May 2011 - Koha-devel - lists.koha-community.org

Z3950 UNIMARC
by Fridolyn SOMERS 13 May '11

13 May '11

Hie, For the first time, I have enabled the SRU on Zebra server by editing koha-conf.xml : <listen id="publicserver" >tcp:@:9999</listen> > <server id="publicserver" listenref="publicserver"> > <directory>/var/lib/zebradb/biblios</directory> > <config>/etc/koha/zebradb/zebra-biblios.cfg</config> > <cql2rpn>/etc/koha/zebradb/pqf.properties</cql2rpn> > <retrievalinfo> > <retrieval syntax="usmarc" name="F" /> > <retrieval syntax="usmarc" name="B" /> > </retrievalinfo> > </server> > <serverinfo id="publicserver"> > <ccl2rpn>/etc/koha/zebradb/ccl.properties</ccl2rpn> > <user>xxxx</user> > <password>xxxx</password> > </serverinfo> > I Koha administration, I added this Z3950 server. It works well but : I have installed everything in UNIMARC and SRU only works when : - I configure the server Z3950 with USMARC/MARC21. - I configure retrieval syntax="usmarc" instead of "unimarc" Does that mean that Zebra internal database is always in USMARC ? Thanks for your help. -- Fridolyn SOMERS ICT engineer PROGILONE - Lyon - France fridolyn.somers(a)gmail.com

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Release Manager 3.6
by Chris Cormack 13 May '11

13 May '11

Hi All Recently I have been having a crisis of confidence. I have, I hope, always tried to do what I think is best for the project. Often I do make mistakes, a notable one happened in 2007, which I hope I in part was rectified in 2008. But my underlying motivation with Koha has always been to do the best for the users of the software. In my role as Release Manager for 3.4 (and again for 3.6) what I felt was best for the software users was a stable and well tested release. This is something I made clear in my proposal, and which I had assumed was understood (but you know what they say about assumptions ;)). With the huge amount of work put in by over 80 people, I think we managed to achieve some measure of success with that with 3.4.0 and that the stability of the 3.2.x releases is something we can all be proud of. Over the last couple of weeks, comments and mails both on and off list have made me think that maybe I am out of step with what the community desires. For 3.6 quality was still the major goal, but perhaps I have misjudged what others want. This has resulted in sleepless nights and quite a large amount of self doubt. Luckily we are still early in the 3.6 cycle, there is time to fix it. Options as I see them 1/ Continue with the current workflow, patches signed off, passed qa, then into master, with the goal to increase the rate patches are signed off 2/ Refine the workflow to make signing off easier 3/ Redesign the workflow eliminating sign off (for a period, or all of the release) 4/ Step aside to let someone else have a go at RM As Paul has noted in another thread, I am not comfortable with allowing patches into master untested, and I don't think I could do a good job as RM if that were to become the case. In that case I would rather become one of the developers submitting patches again, so perhaps 3 and 4 are the same for me. So, in the interest of transparency and openness, there's where my head and heart are. I wish what is best for the users of Koha, and I fear that maybe I am out of step. Comments? Chris

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FW: Release Manager 3.6
by Scott Kushner 12 May '11

12 May '11

I vote for #1...obviously don't want to see a fork. We've been down that road... But the question is, to my mind, how to implement a new sign off process....?? Scott Kushner Information Systems Librarian Middletown Public Library -----Original Message----- From: koha-devel-bounces(a)lists.koha-community.org [mailto:koha-devel-bounces@lists.koha-community.org] On Behalf Of Paul Poulain Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2011 11:30 AM To: koha-devel(a)lists.koha-community.org Subject: Re: [Koha-devel] Release Manager 3.6 Le 12/05/2011 17:10, Nicole Engard a écrit : > As a librarian that's just you not giving them enough credit. I agree > you don't ask the customer (unless the customer wants to do it) but > you can ask and train your project manager. We have customers test > our patches and then they're passed on to one of us for a sign off. > It's simple, it takes 1 minute more time and it means our patches make > it to QA. Can I say you're saying: "BibLibre has a problem, fix BibLibre"? So you've inclined to vote 2 to my previous question? (Or do I go too far, and it's not what you want to say) Paul wrote: > So, here is the final question. > Please vote: > 1- Paul, OK, the problem you rise is a real one, you're a valuable > contributor, let's try to find a solution to retrieve agility (without > loosing stability) > 2- Paul, shut-up, everything is perfect we don't need to change > anything. [In this case, BibLibre only option will be to explain to our > customers they've a de-facto fork and they must choose between their > features and stay "community". And that probably means we will start an > official fork, with all our cool -and stable- new stuff. Sorry, but I > don't see an other possibility] -- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc Tel : (33) 4 91 81 35 08 _______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel(a)lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/

