that spelling suggestions to not disappear. The automatic upgrade script should fix this, but if you are upgrading manually, see this pull request for details on the changes you'll have to make to custom Summon.ini and searches.ini files.
• The VuFind\Auth\Manager has been significantly refactored. If you have customized it, or classes that directly depend on it, some adjustments may be needed.
• VuFind\Auth\LDAP has been significantly refactored and custom subclasses will likely need to be rewritten.
• The constructor signatures of \VuFind\Cart and the UpgradeController have changed to reflect centralized cookie handling functionality (see this commit). This will affect custom subclasses.
• \VuFind\QRCode\Loader::getQrCode() is now \VuFind\QRCode\Loader::getImage() for consistency with \VuFind\Cover\Loader.
• \VuFind\Code\ISBN has been extracted to a separate library and renamed to \VuFindCode\ISBN. If you depend on this class, you may need to update use statements.
• The WorldCat view helper has been eliminated; it was only used by the WorldCatHoldings record tab, so the functionality was moved into \VuFind\RecordTab\WorldCatHoldings.
• Renamed and refactored \VuFind\Sitemap to \VuFind\Sitemap\Generator.
• The XCNCIP ILS driver has been removed (this was experimental and built for an obsolete version of the XC NCIP Toolkit; users should upgrade to use the more feature-complete XCNCIP2 driver, which works with the newer version of the toolkit and is still fully supported).
• The VuFindHttp module no longer exists, replaced by a separate VuFindHttp library. All class names and functionality remain the same.
• If you need to translate the names of locations provided by your ILS driver, you should prefix them with “location_” in your language file – i.e. location_Main Stacks = “Main Stacks”. Previous versions of VuFind did not uniformly apply this prefixing convention. If you do not need to translate location names, no action is necessary.
• The Google/HathiTrust/OpenLibrary preview code has been refactored. If your record driver included a custom preview.phtml template, you will need to make some changes to reflect the new model.
• The \VuFind\Cover\Loader determines the location of its cache files slightly differently (it no longer appends '/covers' to the directory provided to the constructor, instead assuming that the full path will be passed in).
• The search backend for EBSCO Discovery Service has been significantly refactored.
• The authentication modules now implement a validateCredentials() method which is designed to be a no-side-effects alternative to authenticate(). If you have a custom authentication module that maintains an internal state, you may need to implement a custom validateCredentials() method. See ChoiceAuth for an example of how this is used.

Press Release

• Several bug fixes; see JIRA for details.
• Expanded translation files.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• Several large-scale fixes to the Bootstrap3 theme have introduced significant template changes; if you are using this theme, be sure to double-check compatibility with local custom templates and Javascript.
• The \VuFind\RecordDriver\SolrMarc::getFieldData() method no longer uses its second parameter (due to refactoring in support of the VUFIND-1034 bug fix). This should be a seamless change, but in the extremely unlikely case that you have overridden the method, be sure you do not rely on $value.

New features:

