VuFind® Community Call Minutes: December 6, 2022

Attending: Chris Hallberg, Demian Katz, Claas Kazzer, Peter Murray, Bob Scheier, Mario Trojan, Susan Turkel

The November, 2022 Newsletter was discussed.

• #2378 - Make MenuButton component [in progress]
  • Next step: final test/review - DK
• #2400 / VUFIND-1533 - Wrapped link elements should not have space between the lines [in progress]
  • Next step: resolve conflicts; finish testing and fixing outstanding issues - CH / DK
• #2447 - AJAX status standardization/modernization [in progress]
  • Next step: final test/review - DK
• #2492 - Add refresh buttons to jump menu controls [waiting on #2378]
  • Next step: decide when to add buttons and when to use MenuButton controls from #2378
• #2543 - ThemeInfo: Fix getMergedConfig [in progress]
  • Next steps: finish discussion, ensure full test coverage - CH / DK
• #2580 / VUFIND-1573 - Upgrade Solr for release 9.0 [Solr 9 major upgrade complete but not yet merged]
  • Next step: decide whether Solr 9 belongs in release 9.0 or 10.0 of VuFind® – no strong opinions on call; DK will talk EM
• #2624 / VUFIND-1514 - Modernize front end build environment, replace Grunt with NPM scripts [in progress]
  • Next step: Discuss / finish TODO list - CH
• #2640 / VUFIND-1563 - Blowfish encryption fails under Ubuntu 22 and Fedora 36 [in progress]
  • Next step: continue test/review process - CH / DK

• VUFIND-1568 - Make Solr port configurable during installation [assigned to DK]
• VUFIND-1396 - Investigate possibility to deprecate the Context view helper [assigned to EM]
• VUFIND-1529 - Configurable sort tie-breaker field [assigned to SK]
• VUFIND-1541 - Add Mink test coverage for Markdown rendering [assigned to CH]
• VUFIND-1547 - Normalize search event namespace [unassigned]
• VUFIND-1535 - Make search history labeling more consistent [assigned to DK]
• VUFIND-1566 - Clean up/standardize Javascript lib directory [assigned to CH]

• VUFIND-1570 - Update browse handler in release 9
  • Prerequisites: complete all Solr and browse handler updates first.
• VUFIND-1567 - Update language translation files for release 9.0
  • Prerequisite: complete all changes that impact language files.

Chris highlighted the ThemeConfig view helper, which was recently added to VuFind®. This helper can be used to fetch configurations from the theme.config.php file in the theme directories. This allows us to put configuration settings specifically related to themes inside the themes themselves, instead of forcing people to write custom CSS. This also makes it possible to configure the same setting different ways in different themes, when running parallel themes.

Chris demonstrated some possible applications of this feature – for example, adjusting the order of elements in the theme's header, controlling which parts of the record view are collapsed/expanded by default, etc. A design that's more heavily configuration-driven also makes upgrades easier, and allows customization to be done in a more targeted way (instead of requiring customization of monolithic template files).

The proposal was well-received.

The Community Call survey received 17 complete responses. No one expressed a desire to change the current time or schedule.

The majority of participants (16) said that development updates are useful. A significant number (11) also highlighted the value of being able to ask questions of the community, and 9 highlighted tutorial videos. Only 3 noted community planning exercises as a positive feature.

Other suggestions included:

• More frequent JIRA/PR status check-ins (which we're already planning to do!)
• Including lightning talks on related topics (PHP news, Laminas news, etc.) if people are willing to share
• More discussion of authority data
• More time for beginners to ask questions

Chris is interested in offering more user-initiated theme options (e.g. light/dark theme, including detection of device light/dark mode). How should we manage all this complexity without creating very messy code? CSS variables can help with this… but what if we also have LESS/SCSS variables? How do we reconcile all this? e.g. if we need light versions of all variables and dark versions of all variables, that's already doubled the number of variables… and then how do we make sure these are all accounted for properly? If you have any ideas/best practices, please share them with him.

One possible proposal: use CSS variables for “decision”-based variables (e.g. light vs. dark) and use LESS/SCSS variables only for “constant” variables (e.g. specific color definitions, margins, etc.).

Possible next step: Chris can create a PR to better formalize the problem for deeper discussion.

It was proposed that we should postpone the next Community Call due to the regularly scheduled date falling very close to a holiday. There were no objections, so we will next meet on January 10 instead of January 3.

The next call will be Tuesday, January 10, 2023 at 9am Eastern Standard Time (14:00 GMT).

Note that this was rescheduled based on discussion above.