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3.0.x maintenance discontinued
by LAURENT Henri-Damien 12 May '11

12 May '11

Hi any Koha users will have noticed that 3.0.x has had no release in one year. I just have to face the facts. I am not able to get any release for this version out seriously tested. So I have to announce that the maintenance of this version is over. Please consider upgrading to 3.2 or even better 3.4 If anyone is interested in taking that action, please step in onlist and ask for access. Thanks. -- Henri-Damien LAURENT

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For Kind Information
by Librarian, DIU 12 May '11

12 May '11

Dear Koha development manager I would like to inform you that I am a librarian of Daffodil International University, Bangladesh , Dhaka. Recently we installed KOHA in our library and a training on KOHA +MARC 21 also completed successfully. We are mapping our whole data and uploaded in koha database. When we are searching any book by title but search result is showing not found and sometime error like *Could not find opac-search.xml in /usr/share/koha/opac/cgi-bin/opac/ at /usr/share/koha/lib/C4/Search.pm line 579. We did not find out whats problem arise, please help me in this regards. Thank you very much. With best regards, Md. Milan Khan Librarian Daffodil International University Dhaka, Bangladesh *

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deleteditems marc
by Fridolyn SOMERS 12 May '11

12 May '11

Hello, I found that there is, in current revision on git.koha-community.org, a difference between "items" and "deleteditems" tables in "kohastructure.sql" : "deleteditems" has a field "marc" not existing in "items". Can it be deleted ? Regards, -- Fridolyn SOMERS ICT engineer PROGILONE - Lyon - France fridolyn.somers(a)gmail.com

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How to add additional options to the items search page for label batch creator?
by Indranil Das Gupta 11 May '11

11 May '11

Hi all, My client has a spine label generation requirement, where they want the following options from screen generated by label-item-search.pl a) based on a date range (in which the books are processed) b) based on an accession number range c) based on a class no. (e.g. i want to print the stickers for items with 005 / DDC22) >From what I can see, i think "a" is already catered to. But how about option "b" and "c" Where should i start tinkering around to add that feature... any idea? the label-item-search.pl or the search.tmpl or simply via IntranetUserJS using a bit of jQuery? FWIW, I'm on 3.2.7 and upgrading to 3.4 is not an option at the moment. cheers :) -- Indranil Das Gupta Phone : +91-98300-20971 Blog : http://indradg.randomink.org/blog IRC : indradg on irc://irc.freenode.net Twitter : indradg -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Please exchange editable Office documents only in ODF Format. No other format is acceptable. Support Open Standards. For a free editor supporting ODF, please visit LibreOffice - http://www.documentfoundation.org

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Copy of e-mail I sent Chris
by John Brice 11 May '11

11 May '11

I sent Chris the following e-mail today and he asked that I post it to the full community. John Brice Meadville Public Library Dear Chris: > > Hi! John Brice here from Meadville. > > I usually just lurk about these mail lists but I thought I would give you > my two cents worth concerning the sign off process. > > First, we seem to have three issues that I can identify. > > Issue 1. There is a large number of submissions (140 at last count) that > need to be signed off on. > > Issue 2. A small number of the patches our very specific and are difficult > to test unless one is running the exact same configuration. > > Issue 3. Quality assurance is becoming more and more critical especially > considering that the installed base is getting bigger. One small problem in > the code can now effect 1,000's of libraries across the world. > > Really, to solve the above three issues you have to identify the most > important issue and then work backwards from their to come up with the > proper solution from there. > > I personally believe that the Issue 3 Quality Assurance is the most > important. There are just too many libraries out there now relying on Koha, > in a production setting, to risk putting in code that has not been properly > vetted. The bottom line is that only a low percentage of libraries will > benefit from a new feature while everyone benefits from clean code. > > Having said that how do we fix issue One and Two? Well Issue one seems to > be a manpower issue. While, Issue two is a very difficult technical issue > concerning system configuration. > > The best way to solve Issue Two is to have a waiver process for certain > developers. Certain developers associated with a large percentage of code > development could, in certain specific circumstances, request a waiver from the > traditional sign off process. The reasons for the waiver would have to be > very specific, such as it would be too difficult too test outside of a > production server. The waivers would have to be tracked (yeah another > thing for the database to keep track of) and if there is any problem at all > the entity granted the waiver would have to be responsible for all > subsequent revisions and fixes. The waiver is not the solution to reduce > the large number of outstanding issues it is a simple means to add code to > Koha that is too difficult to test outside of a very specific configuration. > > So then we come to the big Issue Number 1 the large amount of checks that > have to be made. This is the problem with open source we have to rely on > the good graces of everyone involved in order to move the project forward. > This means that everyone has to set aside their own personal projects and > do stuff for the good of the overall Koha project. That is a tough sell, but frankly, it > is one that is needed. The best way to get this logjam cleared up is to > have someone be put in charge of the issue and then that person start > writing e-mails and so forth to encourage cajole or outright bang heads to > get the sign-offs that are required. If all the developers in Koha would > sign off on one outstanding issue a week we could have the problem resolved > in three to four months. Someone needs to keep hammering away at this issue > and I don't think it should be you Chris. > > Just some thoughts from a librarian stuck in the Allegheny National Forest. > > John Brice

