With a September 20, 2021 release date announced for VuFind 8.0, August's main focus has been finishing up all outstanding work pending for the release. This includes upgrades to Solr and SolrMarc (as well as many lesser dependencies), improvements to PHP 8 compatibility, support for 4-byte UTF-8 encoding in MySQL/MariaDB databases, and better handling of punctuation in author names during MARC indexing. Progress has been made on updating translations for the release, and the ongoing work of fixing bugs, improving accessibility, clarifying architecture and expanding ILS functionality has continued.

The call for papers for the 2021 Virtual VuFind Summit (being held online and free of cost from November 15-17) is now open. Please consider submitting a proposal and participating in the event.

The following items were completed in the past month:

• Accessibility: improved login forms: #2039
• Add a constraint to record tab route parameter: #2067
• Add ability to filte/reorder limiters on EDS advanced search form: #2044
• Add link on publisher into detail record: #2040
• Add support for help text on the hold update form: #2074
• Add use command into generated SQL in installer: #2041
• Adjust dependencies for MARC Lint PHP 8 compatibility: VUFIND-1479 / #2045
• Aleph driver: record ID can contain bibliographic base even if only one base is configured: #2027
• Aleph driver: support for administration identifier (adm_id) in getMyHolds: #2033
• Allow translated template rendering via view helper: #1874
• Alma: Return call number as a string: #2058
• Always unset updateDetails unless the value is usable (bug fix for holds editing): #2077
• Bump pear/archive_tar from 1.4.13 to 1.4.14: #2046
• Demo: Refactor out the getCancelHoldDetails method: #2075
• Do not include redundant traits: #2055
• EDS: Use div containers instead of spans to give each link its own line: #2065
• Enable split-on-whitespace in Solr: #1937
• Fix bug: Delete from list drop-down cut off in display in bootprint3 theme: VUFIND-1492 / #2068
• Fix handling of an empty hold updateFields setting: #2069
• Fix HierarchicalFacetListener comparison: #2073
• Fix name handling in AuthorInfo recommendation: #2062
• Fix Shibboleth Factory: #2064
• Focus to element after closing modal: #2032
• Improve sanitization of facetexclude parameter: #2043
• Improve Solr error listener: #2066
• Improved accessibility for results / favorites lists: #1931
• KohaRest: Fix handling of frozenThrough/startDate hold parameter: #2071
• Make abstract search command truly abstract; improve tests: #2080
• Make CacheTrait generally available, use in HoldsController: #2079
• Make QRCode loader validate params and handle errors better: #2063
• MySQL 4-byte UTF-8 support: VUFIND-1007 / #2019
• Normalize creator punctuation: VUFIND-1468 / #2028
• Overdrive: use class constants instead of strings: #2052
• PAIA: improved name parsing: #2078
• Reduce use of hard-coded class strings: #2053
• Set default record page title: #2070
• Show profile menu (incl. toggler) for editing favorite lists in account: #2042
• Small fixes for updateHolds changes: #2038
• Solr 8 upgrade: VUFIND-1339 / #1477, vufind-browse-handler#33, vufind-browse-handler#36
• Update cancelHolds method comments: #2076
• Update dependencies for VuFind 8.0 release: #2047
• Update SASS and tools for scssphp 1.6.0: #2056
• Upgrade to laminas-cache 2.13.0: #2054
• Upgrade to php-cs-fixer 3: #2050
• Upgrade to phpstan 0.12.94 (and fix new issues): #2049
• Use correct escaping methods in attributes etc.: #2057, #2061

Additionally, #2026 (corrects use of limitations in DAIA driver) was closed because it has been superseded by #2060.

The following items were reported / begun in the past month, but are not yet completed:

• DAIA driver improvements: #2059, #2060
• Display info if no pickup locations are available: #2035
• Do not circumvent search service: VUFIND-1483 / #2036
• Fix limitOrderOverride: #2081
• Improve escaping behavior of RecordLink helper: #2072
• Improve XML batch-loading support: VUFIND-1458 / #2034
• Refactor sitemap generator to use search service more consistently: #2037
• SierraRest: Disable keepalive as it may cause trouble with Sierra: #2083
• Update league/commonmark to 2.0: #2048
• Upgrade to laminas-form version 3: #2051
• WorkKeys.java: Optimize caching behaviour: #2082

• Allow next/prev record navigation for record versions: VUFIND-1496
• Apply XSLT to RSS feed: VUFIND-1494
• Delete from list drop-down cut off in display in bootprint3 theme: VUFIND-1492
• Improve addition of non-tab record routes in RouteGenerator: VUFIND-1495
• Improve visibility of scheduled search feature: VUFIND-1493
• Make description truncation configurable: VUFIND-1498
• Overdrive Integration: support for API changes for checkouts: VUFIND-1499
• Remove support for Apache 2.2: VUFIND-1497

The following items saw significant progress / activity during the past month:

• Allow Javascript to be loaded in the header OR the footer: #1799
• Configurable truncation of subjects on full record display: #1791
• DAIA driver: correct use of limitations: #2026
• Icon helper: #1926
• makeLink view helper: #1695
• Refactoring of template resolving logic: #1424