July 2006 - Koha-devel - lists.koha-community.org

New KOHA3 API -design issue
by Tümer Garip 20 Jul '06

20 Jul '06

Hi all, If Joshua approves you will soon be seeing a big commit to head that changes the API of KOHA 3 very soon. Here is what I have done so that we can share comments and improvements on this. Major changes: 1-Bibliographic, Holdings and Authority records are all separate MARC records. 2-All searches rely on ZEBRA indexing and searching (Z3950 compliant) 3-Non MARC data handling is dropped. Non-marc like display is kept 4-All data is UTF-8. No other encoding supported as this support all languages 5-Change affects all data handling so for a short time breaks all modules (circulation, serials,acquistions and the lot) 6-Templates not affected More detail: Database design: 1-biblioitems, marc_words,stopwords, marc_subfield_table, autth_subield_table, additionalauthors, subjects,categories, marc_blob tables completely dropped 2- biblio table now has: biblionumber,marc,itemtype,framework 3-items table now has : itemnumber,biblionumber,barcode,marc 4- auth_header table now has: authid,marc 5- 1 new frameworks table added similar to marc frameworks for holdings marc 6- A new koha_attr table added. This one is for creating virtual fields which we do not have any more. Also helps matching your own MARC indexing rules to KOHA and ZEBRA. (More on this later) Design issues; 1- itemtype definition still kept at bibliographic level. Can be very easily converted to item level. i.e one bibliographic record with different itemtypes (book,cd,dvd etc).Open for discussion 2- All items (holdings) are single marc records, instead of all items in one marc record for the same bibliographic record. The main idea behind this is flexibility and speed. One full record for an item gives lots of fields to put all that information that you wanted to keep but did not have extra subfields left. All data including circulation data is kept within the marc records, this approach makes circulation updates faster as we do not have to reindex unchanged data related to other items again (zebra technicalities!). 3- All MARC framework designs have OPAC:show-hide Intranet:show-hide Editor:show-show collapsed-hide as dropdown selections so not to wory about what we put in these MARC fields. All handled correctly 4- Circulation speed is improved. One marc update instead of 6 sepatrate database update calls we used to have. Currently working modules: -MARC editor works - Item screen although looks the same now has multiple fields and works - authories adding editing works but needs to be improved to bibliographic editor design -Circulation works but being updated for faster handling -Serials and acquisitions needs work The new koha_attr table: We used to match our marc frameworks to table field names for both being multi-marc compliant and for template design issues. These field names now do not exist. So now we create virtula ones by a user editable screen. Although it comes filled with all the previous field names (and many more extras) to keep all koha modules and templates working you can add as many as you want when the need arise. No need to change database structures. But a table just for this feature was not needed, we could have had those names as authorised values so i added another functionality to this table. It matches your KOHA field names to ZEBRA indexing. This way the majority of koha code stays intact and field names joing our records like subcrisptionid itemnumber barcode etc can function as previous and removes the strain on programmers to either programme with PQF,CQL or CCL. A routine supplied converts everything to zebra language. This approach also release the strain on developers on trying to match what zebra is indexing and what koha thinks or should be indexed. Specially at this development stage until a KOHA minimum indexing standarts is defined this gives both the programmer and the library freedom of movement. A library may also decide to use completely inhouse designed indexing attributes and not comply with standarts like Bib-1 or Gils. All you have to do is fill you koha attr tables in sysadmin and tell koha what barcode is and what title is.Koha will continue to function. In simpler terms it does what frameworks does but compliments that table and bring ZEBRA in. I will be writing more on this issue after the commits but in the mean time expect to have your comments on all the issues regarding this upgrade. Cheers Tumer Garip NEU Grand Library

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RE: SPAM- [Koha-devel] New KOHA3 API -design issue
by Tümer Garip 14 Jul '06

