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We invite developers to help with the next major release of DSpace, version 1.7.0, which is planned for release in December 2010.

Contributors are strongly encouraged to obtain the source code using Subversion (SVN). This is very straightforward, and we've published a guide to doing so here: ContributionGuidelines

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Release Process needs to proceed according to the following Maven release process ReleaseProcedure

New Features

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NOTE: The list of new 1.7.0 features has not been finalized. The features listed below may or may not make it into the final 1.7.0 release. Features will only be included if they are ready, stable and documented before the 1.7.0 Feature Freeze date listed above.

Potential 1.7.0 New Features (still tentative):

Info
Features which have already been committed to Trunk (main codebase) are marked with a . These are all features which are now definite to be released in DSpace 1.7.0

source code is still volatile as fixes and improvements are still flowing in.

• AIP Backup / Restore (Tim Donohue/DuraSpace) – Allows for a more complete backup of DSpace into generic METS-based packages known as Archival Information Packages (AIP's). These AIPs could also be used to migrate DSpace content (Communities/Collections/Items) between DSpace and non-DSpace instances that support AIP.
• DSpace Discovery, a discovery layer to provide a deeper, and more intuitive look at repository contents.
• [Unit Testing|GSOC10 - Add Unit Testing to Dspace]

  Wiki Markup

  , which will allow each code component to be able to be tested so that it does what it intends to do. * Most Used Items list, which can replace or complement the existing Recently Submitted Items list. h3. New Features in XMLUI * Two XMLUI themes ** A function library to aid xmlui theme development which refactors the existing dri2xhtml. ** Mirage, a theme which is another new look utilizing the new xmlui function library h3. New Features in JSPUI * Added the ability to redirect to the current page after authentication h2. h2. Improvements Graham Triggs has launched a Code Quality crusade and has dug into deep and dark corners of the DSpace source code armed with nothing more than a torch, machete, and a fancy plugin called QAplug to systematically drive out evil spirits haunting the DSpace code. See: https://jira.duraspace.org/browse/DS-707 In addition to that, the rest of the general improvements are: * Reducing the cost of browse prunes * SOLR ** Switched to use autoCommit which reduces resource exhaustion ** Added solr.optimize which can called via command line to essentially "defragment" the solr index, resulting in slightly better solr performance over time. * Item bitstream sorting/ordering can be specified according to sequence or name * Moving the documentation into the Confluence wiki so that workload can be divided, and that the documentation is improved. h2. h2. Bug Fixes * Batch Metadata Import will now validate metadata fields in CSV's * Restricted items / metadata is better protected from exposure via web services: OAI h2. h2. Changes See the [DSpace 1.7.0 JIRA Page|http://jira.dspace.org/jira/browse/DS/fixforversion/10031] for a list of all currently proposed changes. h2. h2. Removed / Deprecated Most command line scripts that have historically resided in \[dspace\]/bin/ were deprecated in 1.6, and are now removed in 1.7. They have been replaced with the configurable command launcher, which eases the cross platform development of scripts. Discussion at: {color:#003366}[{color:#003366}http://jira.dspace.org/jira/browse/DS-646

  |http://jira.dspace.org/jira/browse/DS-646].
  
  Example usage of the launcher:
  
  One can no longer run:
  

  Code Block
  [dspace]/bin/create-administrator

  
  The method of calling the DSpace launcher is now:
  

  Code Block
  [dspace]/bin/dspace create-administrator

  
  
  h2.
  
  
  h2. Unsure / Postponed for Next Release
  
  Note: Developers, you need to contact the release coordinator and get approval to commit a feature that did not make it in by the feature freeze date. The sooner you tackle this the better the chance that your code will not cause a problem with the release schedule.
  
  There are a few projects that were strongly desired to make it into DSpace 1.7, however, work will need to be done to make them into the release, or they are going to be postponed for the next release of DSpace, likely 1.8.
  
  Rewrite of Creative Commons licensing Rewrite of Creative Commons licensing (MIT - ready to go) – would improve upon the features of the current CC licensing submission step
  * Currently only against XMLUI from MIT
  * Legacy problem – do we update old license to new or not? Currently MIT runs 'split version' with old licenses looking like old, and new look like new.
  
  Google Scholar work (MIT - ready to go) – better metadata for Google Scholar (citation tags in header).
  
  *[CGIProposal|CGIProposal] (Richard Rodgers/MIT – Interface & XML serialization implementation should be ready), based on the the [Item type based submission patch picked |http://jira.dspace.org/jira/browse/DS-464] picked up by Robin Taylor (initially a GSoC project) – would allow for type-based submission processes (e.g. Theses/Dissertations could have different submission steps than articles/papers).
  Context Guided Ingest – define an interface, where any submission code can write "attributes" and can retrieve those again later on. Can add any new attributes/values that you want for your submission code. Could be serialized to XML (using input-forms.xml) OR have an implementation of that service that stores in DB (recommended). JPA2?
  seems similar to SimpleStorage Service (user centered storage of state info) – Mark Diggory.
  
  *[CurationTaskProposal|CurationTaskProposal] (Richard Rodgers/MIT – some will be ready) – would allow for a more standard way to integrate curation tools (e.g. virus scanning, format identification, etc) into DSpace Lightweight DSpace Lightweight framework to attach curation tasks – 3-4 tasks for 1.7. These could be kicked off by commandline (in batch) or Admin UI (potentially)1 1. Automated replication
  2. Streamlined Checksum Checker
  3. Virus Checker - ClamAV (Tcp socket communication)
  4. ??? Better content format identification (may not be ready for 1.7)
  Could relate to Scheduler service (Spring based) in Modules area. Allows you to register & schedule events. – Mark Diggory
  AipBackupRestore (Tim Donohue/DuraSpace) – would allow for a more complete backup of DSpace into METS-based Archival Information Packages (AIPs). These AIPs could also be used to migrate DSpace content (Communities/Collections/Items) from one system to another.
  
  
• Refactoring Packager interface to use java.io.File instead of InputStreams – would require refactoring of SWORD & LNI.
• May require using a Temp folder to cache streams.
Eventual goal to separate out Packagers & Crosswalks to a separate API – may not be ready for 1.7 Possibly one or more of the [Google Summer of Code|Google Summer of Code] 2010 projects (if they are ready/stable enough for release)
 - REST API?

SWORD Client for DSpace? (Robin Taylor – may be ready, Richard Jones & Stuart Lewis are interested in helping) – would allow DSpace to push/submit content to other SWORD enabled repositories

• For closed & open access repositories – add a button to transfer content from a closed to an open repository.
• DSpace Discovery work, potentially?
• Possibly one or more of the Google Summer of Code 2010 projects (if they are ready/stable enough for release)
  • The Add Unit Testing to Dspace project has already been accepted and will be released in 1.7

Deprecation – What do we want to deprecate in 1.7?

• Wiki Markup
  The old \[dspace\]/bin/ scripts will be deprecated in favour of the new 'dspace' script. For example \[dspace\]/bin/create-administrator is replaced by \[dspace\]/bin/dspace create-administrator. See [http://jira.dspace.org/jira/browse/DS-646]

Changes

See the DSpace 1.7.0 JIRA Page for a list of all currently proposed changes.DCDate improvements: has DCDate been rewritten / replaced ?