Monday Minutes: Utilizing the New! News Feature for OPAC Customization

by Kelly McElligott on Jan 6, 2020

New News!

The News feature in Koha has a lot of versatility and is getting more use with Koha 19.05. Within the Tools module, libraries can use the News feature to communicate information to the staff client, OPAC, and even on Issue Slips. In 19.05, Koha has added a new area in which to add information to the OPAC, the right-hand side of the OPAC. Prior to this, a system preference called, OPACnavright, was used to display information to this area of the OPAC. The advantage of this move from system preference to the news feature, the library doesn’t need to know or use HTML.

Tutorial Video with Kelly and Jessie

News Feature

In this blog post, we will cover the “new” News portion found in Koha. However, if you are familiar with the other features in this News feature, here is a very helpful blog post:

Video Tutorial on Using the News Feature in Koha

Steps on Adding Content

To add news or other content to the lower right-hand side of the OPAC (under the login area) - this will be called OPACnavright in the News Feature. OPACnavright what it was called when it was a system preference also.

Steps to add content to this area:

1. Start with creating a new entry.

2. The location option will be opacnavright.

3. Any news content entry needs a title- this is a mandatory field

4. Publication Date and Expiration Date are optional but super helpful if you want a post to automatically appear and disappear.

5. Position- if a library had 3 OpacNavright entries, which should come first (0 position), second (1st position) and third (2nd position).

6. In the text editor box, formating can be done, images can be added or straight HTML can be used. This text editor box has helpful options almost like a small word document would provide.

Once this news entry has been created- head over to the OPAC and see the finished product!

More OPAC customizations

Want to know more about what areas of the OPAC are covered by System Preferences?

Below is an image of where each area of OPAC lives within Koha to be edited. Most areas are system preferences and will require HTML to alter the look of your OPAC. The lower right area is the area that is now controlled by the News Feature found within the Tools Module.

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