October 2007 - Koha-devel - lists.koha-community.org

UTF-8
by Dorian Meid 03 Dec '07

03 Dec '07

Gentlemen, I have a problem using UTF-8 with Koha. If I import MARC-Data via z3950 special characters are treated differently ÄÜÖäüö works at some pages but not in all. ß dosn't work at any page. This is the ü I get from z3950 and this is the ü which is generated when I type it. These are two different characters. I'm using Koha 2.2.8, MySQL5 and Apache 1.3 on Mac OSX 10.4 with Firefox. I've read the notes on the Wiki and my server, Database and the tables are set to UTF-8. I also set the templates encoding variable and added the encoding to httpd.conf The z3950 server sends data UTF-8 encoded Did I miss something? Dorian Meid

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Stocktake Report
by ZANG 30 Oct '07

30 Oct '07

Hi All I have to develop some custom reports and functions for a client. The stocktake report has to have a barcode printed with the item information. I am considering using the barcode.pl and barcodeGenerator.pl as a basis. The problem is, I do not get any output in the PDF file. I am new to Perl and get stuck with some elementary issues. Can someone please tell me where do I see a "warn" message. I want to use "warn" to give information about the generated sql, etc. I checked in all log files, but I cannot find it. Please help! Regards Zang

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ANNOUNCE: New Installer in master git tree
by MJ Ray 21 Oct '07

21 Oct '07

Well, one koha user already tried it, so I guess I should announce it here: THE NEW INSTALLER IS IN THE MASTER TREE The new installer is based on MakeMaker, the tool that is usually used to install CPAN modules. This means that if you know how to customise CPAN-installed modules, the same things should work for you with Koha. If not, don't worry. If you want to customise the installation more than described in the README.txt, run "man ExtUtils::MakeMaker" By default, the installer doesn't ask you any questions and tries to assume sane defaults, which I think is A Good Thing, but you can override most of the settings with environment variables. For instructions on how, run perldoc rewrite-config.PL As well as the CPAN-package-style installation, there is also a very quick-and-dirty script called install-CPAN.pl which should install all dependencies from CPAN automatically. For instructions on how to package releases, run perldoc Makefile.PL TREE STRUCTURE C4/*.pm is copied to perl’s lib namespace. CGIs are copied to $(PREFIX)/lib/cgi−bin/koha/ and other scripts to koha/ in perl's lib. Config files are copied to $(PREFIX)/share/koha/etc Templates are copied to koha/templates, excluding non−files, CVS files and whitespace in filenames. KNOWN BUGS There is no zebra init script and some of the zebra-related directories are not constructed and not complete. This is partly because I don't really know what I'm doing with the zebra server yet. Can anyone explain it to me, or remind me where to find the explanation, please? Thanks, -- MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Experienced webmaster-developers for hire http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ Also: statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder, workers co-op. Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

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opac login error for customer with item already check out
by Simon Mitchell 20 Oct '07

20 Oct '07

Hi every one, My koha problem - opac login error for customer with item already check out. I did find that solution to my koha 2.2.9 opac problem that was posted on the katipo list, but is was very hard to find. So am posting it here so the next time it will be easy to find it. My setup - Koha 2.2.9 NPL template Ubuntu 7.10 mysql v5 Linux library 2.6.22-14-server #1 SMP Wed Oct 10 06:35:59 GMT 2007 i686 GNU/Linux library:~$ mysql --version mysql Ver 14.12 Distrib 5.0.45, for pc-linux-gnu (i486) using readline 5.2 opac error log [Fri Oct 19 13:20:18 2007] [error] [client 59.167.xxx.xxx] HTML::Template->output() : fatal error in loop output : HTML::Template::param() : attempt to set parameter 'reserves' with an array ref - parameter is not a TMPL_LOOP! at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/HTML/Template.pm line 3069, referer: http://123.243.5.81:8003/cgi-bin/koha/opac-user.pl [Fri Oct 19 13:20:18 2007] [error] [client 59.167.xxx.xxx] at /usr/local/koha/opac/cgi-bin/opac-user.pl line 166, referer: http://123.243.5.81:8003/cgi-bin/koha/opac-user.pl [Fri Oct 19 13:20:18 2007] [error] [client 59.167.xxx.xxx] Premature end of script headers: opac-user.pl, referer: http://123.243.5.81:8003/cgi-bin/koha/opac-user.pl Chris had kindly put a solution in this email, is it ok in the next release? Thanks all. Regards, Simon http://lists.katipo.co.nz/public/koha/2007-June/011850.html >From Chris's email ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Ok, So this is bizarre, If I change $template->param(RESERVES => $reserves); to $template->param(RESERVE => $reserves); In opac-user.pl And then change  to  in opac-user.tmpl Suddenly the error goes away. If either of you could confirm this works for you, that would be great, and ill commit it to cvs, so that it comes out in the next version ... weird Chris -- Chris Cormack chris.cormack at liblime.com <http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha> VP Research and Development www.liblime.com LibLime +64 21 542 131 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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Chris Cormack wins award at NZ Open Source Awards
by Russel Garlick 17 Oct '07