14 Jul '06

Hi Michael, Good point. They do not do the same thing though. There are three different framework structures currently in KOHA. Until we decide to join them all together to one MARC-KOHA-ZEBRA framework I did not want to repeat the same process of koha=>zebra conversion for three. Thats why it exists. But probably the next step will be to join them into one table.Both has cons and pros. That why this thread has been started. -----Original Message----- From: Michael Hafen [mailto:mdhafen@x.washk12.org] Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 6:41 PM To: Tümer Garip Subject: Re: SPAM- [Koha-devel] New KOHA3 API -design issue I have one question at this point: If Koha_attr does what frameworks does, then why is the frameworks table still used? Wouldn't it be easier to drop the framework table and use Koha_attr table as a drop in replacement? Or have I misunderstood the purpose of the Koha_attr table? Ok, so that was actually three closely related questions. ;) Keep up the good work.

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Planet Koha is broken
by Corey Burger 14 Jul '06

14 Jul '06

Hey all, Don't know who I should mention this to, but Planet Koha appears broken. It also appears that Planet Koha has a link to the old wiki. Corey

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Re: [Koha-devel] Planet Koha is broken
by Corey Burger 14 Jul '06

14 Jul '06

On 7/13/06, Rachel Hamilton-Williams <rachel(a)katipo.co.nz> wrote: > hi > > > Don't know who I should mention this to, but Planet Koha appears > > broken. It also appears that Planet Koha has a link to the old wiki. > > Could you be a bit more specific about the brokeness? Do you not see > anything? Or is it a coding problem? > > cheers > Rachel I apologize. On futher investigation, it appears the planet is in fact, no planet at all. The source shows me some links and nothing more. As it is in the old Koha style and currently lacks content, we could remove the link from the main website until somebody fixes it (I am not volunteering, due to lack of skill). Corey

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UI commentary on new zoomopac
by Corey Burger 14 Jul '06

14 Jul '06

Hello all, Thought I would introduce myself before I start spouting off. I currently wear two major sets of "hats". The first is in the Ubuntu community. I am a longtime member of the Ubuntu Documentation Team, Marketing Team and have the unfortunately pleasure of leading the Ubuntu Canada team. My second hat is with Userful. Userful makes DiscoverStation, which is a Fedora-based (ick, I know) public computing distro. I am a sales person for them. Now that the introductions are out of way, I will dive into the meat of my message: The OPAC interface. All of the below comments are based off the zoomopac interface on http://zoomopac.liblime.com/ as of July 7th,2006 (in case somebody is digging through the archives for my words of wisdom^WWWinsanity) == Overall Goals == Any good UI makes easy things very easy and hard things less hard. It also emphasizes the common tasks over the uncommon. Blather aside, what does this mean? The following lack hard facts, but are gut feelings: * The most common thing somebody is going to be doing just searching. Enter term, hit enter * The next three most common things people search for are: Authors, Titles and Subjects, in no particular order. * Another common query I would say is "What boxes on X are in the branch I am in/going to, right now?" * Advanced searching beyond the above is going to be done by maybe 1:20, maybe even closer to 1:100 * Staff love advanced search interfaces. They do deal with it all day. They also want fast search interfaces == General UI comments == * Align text entry boxes, either right or left. Have the description tag beside them, not on top or the bottom == Search UI == * Search boxes have a common UI. It is a text entry field with the button with the word "Search" on it. Sadly, the new OPAC appears to have departed from this idea. * Drop down menus suck. They are hard to hit and hide information. Thus if we move Authors, Titles and Subjects, we need to have a something different. * Tabs are also bad, as they hide information. * AJAX is a must. This part is already done well * I thus suggest we have little "mini-tabs" above the main search bar. They are labelled: General (or some better term for all inclusive search), Authors, Titles, Subject. * Colours are good for reinforcing connected-ness, so the background of each of the mini tabs would be a different colour and as the user switched the minitabs, the box around the search entry field would change accordingly * The world is full of slow internet connections, thus we need to fool our users into waiting if the ILS is slow to respond. After they click search, the page should switch to a hidden div with the words "Searching" and an hourglass/busy symbol. Because this will have already been loaded, the ILS can take its sweet time in responding and the user will not get annoyed. * The [ ? ] takes me an IndexData help page, written by technical people for technical people. My eyes glazed over almost right away. You don't need help on the simple search page. It might be justified on the advanced page. == Non-search UI == This is the fluff around the search, login,etc. * There are two places to login to my account. The one on the right is fine * Viewing new additions should take to a page with a complete listing, newest at the top. After I am there I can search for specific branch/subject/author/etc. Attached is a png showing a rough mockup. I don't claim the mockup is even roughly complete, but it does show the general idea. Cheers, Corey