• Added support for Ex Libris Primo Central discovery service.
• Added support for EBSCO EDS and EIT APIs.
• Added support for searching LibGuides via API.
• New themes based on Bootstrap 3 (to replace the earlier experimental Bootstrap 2-based themes)
  • Documentation on migrating from Bootstrap 2 to Bootstrap 3
• Added support for password recovery and user-initiated password change (only when using DB authetication; off by default).
• Added support for ReCAPTCHA in several places (off by default).
• Optional dynamic cover image generation (off by default).
• Storage retrieval requests (aka “call slips”) and Interlibrary Loan (aka “universal borrowing”) are now supported by the VoyagerRestful ILS driver (and infrastructure is in place so that equivalent functionality can be added to other drivers in the future).
• “Visual” view featuring treemap navigation (off by default).
• Configurable citation formats (including new support for Chicago Style).
• Social features (comments/tags/favorites) may now be turned off via configuration.
• Added support for loading cover images based on ISSN, UPC and/or OCLC number (note that UPC numbers may now be indexed into the upc_str_mv field of the Solr index).
• MultiILS authentication module for use with MultiBackend driver.
• Javascript session keep-alive feature (off by default).
• Support for Solr-driven (rather than ILS-driven) “New Item” searches (configurable via searches.ini).
• The ability to pre-filter searches with user-removable limits.
• Improved PostgreSQL support (now supported by web-based installer).
• Upgrade to Zend Framework 2.2.7.
• Added checkbox facet support to advanced search screen.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• The getHoldUrl() method of the RecordLink view helper has been deprecated in favor of getRequestUrl() and some other changes to improve flexibility of holdings display have been made (see this commit); custom holdingsils.phtml templates should be updated.
• The signature of the getHolding ILS driver method has changed from ($id, $patron = false) to ($id, array $patron = null).
• Third-party content loading (book covers/reviews/excerpts) has been significantly refactored to make the code more pluggable. If you have customized the VuFind\Cover\Loader or the Reviews/Excerpt view helpers (which no longer exist in the new architecture), you will need to rework your changes to fit the new system. See this pull request for details of the changes.
• If you are using a custom Voyager/VoyagerRestful driver, be aware that the protected processHoldingData and makeItemRequests methods have changed their signatures. There have been many Voyager improvements in this release, so a general review of custom subclasses would be wise.
• If you have a custom citation list in your record driver and wish to support the new configurable citation options, rename your public getCitationFormats() method to protected getSupportedCitationFormats().
• The \VuFind\Cover\Loader::isn property has been renamed to isbn to allow it to be differentiated from issn. If you have a custom subclass, you will need to revise it. fetchFromISBN() has been renamed fetchFromAPI().
• The side effect that \VuFind\Controller\AbstractRecord::createViewModel() would omit the record driver from the view model if loadRecord() was not called first has been eliminated; createViewModel now always includes a record driver.
• \VuFind\Search\Base\Results::spellingTokens() has been moved to \VuFind\Search\Solr\SpellingProcessor::tokenize(), and the interface of \VuFind\Search\Solr\SpellingProcessor::processSuggestions() has been changed to accept a raw search string rather than a tokenized array – this better encapsulates spelling logic.
• View templates have been updated to use the escapeHtmlAttr helper instead of escapeHtml when escaping text within HTML attributes. Custom templates should be updated to match.
• The latest Solr browse handler does not work with Java 1.6. If you have problems starting Solr or generating browse indexing after your upgrade, you may want to upgrade to Java 1.7 or try manually recompiling the .jar files as documented at the browse handler's GitHub page.
• The /update/json endpoints exposing the solr.JsonUpdateRequestHandler in the biblio and website Solr cores have been removed. The JsonUpdateRequestHandler has been deprecated and is no longer necessary. The removal of this endpoint should not affect any core VuFind functionality but may require reconfiguration for users running the RecordManager tool.
• All module.config.php files have been rewritten to avoid the use of closures. This improves the possibility of caching configurations. If you have local modules with their own configurations, it would be wise to make similar changes there. However, failing to make this change shouldn't break anything.
• Handling of date ranges on advanced search screens has changed (see VUFIND-627).
• The VuFind\I18n\Translator\Loader\ExtendedIni translation loader has been significantly rewritten.
• The protected process() method of \VuFind\Date\Converter has been changed to public convert().
• Support for embedded video clips has been removed – Syndetics was the only supported content provider and has discontinued the service.
• The Syndetics url setting in config.ini has been replaced with a use_ssl setting; the upgrade script should automatically take care of migrating old url settings.
• The WorldCat search connector constructor parameters have changed to reflect the removal of the non-functional LimitCodes setting.

Press Release

Bug fix release, primarily addressing lightbox issues in the Bootstrap/Bootprint themes.

New features:

• Added Bootstrap-based themes (experimental)
• Expanded facet functionality: OR/NOT facets may be enabled (instead of/in addition to default AND facets), and facet areas may be configured to be collapsible in the interface.
• schema.org microdata integration.
• Tag management tools in admin module.
• Optional QR code support for convenient smartphone record linking.
• Support for CAS authentication.
• Support for allowing user-selected authentication methods (multiple parallel authentication options).
• Support for Solr's Extended DisMax search handler (disabled by default).
• Upgrade to Zend Framework 2.2.5.
• Added support for new Summon features: Topic Explorer, query expansion, language-specific relevance ranking, etc.
• Expanded functionality in OAI-PMH harvest tool.
• New recommendation module: SwitchQuery, to suggest alternate queries that may return more/better results.
• Added Slovene translation; significantly expanded Brazilian Portuguese translation.
• Assorted minor bug fixes and improvements.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• All Solr DateField types have been changed to TrieDateField. This means that you should completely rebuild your index to avoid search problems. See VUFIND-546.
• Templates used for the authentication (login/account creation) interface have been changed to support the new ChoiceAuth option; custom login forms may need to be readjusted to reflect new template names and layouts.
• Spellcheck behavior in the Solr search backend and related search classes has been significantly refactored (see VUFIND-840 and this commit).
• Lucene query manipulation logic has been moved from the Solr query builder to its own helper class; this also affects the Summon query builder, which now makes use of the shared helper (see VUFIND-937 and this commit).
• In the Options/Params/Results search classes, Results::createBackendParameters() has been replaced by Params::getBackendParameters() for all modules using the VuFindSearch system (see this commit).
• The Solr “stats” core (used for collecting statistics) is now disabled by default. Collecting stats in Solr is not recommended, but if you wish to use this mechanism, you must now turn it on in solr/solr.xml first.
• The VuFind\Search\Memory class is now accessed as a Zend Framework service rather than being used statically (see VUFIND-883).
• Default record tabs can now be set from within module.config.php; the old $this→defaultTab in record controllers has become $this→fallbackDefaultTab; see VUFIND-777.
• The Sitemap generator's constructor parameters have changed; see VUFIND-656.
• The Aleph ILS driver's constructor parameters have changed.
• The code which represents user lists using VuFind's internal facet mechanism has been removed in favor of a simpler solution for rendering the “Your Lists” section of the MyResearch menu.