17 Oct '07

Hi Everyone, Firstly, please excuse the cross posting. I am very pleased to announce that Chris Cormack, the current Koha QA Manager and former release manager for V1.2, won the Open Source Contributor Award at the first ever New Zealand Open Source Awards last night. The award recognizes Chris' tireless, ongoing effort working on the Koha project. Koha was also a finalist in the projects category. Chris accepted the award in his normal humble style, making a point of thanking everyone else involved. It was a great evening, with Koha getting mentioned several times, including a mention by the New Zealand Minister for ICT. Congratulations to Chris! For more about the awards see : http://www.nzosa.org.nz/ It was a great event, superbly organized by CatalystIT (an open source company here in Wellington,NZ). I'll do a post for the website with some photos soon. Cheers, Russel -- Russel Garlick russel.garlick(a)liblime.com General Manager - Australasia +64 21 542 188 LibLime Limited www.liblime.com

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Issuing rules
by Paul POULAIN 12 Oct '07

12 Oct '07

Hello world, We are reviewing Koha for 3.0 Release & Joshua pointed something important: the way issuingrules worked in koha 2.2. In Koha 2.2, the way it works is : - you define the rules depending on itemtype / patron category / branch - you have "wildcard" that means "all of them". For example, * / adult / * = 5 means "an adult patron can't issue more than 5 items whatever the branch". - The circ module check ALL the rules & warn if one is not correct. So, if you don't fill a cell, it's considered as 0 (= no issue possible) - you must fill book / * / * by understanding it means : "no patron can't issue more than X book(s)" This behaviour troubled a lot users, as we often have questions about warnings that were not expected. Joshua think, and i' fully agree with him, that the user understand the wildcard as 'default if nothing specified'. So, for example, book / * / * would mean : if a specific rule is not defined for patron category, then use this default value. We should not have a "check ALL the rules", but a "check the 1st available, from most to less specific + check the total rule if available.". The "wildcard" on itemtype being renamed to "total", and being applied if defined, as total document the patron can issue. so we could have something like that adult children default book empty 3,21 5,21 serial 4,14 3,21 5,21 comic 5,21 3,21 empty total 7 empty 5 which would mean : - an adult can issue 5 books for 21 days (default rule) - an adult can issue 4 serials for 14 days (specific rule) - an adult can issue 7 documents total - a child can issu 3 books, 3 serials, 3 comics, but 5 document maximum The "branch level" has the same behaviour : it a rule for a branch is defined, then it's applicable, otherwise, it's the default rule of the default branch. Let us know your opinion on this. It would require some tweaking on issuingrules definition & a small rewrite the CanBookBeIssued sub, to check only 2 rules (1st found + total), not 8 (every cell that fit the issue). -- Paul POULAIN et Henri Damien LAURENT Consultants indépendants en logiciels libres et bibliothéconomie (http://www.koha-fr.org) Tel : 04 91 31 45 19

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Norwegian translation of Koha
by Axel Bojer 12 Oct '07

12 Oct '07

On 2007-08-20 20:50 Joshua M. Ferraro wrote: > We're pretty close to a release of 3.0, though in the next month or so > there will be at least some changes to the HTML markup which will > affect translation. The 3.0 markup represents a fairly drastic change > from the 2.2 series so I'm afraid that translations of 2.2.x won't be > that useful. (...) > There's another, separate issue not mentioned yet, which is > translation of the MARC frameworks, including authorities control and > bibliographic entries (essentially, these are labels of the MARC tags > and subtags that a cataloger uses). That adds about 1,500 additional > lines. We have good news from Norway: NUUG ( Norwegian Unix User group, http://nuug.no/ ) have agreed to pay two translators to translate koha into norwegian (bokmål, by the way, we also have nynorsk :-). So now the next question is: How far has the translation files for Koha 3.0 come by now? As quoted above, they ought to be in good shape now, but, well, delays seems to happen, so: How is the status by now? Is it advisable and possible to start translating koha 3.0 already now or will there be major changes that will render our work (partly) useless? I also wonder how difficult it will be to make a local build with our translations? My experiences with other translation project (Scribus, OOo, KDE) shows me that it is essential to be able to look at what you have actually committed. Often it is impossible to know exactly how to translate a spesific phrase without knowing how this function works and/or what the GUI looks like. It will therefore be important for us to be able to make our own localised builds continuously to see the changes and the results. And third: If all the other questions are answered with «GO FOR IT (NOW)», then: Is it possible to put the needed files out on the net like this: http://translate.koha.org/use.php?lg=en or do you have pot- and po-files ready for us? And, finally, what about the mentioned «MARC frameworks», are there any ready made translation files for them? Best regards Axel Bojer Norwegian translator

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ubuntu and koha and some postgresql info
by Simon Mitchell 11 Oct '07

11 Oct '07

1. Hi guys, you know that mysql 4.1 is not in my ubuntu repository. I am having problems with perl modules with ubuntu and koha 2.2.9 I think it is because I have installed models from ubuntu package manager. Is there a list perl modules versions, etc that have been/should be used with koha 2.2.9 ? What is the recommended .deb version of mysql to use with ubuntu and koha 2.2.9? 2. I understand that koha was built initially to run on postgresql, but it was slow to connect and did not have full text search. So I point out that postgresql has release 8.3 beta which has - TSearch2 full text search integrated into the core code with improved syntax and ease of adding custom dictionaries. See http://www.postgresql.org/about/news.872 And that pgpool would certainly improve connection time to databases and seem to has some fallback features. See http://pgpool.projects.postgresql.org/pgpool-II/en/ So when I get my koha running on ubuntu I will have a go at running it on postgresql. Thanks for all the work you guys are doing. Simon PS - I use the term guys to address both female and male persons.

