This release focuses on the new customizable tool statuses.  This allows libraries to setup and edit a list of custom “states” that items can be in, including specifying if an item is “for sale”, “in maintenance”, “sold” or even “recycled”.  Items can be placed into one or more sates,a nd each state defines who can see items in that state, and whether the item can be checked out or not.

You can already see what the West Seattle Tool Library has listed For Sale!

New Feature

• [LEND-764] – Create ability for libraries to create customized tool statuses (broken, in maintenance, for sale, sold, scrapped, etc.).

Bugs Fixed

• [LEND-765] – Automated Loan Reminders Not Being Emailed Out
• [LEND-766] – Item type name chopped off
• [LEND-767] – Currently impossible to remove all statuses for an item
• [LEND-772] – Preventing users from loading item pages for items they are not permitted to see

Improvements Made

• [LEND-731] – Display when an item is “Disabled” on search results to organization admins
• [LEND-768] – Display comma separated list of tool statuses on browse results and item page
• [LEND-769] – Display more information when searching/browsing for tools
• [LEND-770] – Validate category names when editing
• [LEND-773] – Show availability and status to non-logged in users

New Features

• [LEND-739] – Inventory Report

Bugs Fixed

• [LEND-679] – Can’t start cart for non-full-member when starting with an item
• [LEND-713] – NPE in weeklyCheckOutIn
• [LEND-717] – Admin stats are blank if there are no checkouts
• [LEND-718] – First data point in graphs is always 0
• [LEND-736] – The Stats/Graphs are Never updated
• [LEND-738] – Stat cache timeout
• [LEND-748] – Unnecessary trailing orgShortName on Admin Dashboard and Library Home urls
• [LEND-749] – Error messages are missing from inventory browsing pages
• [LEND-750] – Toggling between local and default on item editing page doesn’t always set the right values
• [LEND-751] – Unable to change values for input type=”file” fields in new item layout
• [LEND-752] – Checkboxes not rendering a text value for display
• [LEND-753] – Error when adding new items to inventory
• [LEND-754] – Editing an item causes all field data to be lost
• [LEND-760] – Items should only reindex in Solr when org disabled status changes
• [LEND-761] – Only tech admins should be allowed to change org’s shortName
• [LEND-762] – Renewals sometimes does not properly check an item in before checking it back out (or something)
• [LEND-763] – Broken image icon in cart when item has no image

Improvements Made

• [LEND-349] – Add gender/sex to user search reports (and export)
• [LEND-708] – Stat cache
• [LEND-732] – Put item editing/check in/out links on the (end user) item info page
• [LEND-733] – Improve tool editing page UI
• [LEND-737] – Change display of stats/graphs cache status
• [LEND-744] – Add membership expiration to user/member report and export
• [LEND-745] – Add javascript validation to all fields that need it in the item editor
• [LEND-747] – Prefill item editing fields with default value on override
• [LEND-755] – Show item value page has a lot of blank space when fields are left empty
• [LEND-756] – Improve itemType default value editing page in the same manner as item value editing page
• [LEND-757] – Warn user that updating default item type values may take a long time
• [LEND-758] – Swap out the YUI Rich Text Editor for TinyMCE or one that produces well-formed HTML
• [LEND-734] – Add label field to Attribute

Version 1.8.1 of Local Tools, our lending library management system has been released.  The biggest addition to this release is the ability to define and edit your own tool categories.  In Local Tools, items are managed in a hierarchy (e.g. Hand Tools vs. Power Tools), and in a previous release we allowed them to be categorized by “use” (e.g. Carpentry, Skiing for sporting good libraries, etc.).  The tool categories are now fully editable by organizations.

We’ve also added additional email receipts, including for account creation, adding/changing a membership, etc.  While there were only 15 or so new features, bug fixes and improvements, many of them are fairly significant (including a fix to stats and graphs).  For more information, or to sign up for a beta test, please contact us.