Press Release

This bug fix release solves some problems in the combined search type functionality, hierarchy tree display, and favorite list maintenance.

New features:

• Upgrade to SolrMarc 2.6.
• Upgrade to Zend Framework 2.2.1.
• Support for combining search types into multi-column displays, custom search type drop-downs, tabbed search boxes, etc.
• New Solr core for indexing websites (with simple sitemap.xml-based crawling tool).
• Expanded information visible in the alphabetical browse lists (titles in call number browse, author in title browse, etc.).
• Support for Booksite content integration.
• Basic support for Pazpar2 integration.
• New ILS driver for Polaris.
• Improved support for using PostgreSQL instead of MySQL.
• Improved Summon support (“Best Bets” recommendations, fixed cover API, etc.)
• Added partial Danish translation.
• Assorted minor bug fixes and improvements.

Possible backward compatibility breaks:

• change to Solr highlighting query generation.
• change to renderSpellingSuggestions() method in search() view helper in Blueprint theme.
• change to search/searchbox.phtml template to support new flexible search handler drop-down feature.
• minor adjustments to initialization/registration of VuFindSearch\Service.

Press Release

• Addresses Solr configuration errors present in 2.0.
• Expands language files slightly.

• Upgrade to a newer version of Solr (4.2.1) and Jetty (8.1.8).
• Refinements to search service architecture (error event, more granular parameter handling).
• Built-in Google Analytics support.
• Significantly improved Horizon ILS driver.
• Addition of “generator” meta tag in output.
• Support for RDA 264 field.
• Auto-detection of preferred user language.
• Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements.

Press Release

• New search service architecture.
• Support for hierarchies and collections (consistent with the 1.4 release).
• Upgraded to newer versions of SolrMarc and Zend Framework 2.
• Security improvements (safer password storage, optional login requirement before emailing).
• New “MultiBackend” ILS driver for connecting multiple ILSes to a single VuFind instance.
• Enhanced/fixed or added Clavius, Horizon, NewGenLib and Voyager ILS drivers.
• Tika full text import support (supplemental to existing Aperture support).
• EndNote Web export support.
• Clickatell SMS support (consistent with the 1.4 release).
• Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements.

Press Release

• Switched from Zend Framework 1.x to Zend Framework 2.
• More download options than previous releases (tar.gz/zip/deb).
• Improved installation process for multi-site configurations.
• Flexible plugin architecture using ZF2 service manager.

• New architecture: see Why VuFind 2.0? for some reasons for the change.
• More feature-rich Summon and WorldCat modules (full support for tags, favorites, comments, citations and other standard VuFind features).
• More complete mobile theme.
• More flexible theme system (allow users to choose from multiple themes).
• Configuration-driven record export system supported by more record types.
• Streamlined install/upgrade process.
• New “related records” plug-in mechanism to allow configuration-driven customization of record views (no more hard-coded “more like this” / “WorldCat editions” functionality).
• Language file inheritance (override language settings without editing core files).

WARNING: If you are upgrading to this release, see the migration notes.

