September 2005 - Koha-devel - lists.koha-community.org

Sharing experience with utf-8
by Tumer Garip 03 Jan '06

03 Jan '06

Here is what we had to do to use koha in utf-8 hoping that it helps in some of your discussions: 1- We are using koha since 2.2.0 now at 2.2.2b 2- We use English for intranet and English-Turkish for opac 3- The platform is Windows 4- We changed the character set of the database to utf-8 with the iso-xxxx data in it. No problem for Mysql as you are moving up the ladder. No need to reload the data (10 min) 5- Changed all the charset=iso-xxxx in the templates to read utf-8 and saved the files as utf-8 (15 min.) in a simple text editor. 6- Character decode in biblio for MARC21 is very ambigious for us because it is not very clear which character encoding it is changing from. All the marc records we bulkimport are MARC-8 , iso2709 or ANSEL or whatever you want to call them. So we simply wrote a one to one character mapping of MARC-8 to utf-8 for our Turkish accented characters. Here it is: #Additional Turkish characters s/(\xf0)s/ş/gm; s/(\xf0)S/Ş/gm; s/(\xf0)c/ç/gm; s/(\xf0)C/Ç/gm; s/\xe7\x49/İ/gm; s/(\xe6)G/Ğ/gm; s/(\xe6)g/ğ/gm; s/\xB8/ı/gm; s/\xB9/£/gm; s/(\xe8|\xc8)o/ö/gm ; s/(\xe8|\xc8)O/Ö/gm ; s/(\xe8|\xc8)u/ü/gm ; s/(\xe8|\xc8)U/Ü/gm ; s/\xc2\xb8/ı/gm; All the character codes are directly from LC's website about MARC21. Since we provided the actual characters rather than their codes we saved the biblio.pm as utf8 to save time. (Half a day together with research) 7- We have a full working koha as utf8 supporting all characters and we keep doing the same thing everytime we get an update. 8- Translation of opac files through .po files do not work for us. As we see it, this po translator is simply a search and replace text engine. So it converts the string ' English English <somevariable> English.' to ' Turkish Turkish <somevariable> Turkish'. Which is useless as it should be 'Turkish <somevariable> Turkish Turkish'. 9- So we sat down and translated the opac templates to proper Turkish. It is now more easier for our people to follow the changes in cvs and implement the changes to templates rather than doing complete translations every time. 10- The whole update up till now is taking less than half a day with one person doing it. 11- We as Windows people do not have much experience with this po editor. But as far as I know it supports utf8 so whats the hassle about these translations? As far as we understand it the official language of KOHA is English and if someone is translating it to some other language it is their responsibility to find the resources to translate it in time to be implemented as an additional language. Even if this requires a complete rewrite of some templates. 12- Finally we believe that koha should start using utf8 ASAP before the move to zebra to gain experience. If zebra is implemented with all this iso stuff we will have more problems with each translation requiring a different character set and sort order set and character mapping to set etc. etc. Koha is more powerful with more features, stability and performance and I believe people will be more happy to see improvement in these even if they have to spend a little bit more resource on their own translations. With no prejudice, Tumer Garip Near East Univ. Library Director Cyprus tgarip(a)neu.edu.tr

3 2

Re: [Koha-devel] Koha Statuses and MARC?
by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com 20 Oct '05

