[Isis-users] Something to celebrate for ABCD's 3rd birthday

[De Smet Egbert]

Dear colleagues,

We are very happy to announce several important new developments to the Isis/ABCD user's community.

As you know, a few months ago we delivered an advanced version of ABCD on a trial basis , which was called 1.2.t (transitional), thinking that with the help of some colleagues we could do the debugging and publish it quickly by August.
That version was an important step because it upgraded from PHP5.2 to PHP 5.4, a new version of ABCD OPAC based in VHL Site of BIREME, and some long-promised features. Then in the course of the following weeks reported corrections were made and many new things were added, so that finally we have called it ABCD v.1.3 as it is worth a version upgrade.

On December 3rd, ie today on the occasion of the 3rd anniversary of the launch of the first version of ABCD v.1.0, in Sao Paulo (Brazil), 2009, we will publish the new version, with lot of new features.
The packages are available at the URL : http://abcd.netcat.be/files/
They are still the full installation packages, so they will replace all existing folders and files in an existing installation. Therefore : make sure to first make backups of the bases-folder and the following config-files, which have to be checked anyway after installation : 
- /ABCD/www/htdocs/central/config.php
- /ABCD/www/htdocs/iah/scripts/iah.def.php
- /ABCD/www/htdocs/site/bvs-site-conf.php
- /ABCD/Apache2.4/conf/httpd.conf (last part, reference to php.ini).
- /ABCD/www/bases/abcd.def (in case you have made any changes here).
In the new version (as from 1.2t) it is possible to refer to different database-folders at the login-menu, so one could keep the bases-folder separately, outside the actual installation folder - therefore unaffected by new installations - anyway, as is already the case in Linux (where the bases go into /var/opt instead of /opt). In the Linux Debian-packages the demo-databases will only be copied to this database-folder if there are no existing databases already, preventing loss of existing databases.

The other news is that we are releasing a Wiki page of ABCD, which complements that of BIREME's : ABCD's all historical information, plus all the CISIS, VHL Site and the corresponding manuals will be kept in BIREME's site, because these modules are theirs. But the latest news about ABCD and new releases will be published on this new site that we will reveal by 3rd of December.
See the URL : http://www.abcdwiki.net
Here only the Spanish part is ready, for the English translation (and later on possibly other : Portugese, French...) we need volunteers to work on the translation which can be done directly on the WIKI-pages themselves.

In this site we have prepared:
- A new manual completely re-written by Egbert, with over 160 pages "The ABC of ABCD Central : the Reference Manual"; it comes now not only in PDF-format but also in a html-website format with links from the table of contents to each part.
- An updated Wiki in English and Spanish, which will replace the current one maintained by Guilda in her server, where information will be updated continuously and may be open to partners to provide information to the wiki.
- There will be demos of ABCD aligned to the current version
- ABCD installation versions for Windows and Linux, with installer and instructions
- Source code of programs

In the following days we'll publish more information on the changes and developments brought in this version.

We appreciate all the cooperation and the time spent by Alberto, Edwin, Juan, Diego, Gustavo, Alisson , and the team of programmers in Cuba (esp. Marino Sánchez), coordinated by Egbert.

regards
Guilda, Egbert, Ernesto

Egbert de Smet
Universiteit Antwerpen