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

Bug 5572 (refinements to function merge sub merge in C4::AuthoritiesMarc)
by Marcel de Rooy 03 May '12

03 May '12

Hi, This patch from Janusz Kaczmarek dates from Jan 3, 2011 already. And still needs signoff. I have marked it as In Discussion now, hoping for some feedback from you. Please have a look at the report and patch. Do you agree that subfields at the biblio side should be cleared for an active empty authority subfield? Or could that result in unexpected data loss too easily? What is your opinion? Other QA team members are also welcome to respond. Thanks for doing so, Marcel

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Bugzilla component categories
by Marcel de Rooy 03 May '12

03 May '12

Hi all, Recently we discussed in the QA team to make the default QA contact empty. (Ian cleared this field for all components now [for new reports].) In the process the QA team member that starts QA on a report now, enters his name in the QA contact field. This informs reporter, patch writer, etc. that QA started and is also helpful for other QA team members in order to prevent duplication of work. My question now is: Should we do something similar with the default Assignee per component? In practice, the current default assignees will (most of the time) not be working on reports entered by someone else. Having someone in the Assignee field who is not working on that report, could be a misleading signal for an unaware Bugzilla user. If the default assignee wants to be informed on reports of that category, moving him/her to the default CC list of that component would perhaps be better? The current default assignees are (for one or more components): nengard(a)gmail.com<mailto:nengard@gmail.com> henridamien(a)koha-fr.org<mailto:henridamien@koha-fr.org> gmcharlt(a)gmail.com<mailto:gmcharlt@gmail.com> oleonard(a)myacpl.org<mailto:oleonard@myacpl.org> chris(a)bigballofwax.co.nz<mailto:chris@bigballofwax.co.nz> kyle.m.hall(a)gmail.com<mailto:kyle.m.hall@gmail.com> koha.sekjal(a)gmail.com<mailto:koha.sekjal@gmail.com> frederic(a)tamil.fr<mailto:frederic@tamil.fr> cnighswonger(a)foundations.edu<mailto:cnighswonger@foundations.edu> robin(a)catalyst.net.nz<mailto:robin@catalyst.net.nz> colin.campbell(a)ptfs-europe.com<mailto:colin.campbell@ptfs-europe.com> paul.poulain(a)biblibre.com<mailto:paul.poulain@biblibre.com> wizzyrea(a)gmail.com<mailto:wizzyrea@gmail.com> Would you agree with this move? (We need of course consensus before doing so.) Would you like to be added as default CC for one or more components? Please respond. Thanks, Marcel

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Bugzilla component categories
by Chris Nighswonger 02 May '12

02 May '12

On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 8:10 AM, Marcel de Rooy <M.de.Rooy(a)rijksmuseum.nl>wrote: > > My question now is: Should we do something similar with the default > Assignee per component? In practice, the current default assignees will > (most of the time) not be working on reports entered by someone else. > Having someone in the Assignee field who is not working on that report, > could be a misleading signal for an unaware Bugzilla user. If the default > assignee wants to be informed on reports of that category, moving him/her > to the default CC list of that component would perhaps be better? > Like Owen, I try to address most label/card related bugs of which I am the default assignee. I am not convinced that blanking the default assignee would result in much good. Probably a better move would be to encourage developers who decide to work on a bug to do two things: 1. Click the "take" link next to the assignee field. 2. Set the status to "Assigned." Probably any current confusion is due to one of two things: 1. Bugs currently being worked on, but the developer doing the work has failed to do the two things mentioned above. 2. Lack of understanding on the "unaware Bugzilla user's" part which is better remedied by becoming "aware" of how bugzilla works rather than trying to build a better mouse trap. If things were really this difficult, I suspect that Bugzilla would be swamped with enhancement requests or out of business, one. Kind Regards, Chris

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SQL reports [error]
by Paul 30 Apr '12

30 Apr '12

Good morning all: I have no problem with the philosophy of the following (bright yellow) pop-up error message: "The following error was encountered: This report contains the SQL keyword UPDATE. Use of this keyword is not allowed in Koha reports due to security and data integrity risks." and would not even consider suggesting a "bug." However, it would be most helpful to staff for a very specific but repetitive job that we do at year end (batch changing items.accessiondate after Tax Receipts have been issued for donations) to be able to use Koha from a work station, rather than getting me to work directly on the production server (I've already been asked 50 or 60 times, and there's another 400+ to go ...!) Can anyone point me rapidly to the portion of script that I should have a look at? For the record, the CLI mysql in question is: UPDATE items SET dateaccessioned='2011-12-31' WHERE price IS NOT NULL and price != '0.00' AND booksellerid = 'xxx' AND DATE(dateaccessioned) BETWEEN '2011-01-01' AND '2011-12-31'; Obviously for a report, I would use a construct for the last two conditions along the lines of: AND booksellerid = <<Pick your donor>> AND DATE(dateaccessioned) BETWEEN <<Accessioned BETWEEN (yyyy-mm-dd)>> AND <<and (yyyy-mm-dd)>>; Thanks and best regards, Paul