20 Oct '05

The best thing is to keep MARC as standard as you can... Ed Sharpe archivist for SMECC. > Paul et al, > > In Paul's proposed scheme for item statuses, the items.notforloan > field is linked to MARC field 942$k and then an authorized value > is set for that field (defined by the library). Before we invest > too much development energy on this idea I'd like to question > whether it's even a good idea to store status information in the > MARC record, especially we we move toward using Zebra to store our > textual (MARC) database. > > Stephen and I spoke earlier today and he's got me thinking that maybe > it's not such a good idea to store statuses in MARC. MARC wasn't > really designed for anything but the static record information. It's > ill-suited for transactional based data such as statuses. > > I propose that for Koha 3.0 we create a new field in the Koha tables > called 'items.status'. items.status can be a numeric value and have > a set of library-defined authorized values. We can then add a framework > for setting those values that a library must setup when they install > the system. For instance, it should be possible to set Koha to > automatically set an items status to 'in transit' when an item is > on reserve to a patron in a branch other than the holdingbranch (when > the item is returned) and 'waiting' when it arrives and is scanned. > But the goal would be to make this a setting that the library could > define when setting Koha up, a set of 'status rules'. > > Comments, suggestions, volunteers? > > Cheers, > -- > Joshua Ferraro VENDOR SERVICES FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE > President, Technology migration, training, maintenance, support > LibLime Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS > jmf(a)liblime.com |Full Demos at http://liblime.com/koha |1(888)KohaILS Thanks, Ed Sharpe, Archivist for SMECC See the Museum's Web Site at www.smecc.org We are always looking for items to add to the museum's display and ref. library - please advise if you have anything we can use. Coury House / SMECC 5802 W. Palmaire Ave. Phone 623-435-1522 Glendale Az 85301 USA CONFIDENZIALE: Questo messaggio e gli eventuali allegati sono confidenziali e riservati. Se vi è stato recapitato per errore e non siete fra i destinatari elencati, siete pregati di darne immediatamente avviso al mittente. Le informazioni contenute non devono essere mostrate ad altri, né utilizzate, memorizzate o copiate in qualsiasi forma. CONFIDENTIAL: This e-mail and any attachments are confidential and may contain reserved information. If you are not one of the named recipients, please notify the sender immediately. Moreover, you should not disclose the contents to any other persons, nor should the information contained be used for any purpose or stored or copied in any form.

6 5

Fines Broken
by Joshua Ferraro 05 Oct '05

05 Oct '05

Hi all, I just discovered (much to my dismay) that fines are broken in the 2.2.x and greater series. At first glance, one reason for this is that the categoryitem table has been removed. So this is a good example of the kind of QA problems we're having with this project. It's going to take many hours for someone to hunt back for the history of this issue, find out who broke what when, then figure out how to fix it, then to commit the fix. There's got to be a better way. Cheers, -- Joshua Ferraro VENDOR SERVICES FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE President, Technology migration, training, maintenance, support LibLime Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS jmf(a)liblime.com |Full Demos at http://liblime.com/koha |1(888)KohaILS

8 9

Itemtype and MARC21 Quandry
by Joshua Ferraro 02 Oct '05

02 Oct '05

Hi all, So here's a problem. Say a library has a system that allows a single MARC21 record to specify record types within the record in the 852$6 and allows issuing rules to happen on the item level rather than on the record level. I'm not sure if this is valid MARC21 practice, but I do know of at lease one system that works this way. When such a library converts to Koha, only one of the itemtypes is valid for the whole record, meaning that they will lose the ability to define issuing rules at the item level. The only solution seems to be to break up each record into multiple records, one for each itemtype (as a temporary fix). So I'm wondering, should we be defining issuing rules at the item level in Koha 3.0 for MARC21? or should we continue to define them soley on the record level? Cheers, -- Joshua Ferraro VENDOR SERVICES FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE President, Technology migration, training, maintenance, support LibLime Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS jmf(a)liblime.com |Full Demos at http://liblime.com/koha |1(888)KohaILS

5 7

Re: [Koha] Sticky due date (Specify due date) not working
by Rachel Hamilton-Williams 29 Sep '05

29 Sep '05

Hi > I've changed my template to the default one and the sticky date worked. > Do you think its possible to fix the template bug, because I really like > the NPL one It may be already I'm not sure - but you might want to contact the NPL guys and ask them if there is a fix Cheers Rachel > > -----Original Message----- > From: Rachel Hamilton-Williams [mailto:rachel@katipo.co.nz] > Sent: Friday, 30 September 2005 10:20 AM > To: Amanda Steen > Subject: Re: [Koha] Sticky due date (Specify due date) not working > > HI > > >>I have version 2.2.3, Linux at the moment. >>I'm using the NPL template. >>I previously tried to screen dump my issuing rules but it didn't work. >>But they are fairly straight forward. > > > Just to check - could you try changing to using the default template and > > do the same thing - I do suspect a template bug, easiest way to check is > > with the other tempaltes. > > Cheers > Rachel > > > >>Amanda Steen >> >>-----Original Message----- >>From: Rachel Hamilton-Williams [mailto:rachel@katipo.co.nz] >>Sent: Friday, 30 September 2005 9:42 AM >>To: Amanda Steen >>Cc: koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz >>Subject: Re: [Koha] Sticky due date (Specify due date) not working >> >>HI >> >>It might be a template bug - can you please say which version of Koha >>you're using, wether Windows or Linux, and which templates you're > > using. > >>Cheers >>Rachel >> >>Amanda Steen wrote: >> >> >>>Hi there >>> >>>I'm another newy to Koha. >>> >>>I've been through the system parameters and preferences. >>> >>>I'm now up to testing it out to see what it can do, and to writing up >>>instructions for our non-librarian library billets. >>> >>>I'm finding that when I try to set a specific date, the item is issued >> >> >>>to the dates set in the parameters. >>> >>>What have I done wrong? >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>Amanda Steen >>> >>>Cataloguing Librarian / Campuses Librarian >>> >>>Library >>> >>>Bendigo Regional Institute of TAFE >>> >>>P.O. Box 170 >>> >>>Bendigo, 3552 >>> >>>Telephone: (03) 5434 1431 >>> >>>Fax: (03) 5434 1428 >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >> >> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>_______________________________________________ >>>Koha mailing list >>>Koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz >>>http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha >> >> > -- ----------------------------- Rachel Hamilton-Williams General Manager Katipo Communications Ltd Phone: +64-4-934 1285 Mobile: 021 389 128 E-mail: rachel(a)katipo.co.nz Web: www.katipo.co.nz

