OCS future plans

Hello there

I can see that lots of development have been done to OJS recently but OCS has been updated last two years ago. Any plans to update OCS in near future?

All the best,
Hembo

Hi @Hembo_Pagi,

We’ve been rewriting the core of our software for several years, which is now culminating in OMP 1.2 (released this month) and OJS 3.0 (to be released this summer). We’re just starting to consider whether and how to do the same with OCS. The central element of this rewrite has been to modernize and strengthen the shared library that all of our software uses, and one result is that the applications themselves (OJS and OMP) are quite a bit smaller because they rely on so much shared infrastructure. This will make an OCS rewrite much quicker than it would’ve been otherwise. However, we don’t have concrete timelines to share, yet.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

Any news about that topic?

Hi @Hembo_Pagi,

No, not yet.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

Hello

How is it going with the new OCS?

All the best
Hembo

Hi @Hembo_Pagi,

The latest on OCS is still this blog post from 2018, I’m afraid.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

Thank you for your respond. As the code is so old and requires PHP 5.2 we need to rethink the whole situation. Any recommendations or patches to make it work with newer PHP versions?

Hi @Hembo_Pagi,

The current stable branch in github (ocs-stable-2_3_6) has been updated to support PHP7.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

Is this still in the works, or have there been any new developments in a new version of OCS? We have a faculty member asking for a conference platform, but I’m not sure we want to use the old version.

Hi @John_Martin,

I’m afraid not. At this point, I would not recommend starting a new installation of OCS.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

any update regarding the OCS update. we have been using it actively and we need new version.

Hi,

I installed the current stable branch in github - ocs-stable-2_3_6, fot PHP7, on my localhost with PHP 7.3.6.
But OCS not worked. Write error:

Deprecated: Methods with the same name as their class will not be constructors in a future version of PHP; Application has a deprecated constructor in D:\xampp736\htdocs\ocs_test_php7\classes\core\Application.inc.php on line 30

Deprecated: Methods with the same name as their class will not be constructors in a future version of PHP; PKPApplication has a deprecated constructor in D:\xampp736\htdocs\ocs_test_php7\lib\pkp\classes\core\PKPApplication.inc.php on line 24

Fatal error: Cannot use ‘String’ as class name as it is reserved in D:\xampp736\htdocs\ocs_test_php7\lib\pkp\classes\core\String.inc.php on line 57

My question:
Do you plan to continue fixing ocs-stable-2_3_6 to PHP 7?
Will you create a new version of OCS for PHP 7 and higher?

Thanks

Petr

Hi @pvalen,

The ocs-stable-2_3_6 branch is already fixed up for PHP7; make sure you’ve got that branch checked out in your lib/pkp submodule as well.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

Hi,
thanks from your answer.
I download zip file “ocs-ocs-stable-2_3_6.zip” from “ocs-stable-2_3_6”

When i open it, then is “lib/pkp” empty

Hi,
When I see “classes\core\Application.inc.php”, there is writing:


class Application extends PKPApplication {
function Application() {
parent::PKPApplication();
}


Therefore write error:
Deprecated: Methods with the same name as their class will not be constructors in a future version of PHP; Application has a deprecated constructor in D:\xampp736\htdocs\ocs_test_php7\classes\core\Application.inc.php on line 30

Hi @pvalen,

The Deprecated message is just a warning, and shouldn’t prevent the software from working (for now).

If the lib/pkp subdirectory is empty and you’re using git to run the checkout, then you probably haven’t updated your git submodules. Check the git documentation, but generally you can do this by running

git submodule update --init --recursive

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

I’m sorry, but I can’t install OCS under PHP7.
The older version works for me without any problems.

I maked new installation.
I download zip file “ocs-ocs-stable-2_3_6.zip” from “ocs-stable-2_3_6”. I copy file from zip file to my localhost.
I download zip file “pkp-lib-master.zip” from “pkp/pkp-lib”. I copy file from zip file to my localhost to “lib/pkp”.
I changed file “config.inc.php” (base_url, Database Settings) .

I run in a browser and only see these three errors:

Deprecated: Methods with the same name as their class will not be constructors in a future version of PHP; Application has a deprecated constructor in D:\xampp736\htdocs\ocs_test_php7_org\classes\core\Application.inc.php on line 30

Warning: require_once(D:\xampp736\htdocs\ocs_test_php7_org/core/PKPApplication.inc.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in D:\xampp736\htdocs\ocs_test_php7_org\lib\pkp\includes\functions.inc.php on line 25

Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required ‘D:\xampp736\htdocs\ocs_test_php7_org/core/PKPApplication.inc.php’ (include_path=‘D:\xampp736\php\PEAR’) in D:\xampp736\htdocs\ocs_test_php7_org\lib\pkp\includes\functions.inc.php on line 25

Hi @pvalen,

The steps you’re describing will mix code from OCS 2.3.6 with code from the unreleased ocs-stable-2_3_6 branch; that won’t work.

The best way to work with code from github is to use the git tool on the machine you’re installing OCS onto, and let it manage the details. There is good introductory documentation on working with git here: Git Clone - How To Use Git Clone | W3Docs Git Online Tutorial

You’ll also have to learn a little about submodules, which are documented here: How to Clone Including Git Submodules

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

Hi,

I tried:

d:\xampp736\htdocs\ocs_test_php7_git>git clone --branch ocs-stable-2_3_6 https://github.com/pkp/ocs.git
Cloning into 'ocs'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 1, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (1/1), done.
remote: Total 65884 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 65883
Receiving objects: 100% (65884/65884), 25.60 MiB | 8.66 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (42871/42871), done.

d:\xampp736\htdocs\ocs_test_php7_git>cd osc\lib\pkp

d:\xampp736\htdocs\ocs_test_php7_git\ocs\lib\pkp>git submodule update --init --recursive
Submodule 'lib/pkp' (git://github.com/pkp/pkp-lib) registered for path './'
Cloning into 'D:/xampp736/htdocs/ocs_test_php7_git/ocs/lib/pkp'...
Submodule path './': checked out '78f8120d8ec51616305ea8621c9e0146845a0e71'

d:\xampp736\htdocs\ocs_test_php7_git\ocs\lib\pkp>

I changed file “config.inc.php” (base_url, Database Settings) .

Once started again full of errors. See file 1

So I put “error_reporting (0);” in the “index.php” file, but again full of errors. See file 2

Can you please advise me how to well install the correct version for PHP7? Thank you.

Hi asmecher,

Can you please advise me how to properly install a modified version of OCS to work with PHP 7?
As I wrote on May 13, 2020, it constantly makes mistakes.

Thanks

Petr