• Hierarchical collection support
• Upgrade to SolrMarc version 2.5.
• A “no ILS” driver for users without an integrated library system or for graceful support of temporary outages
• Support for title-level (as opposed to item-level) holds
• Improved/expanded jquerymobile theme – now the recommended mobile theme
• Improved support for MARC 7xx linking fields
• More configuration options for Google/HathiTrust/OpenLibrary previews
• Home page facets may now be configured independently of advanced search facets
• Support for using Tika instead of Aperture for full text harvesting
• Support for “no results” recommendation modules – special suggestions displayed only when the result set is empty
• New recommendation modules: AuthorityRecommend (provide suggestions based on authority cross-references), FacetCloud (compact display of expanding facet values), SwitchType (for use in “no results” area)
• Optional Clickatell support for SMS messaging
• Improved support for using VuFind as an article index
• New languages: Basque, Catalan, Czech and Russian
• Support for ldaps scheme in LDAP authentication module
• Various bug fixes and minor enhancements

Press Release

WARNING: If you are upgrading to this release, see the migration notes.

• Upgrade to latest versions of Solr (3.5) and SolrMarc (2.3)
• New “book bag” functionality for performing actions (save, email, etc.) on multiple items from result lists (available in Blueprint theme only)
• Improved integration with VuFind Template App for SciVerse
• Optional Solr-driven Reserves search module
• New recommendation modules (Timeline graph, Europeana, Google Maps)
• Improved Syndetics integration
• Blueprint is now the default theme (since it is most feature-rich and uses jQuery, which will be the standard in VuFind 2.0)
• Various bug fixes and minor enhancements

Press Release

WARNING: If you are upgrading to this release, see the migration notes.

• New (experimental) jQuery Mobile theme.
• Added infrastructure for holds/recalls and renewals via ILS drivers (currently supported by Voyager, Horizon and Demo drivers).
• Improved advanced search behavior.
• Optional support for MARC 7xx linking fields.
• Optional support for multiple result views (list vs. grid).
• Optional support for multiple result list page sizes.
• Support for indexing full text from URLs in MARC records.
• Improved EZProxy integration.
• Configurable “retain filters” checkbox.
• BibTeX export support.
• More complete translations for most supported languages.
• Fixed Dewey indexing bugs from release 1.1.
• Fixed public list bugs from release 1.1.

WARNING: If you are upgrading to this release, see the migration notes.

• Full OAI-PMH server support and smarter RSS feeds.
• Smarter handling of stemming in search results ranking.
• Book preview support through Google Books, OpenLibrary and HathiTrust.
• Support for indexing authority data.
• Support for Solr Sharding.
• alphabetical heading browse functionality.
• Autocomplete system.
• Sitemap generation.
• Search result highlighting.
• Optional embedded OpenURL results using Link Resolver Drivers.
• XSLT Import Tool for XML records, including optional full text indexing with Aperture.
• Theme inheritance now includes Javascript support; note that Javascript files have been reorganized to take advantage of this, which may require adjustments to locally customized templates.
• Support for cover images from Baker & Taylor's Content Café subscription service.
• Upgraded to latest version of SolrMarc MARC import tool (v2.2).
• Improved favorite list management features.
• New optional jQuery/Blueprint theme.
• Bug fixes.

WARNING: If you are upgrading to this release, see the migration notes.

• Added optional “Next” / “Prev” links to navigate through search results from the Record view (disabled by default – see the new [Record] section of config.ini to enable this option).
• Added NewGenLib ILS driver.
• Added basic OAI-PMH harvester tool.
• More flexible configuration of sort options (you can now specify tie-breakers).
• Bug fixes to address issues discovered during the first month of VuFind 1.0 deployment. See JIRA for details on bugs, including patches for the most critical problems.

WARNING: If you are upgrading to this release, see the migration notes.

• Upgraded to Solr 1.4.1, the latest bugfix release of the index engine.
• Dewey Decimal support (see Call Numbers page for more details).
• Recommendations module interface to create custom recommendations for individual search types (see Building a Recommendations Module for more details).
• Record Driver mechanism to help with ingesting record formats other than MARC.
• Mobile interface.
• Summon module.
• Expanded support for non-English languages.
• Many bug fixes and new configuration options.

WARNING: If you are upgrading to this release, see the migration notes.

• Upgraded to Solr 1.4, the latest official release of the index engine.
• Dismax search support – the powerful Solr Dismax handler is now used by VuFind, without losing support for advanced features of Lucene like wildcards and Booleans.
• Facets are no longer retrieved via AJAX for faster search result display.
• Revamped (and fully functional) advanced search (thanks to Greg Pendlebury).
• Searches are now fully customizable through configuration files – you don't need to change any code. See Search Customization for details.
• Template inheritance – you can now customize only the templates you need to change for your local setup and inherit the rest from one of the default themes. See Theme Inheritance for more details.
• Updated SolrMarc importer with support for custom BeanShell scripts (for localized import behavior without needing to recompile the whole program) and external translation maps (so you can edit the files without having to open the SolrMarc .jar file).
• Expanded favorites handling – create multiple distinct named lists of favorite records. Keep them private for personal use or make them public to share with others.
• New default theme – a whole new user interface look and feel, without losing the option to retain the original “classic” look.
• Improved Admin interface – view statistics and configuration files from one convenient place.
• Improved authentication code – added Shibboleth support, made LDAP support more flexible, fixed minor problems with other methods.
• Flexible session handling: store session in Memcache, MySQL or the local filesystem.
• New logging mechanism (configurable in config.ini) allows fatal errors to be captured to file, database or email for better discovery of problems.
• Many, many bug fixes and security improvements.