1 0

New document on kohadocs
by Stephen Hedges 29 Sep '05

29 Sep '05

A new link to a document has been added to http://www.kohadocs.org -- "Gestion de la bibliothèque du LabSAD avec le logiciel Koha" by Caroline Naget (available in pdf format only). This document is in the General Information section because it covers several aspects of Koha: installing on Gentoo Linux, setting parameters, and use. -- Stephen Hedges Skemotah Solutions, USA www.skemotah.com -- shedges(a)skemotah.com

3 4

Koha Interfaces and OpenUsability
by Joshua Ferraro 28 Sep '05

28 Sep '05

Hi all, I've been thinking about our template redesign plans for 3.0. So first off, how's that going? Rach, were you working on some mock ups? Owen, how are the programmer templates coming? Second, I was wondering whether OpenUsability would be useful: http://openusability.org I signed up there recently and it looks like it might be a good way to evaluate the usability of Koha's interfaces. What do folks think? Cheers, -- Joshua Ferraro VENDOR SERVICES FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE President, Technology migration, training, maintenance, support LibLime Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS jmf(a)liblime.com |Full Demos at http://liblime.com/koha |1(888)KohaILS

3 2

Head code cleaning (continuing)
by Paul POULAIN 26 Sep '05

26 Sep '05

Hi, The TGV travels 300km per hour, except when there is a problem on the high speed line. In this case, he travels at 100km per hour and needs 6 hours to do Paris => Marseille (with >400km on 850 at full speed). Fortunatly, there is power available for laptops computers, so I could work on Koha HEAD, to do some cleaning. I tried to test as many things as possible, but for sure i've introduced new Internal Server Errors or bugs !!! I mainly worked on C4::Search.pm that contained various subs, most of them being not at the right place. So I moved to a better location, modified scripts using the moved sub, and also removed some subs that where useless. Now, the Search.pm contains only search related subs. As the Search API will be deeply modified for 3.0/Zebra, the Search.pm will probably disappear soon, or be 100% rewritten !! I also : * continued to modify code & template to use biblionumber instead of : bib, bn or biblio... * continued to normalize API : sub to read things should be called getXXX. (subs to add should be newXXX, subs to modify modXXX, and subs to delete delXXX) Here are moved/modified subs from Search.pm: itemnodata => become getbibliofromitemnumber, moved to Biblio.pm getborrowercategory => moved to Koha.pm getbranchname => moved to Koha.pm isbnsearch => removed, unused getwebbiblioitems => moved to Biblio.pm getwebsites => moved to Biblio.pm QUESTION about websites : is this code used by someone ? not by me and not by anyone with MARC=ON probably, as there are no way to reach websites pages. barcodes => moved to Biblio.pm bibitems => moved to Biblio.pm ItemType => removed (replaced by a Koha.pm getitemtypeinfo) itemcount2 => removed, unused getborracctrecord => moved to Members.pm borrdata2 => moved to Members.pm allissues => moved to Members.pm borrissues => moved to Members.pm borrdata => moved to Members.pm BornameSearch => moved to Members.pm catalogueserach, KeywordSearch, CatSearch, subsearch => nothing changed. But should disappear in Koha 3.0, with new zebra search API. itemdata => moved to Biblio.pm. Renamed get_item_from_barcode bibdata => moved to Biblio.pm. Should be merged with getbiblio ? bibitemdata => moved to Biblio.pm. should be merged with bibitems ? subject => moved to Biblio.pm and renamed as getsubject (used only once in modbib.pl) addauthor => moved to Biblio.pm and renamed getaddauthor (used only once in modbib.pl) subtitle => moved to Biblio.pm and renamed getsubtitle (used only once in modbib.pl) itemissues => moved to Biblio.pm (could have been in Circ.pm as well as in Biblio.pm, but it's used in biblio detail, so when we have to read other biblio info) SUGGESTION : We have many subs to read the catalogue. Imho, we have too many. So we could probably clean the code a little bit more. Another idea would be to split catalogue add/modify/delete and catalogue read in 2 subs, as we usually don't need to read and write the catalogue in the same script. Would be more clear and could fasten a little the code compiling in cgi mode (no effect with mod-perl) TODO : Scripts related to members that are in KOHAROOT should be moved to another directory (pay, maninvoice...). Probably something like /members/ or a new /accounting/ -- Paul POULAIN Consultant indépendant en logiciels libres responsable francophone de koha (SIGB libre http://www.koha-fr.org)

