New Features in EPrints 3.3
Release Notes
3.4 | 3.4.1 | 3.4.2 | 3.4.3 | 3.4.4 | 3.4.5 | 3.4.6
3.3 | 3.3.5 | 3.3.6 | 3.3.7 | 3.3.8 | 3.3.9 | 3.3.10 | 3.3.11 | 3.3.13 | 3.3.14 | 3.3.15 | 3.3.16
3.2.0 | 3.2.1 | 3.2.2 | 3.2.3 | 3.2.4 | 3.2.5 | 3.2.6 | 3.2.7 | 3.2.8 | 3.2.9
Contents
New Features in EPrints 3.3.x
This list will be fleshed out as we get closer to a final release.
EPrints Bazaar
"1-click" extensions and add-ons, see http://bazaar.eprints.org/. To install add-ons go to Admin → System Tools → EPrints Bazaar.
EPrints includes GUI tools for creating new Bazaar packages and selecting the source files.
As part of this change a new system-level lib/plugins directory has been added allowing extensions to be installed globally. This reflects how mod_perl works, which has a single namespace for all repositories. By default plugins installed in lib/plugins will be disabled and hence can be enabled on a per-repository basis.
Search engine plugins
Searches are now executed through the plugins layer with a new Search plugin type. EPrints 3.3 comes with support for one new search engine: Xapian. Xapian is a probabilistic search engine that supports boolean queries. To use Xapian you must install the Search::Xapian Perl library and a perform a full re-index. The Xapian index will be written to archives/[repoid]/var/xapian/.
The (default) Internal search engine plugin has support for prefixed terms in simple search e.g. "title:(american eagle) birds". This allows users to specify more complex search queries in a similar fashion to e.g. Google. The available prefixes are based on the field id listed in the simple search configuration.
XSLT-based Imports, Exports and Citation Styles
If XML::LibXSLT is installed import and export plugins and citation styles can now be written using the XSLT language (XML stylesheets). XSLT export plugins support "templating" to add headers and footers to the export.
Flexible object support
EPrints already has a very flexible metadata scheme basic on primitive types (ints, dates etc.). In 3.3 this flexibility is enhanced by allowing the easy creation of user-defined dataset classes. Objects in these flexible datasets can be browsed, searched and viewed in a similar way to eprints or users. They may also be referred to by existing objects (item-referencing) or behave as a child-parent (as documents are to eprints).
SWORD 2.0/CRUD support
The EPrints /id/ URIs are now CRUD-aware, including content-negotiation. To content-negotiate for JSON do:
curl -H 'Accept:application/json' http://myrepo.example/id/eprint/10
Authorised users can PUT and DELETE EPrint URIs to update and delete records:
curl -X DELETE http://myrepo.example/id/eprint/10
Improved workflow and document management
AJAX-based upload, deletion and updates of documents. Files now upload automatically and have a progress bar that works in all current browsers.
Document "actions" are now individual plugins allowing extensions to add actions to individual documents in the workflow. Supplied actions include conversion, unpacking (.zip and .tar.gz), additional files and metadata extraction.
Import workflows
Import plugins can now have a sibling Screen plugin that provides the interface for using that importer. This is demonstrated by the ISI Web of Knowledge plugin that (if SOAP::ISIWoK is available) provides a search query and tool for importing items.
Flexible Login and Registration
User authentication and registration are now controlled through sub-classes of Screen::Login and Screen::Register. A Bazaar package is provided to enable OpenID single sign-on support. Internal (default) login and registration can be trivially disabled by disabling the Internal sub-classes.
Upgrade Notes
- Backup your database before installing this update. While upgrading has been tested you should always backup your repository before installing updates that change your database schema.
- This is a new branch release that will make significant changes to your repository's database and configuration. Upgrading repositories may require fixes to appearance and/or configuration to continue working.