New Features

• [LEND-350] – Email user on Tool Library account creation
• [LEND-655] – Add ability to add/edit Tool categories

Improvements

• [LEND-598] – Add a preference for displaying “Card On File” into on the checkout page
• [LEND-677] – Preference for tracking and displaying “Card on File”

Bugs Fixed

• [LEND-433] – System allows removing Library Memberships that are in active use
• [LEND-685] – Error when creating user, a library membership is paid for, and email transactions are enabled
• [LEND-705] – Admin Stats show wrong value for total # of library items
• [LEND-719] – Can’t save user info after editing
• [LEND-720] – Check in/out by week graph always displays 0 for the first week
• [LEND-721] – Stats page not working – no data shown for any graphs in some cases
• [LEND-723] – Trying to edit tool categories leads to an error
• [LEND-724] – Lending library items are not reindexed after category is edited
• [LEND-725] – Reindexing failing after saving item type
• [LEND-728] – Default membership fee created not set to reasonable default
• [LEND-729] – Membership type messages should display name if available

This will be the last release in the 1.6.x series, and we’ll be moving on to 1.7 where we have some bigger changes planned.  This release focuses on minor improvements, fixing Internet Explorer support for IE7 through IE9 and adding the start of email receipts for transactions (like check-in/check-out).

We strongly recommend libraries check, edit and save their email receipt templates.  You can do this by going to Organization Info in the left navigation, then clicking on “Edit Receipt Email Template”. Once you edit and save the templates for the first time, logged in users will be able to request a receipt for their transactions to be emailed to them from the “Your Account” link in the left navigation.

Bugs Squashed

• [LEND-587] – The quick check in/out box does not warn when the item to be checked out is disabled
• [LEND-590] – Issues with IE: can’t add item to cart, other form buttons not working
• [LEND-600] – Paging by tool type in the admin loses the tool type/criteria on the second page of results
• Improvement
• [LEND-588] – Put warning at top of cart if user has overdue tools, even if late fee is not charged.
• [LEND-592] – Add Google Analytics to custom layouts

New Features

• [LEND-493] – Email user upon checking out a tool (currently disabled for all libraries)
• [LEND-494] – Email user upon checkin (currently disabled for all libraries)
• [LEND-569] – Opt-out option from email for checkout and checkin
• [LEND-570] – Allow orgadmins to configure the template for the email sent upon checkout
• [LEND-571] – Allow orgadmins to edit the template of the email sent to users when members checkin tools
• [LEND-580] – Transaction report in My Account
• [LEND-581] – Receipt-looking transaction details in My Account
• [LEND-582] – Email button on receipt so it can be re-sent to user
• [LEND-591] – On the cart, show whether and org has credit card info on file

Tweaks for Existing Libraries

• [LEND-601] – Remove members self-registration for Vancouver Tool Library

Not Yet Enabled Functionality

• [LEND-579] – Comment out emailing automatically on check in/check out. Need to review what gets emailed.

A relatively modest release with just under 20 fixes and improvements. We had originally planned to add emailed receipts for when users check items in and out, but have pushed that back to the next release.

Bugs Fixed

• [LEND-550] – Editing a user resets/deletes their year of birth
• [LEND-555] – Empty/null values are displaying as [object Object] in datatables
• [LEND-557] – Membership transitions and payments are recorded on failed cart submits
• [LEND-560] – Items without a name are not displayed properly in transaction layout

Improvements

• [LEND-477] – Record add-time of items
• [LEND-525] – Allow organizations to set a home page URL in organization preferences
• [LEND-536] – Clean up and simplify the layout
• [LEND-537] – Validate email address without submitting on account creation forms
• [LEND-552] – Add a link to the admin and logout to custom inventory pages
• [LEND-556] – Improve how the fee/contribution columns are formatted

New Features

• [LEND-449] – Keep track of the user’s membership id (assigned by the organization for the user, regardless of membership transitions). see also LEND-448
• [LEND-530] – Allow loading the cart page for non-full users but WARN that they must record a new membership (upgrade/renew) to proceed
• [LEND-531] – Add javascript to the cart.jsp page to not let orgadmin checkout a user who isn’t full member without ALSO entering a membership upgrade/renewal/extend
• [LEND-540] – Change cart processing so that an orgadmin can checkout a user who’s paying for membership at the same time as borrowing tools (ex: for the first time, or lapsed membership)

What started as a “quick fixes” release, turned into a release with over 40 new features, improvements, and bug fixes.  The full list is below.  We’re already hard at work on the next release — not to mention at updating the main Local Tools site.