4 3

[Fwd: [Koha] Koha is brilliant.]
by Tarallo, Andres 26 Sep '05

26 Sep '05

Maybe some of you missed this email from Bolivia

1 0

RE: [Koha-devel] Install Meeting, 2005-07-05 21:00 +0000
by Anthony Youngman 26 Sep '05

26 Sep '05

And it's been free ever since it's been Novell SuSE Linux, ie I think 9.1 The last "non-free" version was the one shipped just after Novell bought SuSE. It was so close to release Novell let it go, and then they stripped out the non-free licences for the next one. And even before that it was "free but not Free", in that the only "objectionable" bit in the licence was the clause that said "no you can't charge, not even expenses". Cheers, Wol -----Original Message----- From: koha-devel-admin(a)lists.sourceforge.net [mailto:koha-devel-admin@lists.sourceforge.net] On Behalf Of Jerry Van Baren Sent: 16 September 2005 18:14 To: koha-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Koha-devel] Install Meeting, 2005-07-05 21:00 +0000 毛慶禎 wrote: > Do you mean SuSE Linux 9.3? > > Please be careful that SuSE Linux is not Free Software. For your > information, I install Koha using Fedora Core 4. Not true, you can download SuSE for free. It is Open Source and licensed via GPL. From: <http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/downloads/suse_linux/> SUSE LINUX 9.3 ftp version SUSE LINUX can be installed free of charge directly from the FTP server. It contains: * 32bit and 64bit version * over 3,500 software packages incl. server and developer tools * the full software packages that are also included in boxed retail version Before you start, please read the installation guideline. The path to the installation directory is: * ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/current/ for 32bit * ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/x86_64/current/ for 64bit > 2005/9/13, Jochen Geiser <jg(a)freigmbh.de <mailto:jg@freigmbh.de>>: > > hi, > > i got a question, i want to install koha could i use suse linux 9.3 ? > > > > > > -- > Best regards > > 毛慶禎, Anthony Mao, mao at lins dot fju dot edu dot tw > ICQ 30941847 > Department of Library and Information Science > http://www.lins.fju.edu.tw/mao/index.htm > TEL +886 2 29052334, FAX +886 2 29017405 > Fu-jen Catholic University, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by: Tame your development challenges with Apache's Geronimo App Server. Download it for free - -and be entered to win a 42" plasma tv or your very own Sony(tm)PSP. Click here to play: http://sourceforge.net/geronimo.php _______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/koha-devel * ************************************************************************ * This transmission is intended for the named recipient only. It may contain private and confidential information. If this has come to you in error you must not act on anything disclosed in it, nor must you copy it, modify it, disseminate it in any way, or show it to anyone. Please e-mail the sender to inform us of the transmission error or telephone ECA International immediately and delete the e-mail from your information system. Telephone numbers for ECA International offices are: Sydney +61 (0)2 8272 5300, Hong Kong + 852 2121 2388, London +44 (0)20 7351 5000 and New York +1 212 582 2333. * ************************************************************************ *

1 0