Change information is unavailable for this release.

• Fixed importing bugs from 0.8.1 release
• Improved author information indexing
• Revised record format detection in importer
• Added clean Era on import
• Fixed boolean searching
• Fixed Narrow Search Results js error
• Fixed Browse Module - Thanks to Bob Wicksall
• Fixed Syndetics Reviews - Thanks to Joel Norman

WARNING: For this release you must re-index records.

• Search queries - queries have been restructured to be more powerful and higher quality with better relevancy ranking
• Searching - filter out illegal characters
• Searching - user's input is now tokenized and a AND query and OR query are now generated
• Index data - punctuation in Title, Subject, Date, ISBN fields are now cleaned
• Index data - isbn & issn fields are now multivalued
• Index data - added new fields to allow more granular control of searching
• Languages - All 450+ ISO languages are now recognized
• Import - fixed import.sh to work easier
• Record View - revised subject links to be accurate
• Record View - fixed display of tags
• Facets - Fixed narrow by call number
• Author page - author name cleaned up to allow better results from wikipedia
• Synonyms - added some basic synonyms to synonyms.txt file

WARNING: For this release you must re-index records.

• New Import Tool - Developed by Wayne Graham of William and Mary College
• Data directory is no longer used
• Refactored Record Module to use HTML for display instead of XSL
• Place Hold/Recall is now incorporated into the system and available for Voyager Systems. More ILS systems will be intergrated as soon as possible
• Book Covers and Book Reviews can now be supplied by other providers other than Amazon. Syndetics and Google Books are included as well.
• Innovative Driver - Development by Adam Brin.

• Internationalization - VuFind has been translated into German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Brazilian Portugese and Chinese.
• Zotero - Users of VuFind can now save items to their Zotero plugin.
• User Account - Users of VuFind can now see what items they have checked out, any holds they have places as well as any fines that they have.
• Browse - A new “prototype” browse application has been added to VuFind to allow users to browse through the library resources through an iTunes style interface.
• Narrow Results now include a facet called Subject Area that is based on the Call Number.
• Logged in interface has been redesigned
• AJAX Queries on search results page were consolidated for better performance Patch by Chris Delis.
• Added “more” and “less” functionality to the results facets to allow for more that 5 options to show. Patch by Chris Delis.
• Improved all fields search algorithm.
• Improved “Similiar Items” algorithm.
• Added a “Search Within” feature.
• Added basic Aleph Driver by Christoph Krempe
• Added basic SirsiDynix Sybase Driver by Matt Mackey
• Holdings tab is now the default tab on the Record View page
• Bug Fix: Install script now creates the MySQL database correctly
• Bug Fix: Deleting of favorites now works correctly

• Bug Fix: Narrow Results did not work in Safari and IE7
• Bug Fix: Install script did not install all necessary libraries
• Bug Fix: Advanced search not working correctly
• Bug Fix: Voyager driver now has configurable port number
• Added debug option in configuration

• New Tagging/Favorites System and New MySQL Database Schema
• Redesigned “logged-in” Homepage
• Users can view their checked out items
• Narrow by Callnumber
• New fields in SOLR Schema
• Enhanced import script with new data cleanup mechanisms
• Revised advanced search mechanism
• Enhanced installation script
• Migrated from Tomcat to Jetty for ease of packaging (Thanks to Wayne Graham)
• New control script (vufind.sh) for new Jetty Server (Thanks to Wayne Graham)
• Bug Fix: Login popup window
• Bug Fix: Missing book cover images and Amazon reviews
• Bug Fix: More Like This - strange inclusions
• Bug Fix: Holdings Tab display works with latest Structures_Datagrid library
• And many more bug fixes…

• Spelling Correction
• Tagging and Commenting per Record
• Save Resources
• Database Authentication
• Search History
• Author Pages
• More Like This

• MARCXML Initial Import Script
• Result Facets
• Live Status Information
• LDAP Authentication