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Our own developments (searchs && displaying)
by Ernesto Silva 10 Oct '07

10 Oct '07

Hi, as I've wrote a month or so ago we've developed a new search module for koha 2.2 based on Full Text Indexing off MySQL 5. I've also sent it to this list, I didn't have the time to translate the documentation to English, so it went in Spanish. Nobody made any comments on this, so I guess nobody care, which is perfectly reasonable is 3.0 is in development with Zebra. Anyway, I want to mention our new development, which I suspect Paul and company have already considered and integrated into 3.0. And... I confess... I didn't take a look to the last koha version, not even the 2.2 serie. We are developing a new display module where you can define new formats to display biblios (Marc, ISBD, bibliographic, tabular, supercalifiagilisticoespialidoso, etc.). Similar to issuing rules there will be a matrix indexed by "itemtype" and "display format". Each format could be present in OPAC or Intranet. Every matrix cell indexed by the itemtype and the format specified by the user (or a default format if none is defined) will contain an XSL specifying the output. As our librarians very often differ on itemtypes specification, we decided that this specification must be filled by them. So, we will took part of our new search grammar and use it to specify the itemtype, and example could be: 245^h CONTAINS 'impr' OR 245^h EQUALS 'serial' AND .... We've developed a much more rich field^subfield specification, it's actually a list of marc fields where even each one can be specified with wildcards and exceptions, something like: 245^*,100^a,6*^j EXCEPT (245^i, 65*^*) CONTAINS 'impr'..... This is not a real search equation to find an itemtype, but there you can see what I'm talking about. When the system runs it will loop over a list of biblios and evaluate the equations trying to match one of them, there it will find the itemtype (or use the default one). The other parameter, the format, could be specified in 2 ways, actually hard coded in some template like in the search results or by the user selecting it from a list of available formats. With this system you can even show to the user only the existing formats for an specific biblio, the ones defined depending on it's calculated itemtype. If the system runs slow we can try to generate perl expressions from our own grammar and store them in the database, so we can evaluate them during itemtype discovery, we can even try to cache some of them, I didn't thought of this too much yet, nor till we've got the first version an make some speed tests. Here is an example of the matrix: | default | MARC | ISBD | supercalifriag.... itemtype | format | format | format | format ---------+---------+---------+---------+------------------- eqn. for | Create | Create | Create | Create books | or Edit | or Edit | or Edit | or Edit ---------+---------+---------+---------+------------------- eqn. for | Create | Create | Create | Create videos | or Edit | or Edit | or Edit | or Edit ---------+---------+---------+---------+------------------- eqn. for | Create | Create | Create | Creat Tesis | or Edit | or Edit | or Edit | or Edit ---------+---------+---------+---------+------------------- As I said in my previous message, we can provide our full koha code, well, in this case I think we can also provide the specific code for this improvements as we're trying to make it as clean and pluggable as we can. Please contact me if any of this can be of any help. Best regards, -- Ernesto Silva. Coordinador de Desarrollo Web y Sistemas Abiertos Centro de Procesamiento de Datos Universidad ORT Uruguay. E-mail: silva(a)ort.edu.uy Tel: (+598-2) 902-1505 ext. 206 Fax: (+598-2) 900-2952

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Statistics development
by Deb Bergeron 08 Oct '07

08 Oct '07

The stats module at http://koha.liblime.com/cgi-bin/koha/reports-home.pl displays several types of stats currently available. Based on this exchange [see below] in the Koha wiki FAQs, all stats are kept, is this correct? Are you planning to develop any more stats for consortiums? Can your stats combine both LOC and Dewey? Or would this require further development? Thanks in advance for any information. Deb > Does the system allow tracking between patron categories and item > categories for circulation statistics? > > : (rach) I'm going with Yes, we keep all the transactions, so if you > can conceive of the report I'm sure it can be constructed for you (/rach) > > Can fine records for patrons be converted to your system from DRA > Classic? > > : (rach) Yes - well we did with the other conversion (/rach) > > : Our goal for the big conversion we did was "no re-typing". It didn't > quite work out as absoloutely *no* typing, because things that were a > bit duff in the old system, or inconsistent had to be manually > massaged into Koha, but if your system is fairly "clean" it shouldn't > be too hard. > -- Deb Bergeron <mailto:bergeron@macalester.edu> System Admin: User Support CLIC Consortium <http://clic.edu> 1619 Dayton Avenue, Suite 204A Saint Paul, MN 55104 O:*651.644.3878* C:*651.487.7609* F:651.644.6258

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