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Re: [Koha-devel] SQL reports [error]
by Paul 30 Apr '12

30 Apr '12

At 05:44 PM 4/30/2012 +0200, Fischer, Katrin wrote: >I really donât like the idea. I think if you want someone to make >changes to the database, you should give them a proper tool and training >to do that (outside of Koha). Respectfully, we might be talking apples and oranges. *All* staff and many users "make changes to the database" - not fundamental structural changes, but add, modify and delete data records. And it was the latter point that I raised earlier today. You are of course correct that the various options allowed by UPDATE, DELETE, DROP, INSERT, and CREATE *can* modify/damage the structure of your database; but they can also be incredibly useful (see my earlier email that uses UPDATE.) I don't know how you are setup, but in my organization for any intervention that requires CLI, I personally have to go to our server room (I am the only keyholder) as I have locked the Koha server down fairly tightly from remote access. I decide (after consultation with staff/volunteers) what scripts can|cannot be used in the "normal course of business." I have tested a certain script required by staff (hundreds of times every year) by running it some seventy times to ensure it does what it is supposed to and does not do anything else. It is ready to go into useful production, but "as-is" Koha 3.6 does not allow me to make it available to staff -- and every time they need it (ad hoc basis) it takes me ten minutes, instead of staff "clicking a button." This is because the design of Koha includes very well-intentioned, but arbitrary nonetheless, hard code denying the use of UPDATE. The chances of a major catastrophe are much greater if I try and train our cataloguers in the intricacies of MySQL and allow them access to the server room, than if I develop a secure script and make it available on the staff interface -- and that was the only reason I raised it on this list and will implement it on our Koha server. YMMV. Best - Paul > The interface for statistics is very limited and does not give feedback > when your SQL statements have errors or produce no result sets. Also it > seems like a big security risk to me. > > > >Katrin > > > >From: koha-devel-bounces(a)lists.koha-community.org >[mailto:koha-devel-bounces@lists.koha-community.org] On Behalf Of Jared >Camins-Esakov >Sent: Monday, April 30, 2012 5:21 PM >To: Paul Poulain >Cc: koha-devel(a)lists.koha-community.org >Subject: Re: [Koha-devel] SQL reports [error] > > > >Paul, > > > > > >On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 11:17 AM, Paul Poulain <paul.poulain(a)biblibre.com> >wrote: > >Question to all = could it be a good idea to let superlibrarians execute >dangerous SQLs like the one forbidden by the test ? >Otherwise asked: could we add a >unless permission eq 'superlibrarian' >condition ? > >( ie: "with great power comes great responsibility" -@spiderman uncle- ) > > > >We were actually just discussing that on #koha a few days ago. I argued >that only the database user (i.e. user 0) should be allowed to do it. If >you have the direct login, there's nothing you can't do with the system >just by logging into the database. > > > >Regards, > >Jared > > > >-- >Jared Camins-Esakov > >Bibliographer, C & P Bibliography Services, LLC > >(phone) +1 (917) 727-3445 > >(e-mail) jcamins(a)cpbibliography.com > >(web) http://www.cpbibliography.com/

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Re: [Koha-devel] SQL reports [error]
by Paul 30 Apr '12

30 Apr '12

At 11:21 AM 4/30/2012 -0400, Jared Camins-Esakov wrote: >Paul, >On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 11:17 AM, Paul Poulain <paul.poulain(a)biblibre.com> >wrote: >Question to all = could it be a good idea to let superlibrarians execute >dangerous SQLs like the one forbidden by the test ? >Otherwise asked: could we add a >unless permission eq 'superlibrarian' >condition ? > >( ie: "with great power comes great responsibility" -@spiderman uncle- ) > >We were actually just discussing that on #koha a few days ago. I argued >that only the database user (i.e. user 0) should be allowed to do it. If >you have the direct login, there's nothing you can't do with the system >just by logging into the database. Pls forgive my lack of understanding, but who is "user 0"? Is this just my credentials on the server? Because in our "patrons" list, there is no 'kohauser' and 'paul' (me, 'kohauser' for the server CLI) only appears as #1 and uses a different password. At a more general level, I would agree with Paul P.'s suggestion -- if the "top" administrator of the system is comfortable with the security (backups and script testing), why can't [s]he delegate admin tasks? Best - Paul (the other Paul|l'autre Paul)

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Re: [Koha-devel] SQL reports [error]
by Paul 30 Apr '12

