Save and Share Your Advanced Catalog Editor Macros

by Andrew Fuerste-Henry on Oct 28, 2020

Macros in the advanced catalog editor are really powerful and helpful! You can see a past post about them here and the community wiki page about them here. Or, if you want to learn about the advanced editor more broadly, check out our new Deep Dive series.

In Koha versions 19.11 and earlier, however, macros had one big limitation -- they were saved in your browser cache. That meant that one's macros were lost whenever one cleared that cache, that one could only use them on one machine, and that one could not easily share macros with other users. Luckily, version 20.05 changes this!

Starting in 20.05, all new macros will be saved in the Koha database. They won't get lost in upgrades and you'll be able to access them anywhere you log into Koha. Additionally, you'll be able to mark them as "public" so other users can see them, too.

Converting old macros

If you've got macros in your cache post-upgrade, you'll need to convert them to get them moved into the database. To start, go to the advanced catalog editor and open the macro window. If you have macros in your browser cache, you'll see a new button.

After you click "Convert old macros," any macros in your cache will be moved into Koha and saved to the database. That's it!

If you like, you can click the "Public macro" box for any of your converted macros to make them usable by all users.

Going forward, all new macros will be automatically saved to the database rather than to your cache. To make a new macro public, just check the box.