New Features
[LEND-490] – Keep track of “message about user” in the user-organization object. This should be displayed on the user details page, and on check out and check in.
[LEND-496] – Alert orgadmin if they are checking out/in a user who has a “message about the user” (popup the alert when they click checkout or checkin or renew)
[LEND-532] – Warn when orgadmin puts a value in membership $, but doesn’t renew/upgrade, the amount goes away. Warn instead.

Improvements
[LEND-424] – Better UI for date of birth entry
[LEND-467] – Add late fees to “my loans” page
[LEND-472] – Give nice error when user tries to record late fees but checks in no items
[LEND-489] – Display total late fees outstanding in addition to total late fees for items being checked in
[LEND-491] – Hide the message-about-the-user from the user (it should not be displayed on the user’s page about themselves)
[LEND-498] – Have Disabled items show up in search for org admins with “DISABLED” text at end of name
[LEND-500] – Can’t just change the membership expiration date, have to set membership type
[LEND-502] – Check in comments should be listed in the same places as check out comments (e.g. money report)
[LEND-511] – Label required fields on account creation forms
[LEND-512] – Warn user about mismatched passwords on account creation form via JS (do not wait for submit)
[LEND-513] – Make first name appear before last name on account creation/editing forms
[LEND-521] – Add org internal ID#s to custom search results
[LEND-522] – Create one form to check in/out an item
[LEND-526] – Add action buttons to top of tool and user details view
[LEND-527] – Add admin and logout links to browse pages when logged in
[LEND-528] – Initial UI overhaul (left nav, header, main body of the page)
[LEND-534] – Make sure Delete/Remove button is never obscured in cart

Bugs Fixed
[LEND-398] – Money attributes are allowed to be “” but when used in a recommended donation, it causes errors at checkout
[LEND-443] – List all members drop down resets to “Show all types” on error
[LEND-445] – Member Details transactions -> Details can provide error page
[LEND-473] – On myLoans page, paging loans doesn’t work
[LEND-479] – Confirm and fix: you can check in an item that’s already in (if it is checked in while you’re on the checkin page – “race” condition)
[LEND-504] – Admin status on user details always says the user is an admin, even when they are not
[LEND-505] – Long, ugly error message when checking out an item that was “stolen” from under the current cart’s nose
[LEND-506] – Multiple separate trips required to find out all the problems with a new user creation (orgadmin) ex: bad email; password mismatch,…
[LEND-510] – Can’t check out a tool with that has no default condition (if a condition is not set in the cart)
[LEND-514] – New users don’t get a most_recent_transition_id when they’re created
[LEND-515] – “Grant membership” on the user details page does not cause the most_recent_transotopn_id to be set
[LEND-516] – Memberships with no expiration show as expiring today on the “upgrade/renew”
[LEND-518] – Internal id is missing from search results in custom layouts
[LEND-519] – Obsolete warning on org admin create user page
[LEND-520] – Expiration set to null when checking a tool in
[LEND-529] – Add the “membership upgrade” box to the “new member” page
[LEND-539] – Trying to start a cart for a non-Full member functionality regression

User Stories Added
[LEND-384] – Display late fees owed on check out
[LEND-488] – If a user’s membership has expired, the membership accordian on the cart should be “open”

Tasks Performed
[LEND-355] – Figure out rental periods : per tool? per user/membership type?
[LEND-497] – Set the expiration to “one year after the last membership transition” for memberships of founding or regular.
[LEND-517] – Fix memberships without a most_recent_transition_id

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us via our contact form, on Twitter or Facebook.