30 Apr '12

At 09:28 AM 4/30/2012 -0400, Chris Nighswonger wrote: >On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 9:27 AM, Chris Nighswonger ><<mailto:cnighswonger@foundations.edu>cnighswonger(a)foundations.edu> wrote: >On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 9:13 AM, Paul ><<mailto:paul.a@aandc.org>paul.a(a)aandc.org> wrote: > >Can anyone point me rapidly to the portion of script that I should have a >look at? > >Fair warning: Mung up at your own risk.... > ><http://git.koha-community.org/gitweb/?p=koha.git;a=blob;f=reports/guided_re…>http://git.koha-community.org/gitweb/?p=koha.git;a=blob;f=reports/guided_re… > >and > ><http://git.koha-community.org/gitweb/?p=koha.git;a=blob;f=reports/guided_re…>http://git.koha-community.org/gitweb/?p=koha.git;a=blob;f=reports/guided_re… > Chris, Many thanks, I'll see what I can do (after hours tonight.) Just wondering if a perl expert could suggest the code to add a "condition" to if ($sql =~ /;?\W?(UPDATE|DELETE|DROP|INSERT|SHOW|CREATE)\W/i) { push @errors, {sqlerr => $1}; } along the lines of " unless username='paul' " I'm not too worried about the security risks for two reasons a) the script works as intended, and b) very few of our people actually have their permissions set to "Allow to access to the reports module." Best regards - Paul

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Right To Left in Arabic KOHA
by Karam Qubsi 28 Apr '12

28 Apr '12

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Karam Qubsi <karamqubsi(a)gmail.com> Date: Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 9:57 PM Subject: Right To Left in Arabic KOHA To: Koha <Koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz>, koha-translate(a)lists.koha-community.org Hi all . I'm looking to develop the result of koha translation process in Arabic as you know the Arabic language is deffer from English in Arabic we read and write from right to left this is possible to be modified by hand but if we want to create an Arabic version of koha we need to make the text by default goes from right to left . so what we have to do to make this koha Arabic Version ? and make it as a choice in the installations steps when selecting Arabic. I think my group can edit the css files and make this ok (direction rtl ) but how to make this changes Permanent for every new Arabic Koha installation can we make some default template for Arabic language , or that can be selected from the po files in some way ? or it must be included in the koha package , or what ? Both Arabic and Hebrew, and the non-Semitic languages using the Arabic or the Hebrew alphabet, such as Persian and Yiddish, are written from right to left (except for their numbers!). Urdu which is also derived from Arabic and Persian language and ancient indo - aryan language binti is written from right to left. Ancient Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek and the oldest Latin could be written in both directions. Also Chinese and Japanese can be written right to left (also written from top to bottom, vertically). Korean is NOT written from right to left I wish we discuss this to make the next koha version fully supported for Arabic language Kind regards -- Karam Qubsi Koha Arab translation Team http:koha.wikibrary.org Wikibrary for Arab librarians http://wikibrary.org

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A k-c hosted koha-es mailing list
by Tomas Cohen Arazi 27 Apr '12

27 Apr '12

I'd like to ask for the creation of a mailing list for the spanish speaking koha users community. I think there was a koha-fr list, so koha-es(a)koha-community.org should make it. As for the maintainers / moderators of the list, I'd like to be one of them (tomascohen(a)gmail.com) and bgkriegel(a)gmail.com and pablo.bianchi(a)gmail.com should be also included. Regards To+

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Official Koha Newsletter: Volume 3, Issue 4: April 2012
by Daniel Grobani 26 Apr '12