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Hacker's corner, week 19
by Paul Poulain 11 May '11

11 May '11

Hello, Sorry for staying silent for 4 weeks, but after the hackfest, I've been AFK for one week, then needed 2 weeks not to be late anymore on my daily stuff... So, here it is: Last week, 220 messages have been sent to the bugs mailing list (reminder, each change on a bug means a mail) Patches to sign-off =========== After the hackfest, there were 112 bugs waiting for sign-off. Today, this number has increased again: 139 bugs are waiting for you ! Some are related to CRItical bugs, so they're really worth a signature: 6292 Overdue notices have a bug when multiple overdues exist <http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=6292> 5860Adding duplicate stocknumber will fail silently <http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=5860> 5683 link_bibs_to_authorities.pl can corrupt records <http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=5683> 5379import_borrowers.pl fails with db insert/update errors <http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=5379> 4993 ldap search always anonymous when using auth_by_bind <http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=4993> 3652XSS vulnerabilities <http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=3652> 2246 Label printing doesn't work with Unicode characters <http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=2246> All other are worth a signature though. Patches signed-off =========== 19 patches have been signed-off. Almost 10 different individuals have signed-off something. Congrats to Nicole, that is "sign-off of the week" ! Shame on all other developers (including me) that have signed-off nothing last week... Patches pushed ========= Chris has pushed only 4 patches last week. It means there is now 18 patches that can be pushed and will probably be soon. -- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc Tel : (33) 4 91 81 35 08

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CircControl, HomeOrHoldingBranch and HomeOrHoldingBranchReturn
by Nicole Engard 10 May '11

10 May '11

Okay, developers I need some help both in understanding and in documenting the above preferences. Right now CircControl and HomeOrHoldingBranch have the same descriptions, but I doubt that they do the same thing. I vaguely remember HomeOrHoldingBranch being deprecated in favor of HomeOrHoldingBranchReturn ... but don't see a bug for that, and obviously it didn't happen. Next, in the manual I say that HomeOrHoldingBranch has something to do with IndependantBranches (is that true? if so how?) There are a series of bug reports on this issue: http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=homeorhold… but I'm not sure what the final consensus is? How do I use these three preferences? and How do I document them for librarians? Log from IRC Chat [10:29] <nengard> need me some sys pref help [10:29] <nengard> CircControl and HomeOrHoldingBranch have the same descriptions ... [10:29] <nengard> and then there is HomeOrHoldingBranchReturn [10:29] <nengard> what does HomeOrHoldingBranch do? [10:29] <nengard> and i the manual correct when I say it's linked to IndependantBranches [10:30] * wizzyrea has always been confused by that [10:30] <wizzyrea> but I know that it has something to do with the way the rules are applied for circulation, and what happens when books are returned [10:31] <nengard> that much is clear, paul_p was this a Biblibre addition? [10:31] <nengard> all three have to do with circ rules and checking in and out ... just not sure which does what [10:32] <nengard> there is at least one bug to report here though ... CircControl and HomeOrHoldingBranch have the same descriptions [10:33] <nengard> they can't both do the same thing ... or if they do then we don't need two prefs : [10:33] <nengard> :) [10:33] <jcamins> I think that one of them is supposed to be eliminated, but wasn't yet. [10:33] <wizzyrea> HomeOrHolding was going away in favor of CircControl [10:33] <wizzyrea> but there's a bug on deprecating it [10:34] <wizzyrea> and I believe there was objection [10:34] * paul_p reading [10:34] <paul_p> (hello USA !) [10:34] <wizzyrea> http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=homeorhold… [10:36] <paul_p> mmm... sorry, I won't be able to help you, it's not clear for me too [10:37] <nengard> wizzyrea, okay, that's confusing [10:37] <nengard> gonna put this to the dev list I guess [10:37] <wizzyrea> I didn't say you'd like the answer ;) [10:38] * paul_p looking to french descriptions of those sysprefs to see if it helps... [10:39] <paul_p> same description too, it doesn't help...

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