Asking help with customized ojs releases

[roberta_takenaka]

Dear developers,

I work on SciELO (http://www.scielo.org) and SciELO started to used OJS 2.0.1 with some customizations.
I do not know very much about CVS, patches, diff, "releases notes", changeLog, and so on, but I have tried to find out more using the Internet, but there is some gap of information.

One of my problems is keeping the versions up-to-date. It means mine and yours. This time I updated manually my version 2.0.1 with yours, the 2.0.2. But next times I want to do it automatically. How can I do?

Done this, I would like to create the my files ojs/docs/release-notes/READE-ME and
ojs/docs/release-notes/ChangeLog to keep the standard.
So, the question is: can I have this automatically? where from?

Are there other topics I should know to keep the standard? What else do you do when you release a version?

Sincerely,
Roberta Takenaka

[asmecher]

Hello Roberta,

Patches, diff, changelog standards, CVS, etc. are standard *NIX development tools and any studying you do will certainly be widely applicable.

Patching is definitely the preferred way of keeping your installation up to date, particularly if you've made modifications. Whenever we make a release, we generate a patch against all of our other releases and upload them to http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/download/patch; if, for example, you'd made modifications to OJS 2.0.1 and wanted to upgrade to 2.0.2-1, you'd follow a process like this:

• Download a patch from OJS 2.0.1 to OJS 2.0.2-1 (http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/download/patch/ojs-2.0.1_to_2.0.2-1.patch.gz)
• Copy the patch into your OJS directory and gunzip it
• Do a test run to see if there will be any conflicts with the customizations you made (patch -p1 --dry-run < ojs-2.0.1_to_2.0.2-1.patch)
• Manually resolve conflicts if there are any, using the output of the previous command
• Actually patch the code (patch -p1 < ojs-2.0.1_to_2.0.2-1.patch)
• Run the upgrade script (php tools/upgrade.php upgrade)

That's it! Your modifications should still be present. (Of course, you'll have to test them to ensure that the upgrade didn't break anything.)

If you'd like to know about our development and release process, there's information in CVS under docs/dev. CVS also contains a few useful tools that aren't distributed with OJS, like the tools/buildpkg.sh script. See docs/README-CVS for information on CVS access.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Open Journal Systems

[roberta_takenaka]

Dear Alec,
Your explanation was very helpful.
I know they all are standard *NIX development tools, but I am not used to working with. Although I look for them in the Internet, I was not able to understand how to apply.
I did not understand that patch instruction could keep my modifications. I will try on the your next release. Thanks.

Sorry, but where can i find the docs/dev you told?

information in CVS under docs/dev

Is it in the ojs?

[asmecher]

Hello Roberta,

The docs/dev directory is in the CVS repository for OJS, but it's not included in the OJS distribution files. You can check out the repository anonymously using the information in docs/README-CVS; the easiest way to have a look is to browse with CVSWeb:

http://research2.csci.educ.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/cvsweb/ojs2/docs/dev

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Open Journal Systems

[roberta_takenaka]

Hello,
As you probably know, I have the OJS 2.0.2 version and I have made some changes, actually a lot, and I have to release this version.
What are the steps to do that? I mean, I realized I have to change the file dbscripts/xml/version.xml, I have to generate the README and the ChangLog files. I have to know what files else I have to change. So, I need someone to tell me step by step how to prepare my release, so that I keep a standard.
What tag I should use?
I would really appreciate a detailed answer.