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Koha-BDF
by Roxana Luz Fleipaz 13 Jul '06

13 Jul '06

Dears I do not go so far as to understand, please I need a help. Is Koha-BDF commercial?, I think in Internet that the cost of Koha-BDF is 10.000 $SDD. Did there need to know which is the difference of KOHA of origin, and because to take a name with same but TV/radio commercial Koha-BDF?. I need to raise this system and not encuetro a solution. Thank you. PD:RL

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My Local Koha Installation and Demo installation On http://koha.liblime.com
by lalitanand dandge 13 Jul '06

13 Jul '06

Hi, I installed Koha on my linux system successfully, while studying the demo ( on http://koha.liblime.com) and my local installation i found that in catalogue while adding the empty biblio there are many more and additional fields in the Demo while lesser in my local installation. I also checked the version both are same (i installed koha2.2.5 and the about of demo also saying same). So this make me little confused, since i am new to the koha and also i am form the open source development and not have library management experience as such. So please anybody having any inforamtion regarding this kindly help. Also i searched for the properly documented (rather easy step-by-step) manuals for how to use and administer koha, but I am sorry i could not get that useful for me, so please also help in this regard. Thank you, Lalitanand. Project Engineer. -- "Talk is cheap. Show me the code. Think Open, use Open Source!" Visit & Register at http://www.ossrc.org.in

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Source Code
by Emiliano Marmonti 13 Jul '06

13 Jul '06

Hi Andres I was checking in my mail, and we sended to Joshua exactly a year ago (06.20.05), the entire source code and database schema. I really don't know which was the problem with the install or something else. Before the finish of the Physics Library Project, the source code was downloaded from many countries, many times as you can see in: http://biblio.fisica.unlp.edu.ar/cgi-bin/koha/opac-downloads.pl Actually this version is not downloadeable from this site. I will check with Physics Library and try to put for download. Regards and happy for your interest in Koha-BDF Emiliano.

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MARC Editor
by Joshua Ferraro 11 Jul '06

11 Jul '06

Hi all, In our continuing saga to fix the MARC editor, I inadvertantly reverted rel_2_2 to a non-broken state (well, non-broken for me), while meaning to sync dev-week with a known working copy (again, for me). It could be interesting to add each modification individually again to see which one causes problems, or, if you prefer Paul, go ahead and revert my recent commit and we can troubleshoot the rel_2_2 editor from there. Cheers, -- Joshua Ferraro SUPPORT 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

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one developer leaving project
by Pierrick LE GALL 11 Jul '06

11 Jul '06

Hi koha-devel, Near one month since my last message on the list. As some of you already know, I don't work at INEO media system any more. Just after the DevWeek in May (I had been working at INEO for 2 months and a half) INEO announced me they decided not to invest in Koha anymore. It was impossible to continue paying a full salary without immediate return on investment, even if this situation was planned to last at least 18 months. Instead of working full time on Koha, they proposed me to work only 1 day a week and to work on the other activities of the company the time remaining, mainly .Net development on proprietary softwares. Of course I was not interested anymore. I've decided to find another job, what I did, and left INEO media system in the middle of June. I've tried many times to reach my responsibles at INEO media system to know what to communicate concerning the position of INEO toward Koha, but it has been impossible to have this information in one month. I suppose INEO media system won't work with Koha anymore but I don't really know, to say the truth. Maybe one day a responsible from INEO media system will come here and explain his strategy. Thanks for the 3 months I've been working with all of you. -- Pierrick LE GALL http://le-gall.net/pierrick

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