26 Apr '12

Official Koha Newsletter: Volume 3, Issue 4: April 2012 [Below is the text of the newsletter. For active links and a more readable format, please visit http://koha-community.org/koha-newsletter-volume-3-issue-4-april-2012] Official Koha Newsletter (ISSN 2153-8328) Volume 3, Issue 4: April 2012 Edited by Daniel Grobani, Koha Community Newsletter Editor. Please submit news items to danielg.koha(a)gmail.com. Table of Contents Koha Development Koha 3.8.0 Released Koha 3.10 Roles Koha Statistics Browse Headings Using Solr SemantiKoha Koha Community New Koha Libraries Community Gossip Pacific Islands Koha Users Call Past Koha Events April General IRC Meeting Upcoming Koha Events May General IRC Meeting Symposium Koha 2012 Koha and Dspace Training in India KohaCon12 Koha Development Koha 3.8.0 Released by Chris Cormack The Koha release team is happy to announce the release of Koha 3.8.0, the third major release since we shifted to time based releases. The release team would like to thank everyone involved in this release for making it possible. Koha 3.8.0 contains over 130 enhancements with over 1000 changesets from 71 developers. Please read the release notes for more information. Koha 3.8.0 can be downloaded here. Installation instructions can be found here or in the INSTALL files that come in the tarball. Koha 3.10 Roles by Chris Cormack Positions for the Koha 3.10.0 release cycle (due October 2012) were confirmed at the April general IRC meeting. It is our biggest release team yet and a really good sign of the health of the community that we had so many volunteers. The roles are: Release Manager : Paul Poulain, France Translation Manager: Shared between Samuel Desseaux and Frédéric Demians both from France Translation Assistants: Katrin Fischer, Germany; Marijana Glavica, Croatia Documentation Manager: Nicole Engard, USA DB Documentation Manager: Nicole Engard, USA Quality Assurance (QA) Manager: Ian Walls, USA Quality Assurance (QA) Assistants: Marcel de Rooy, Netherlands; Jonathan Druart, France; Mason James, New Zealand Release Maintainer 3.8.x: Chris Cormack, New Zealand Release Maintainer 3.6.x: Jared Camins-Esakov, USA Packaging Manager: Robin Sheat, New Zealand Packaging Assistant: Mason James, New Zealand Bug Wrangler: Magnus Enger, Norway; Katrin Fischer, Germany; Dobrica Pavlinušić, Croatia; Koustubha Kale, India Meeting Chair: BWS Johnson, USA So that’s 17 people in total who have volunteered and been accepted to positions for the next 6 months (starting after the release of 3.8.0 on April 23). I think it is also great we have a nice geographic spread, especially the bug wrangler team. Koha Statistics Chris Cormack, statistician par excellence, has posted bug statistics for March and statistics for Koha 3.8.0. Adding Browse Headings to Koha Using Solr by Stefano Bargioni The Library of the Pontificia Università della Santa Croce in Rome added browse headings to Koha. This is perhaps the first example of integration of Koha and Solr in a production environment. Users can scan lists of authors (established or unestablished forms), titles, title series, author/title, uniform titles, subjects, etc. An engine written in Perl runs on a regular basis to synchronize Solr entries with Koha data. The process is driven by an xml config file where chosen tags and subfields of authority or bibliographic records are described in order to feed one or more lists for browsing. More than 500,000 entries were generated, starting from about 111,000 authority records and 147,000 biblio records. Browse search was added at the top of “Browse by Subject” page; see http://catalogo.pusc.it/cgi-bin/koha/opac-authorities-home.pl. This topic will be presented exhaustively at KohaCon12 in Edinburgh. SemantiKoha by Magnus Enger Recently, there has been a fair amount of discussion about RDF/Semantic Web technologies being central to the efforts to replace the MARC family of “standards”, including from the US Library of Congress [1]. However, there has not been much testing of these technologies in the context of actual ILSes. I aim to do something about that with my “SemantiKoha” project. The goal is to explore how openly available semantic/linked data can be used in the Koha OPAC to enhance the user experience and aid in discovery. The practical work is at a very early proof-of-concept stage, but there is a live demo available [2] and the source code is also available [3]. If anyone wants to join the fun and contribute please don’t hesitate to contact me! [1] http://www.loc.gov/marc/transition/news/framework-051311.html and http://www.loc.gov/marc/transition/news/framework-103111.html. [2] http://semantikoha.libriotech.no/. See, for example, the page for Charles Darwin: http://semantikoha.libriotech.no/cgi-bin/koha/opac-view.pl?uri=http://data.…. [3] https://github.com/MagnusEnger/semantikoha. See especially the README, which explains how the demo is set up: https://github.com/MagnusEnger/semantikoha/blob/master/README.txt. Koha Community New Koha Libraries Middletown Township Public Library (via ByWater Solutions) Wilderness Coast Public Libraries (via ByWater Solutions) Community Gossip Owen Leonard has revisited the process of customizing OPAC cart and lists buttons, this time using CSS3 features. Adalid Ortiz reports that Biblioteca Loyola of the Universidad Iberoamericana Tijuana in Mexico has published an online manual in Spanish for their Koha OPAC. They previously published an online manual in Spanish on cataloging with Koha. Matt Adams has posted an update on LibLime’s application for the New Zealand Koha trademark. Pacific Islands Koha Users Call by Pam Bidwell, University of the South Pacific I would like to hear from users of Koha in the Pacific Islands. Many small Pacific countries struggle with extra issues when automating their libraries, such as unexpected power outages (and damaging power surges), intermittent and slow Internet access, old technology and limited IT expertise. For many Pacific libraries, Koha is their first automated system, and staff training is a real issue. Quite a few Pacific Koha projects have stalled as a result of these problems. We need to develop a supportive local community that shares knowledge and offers support. I hope to set up a smaller discussion forum for the Pacific Koha community (while still being involved in the wider Koha community discussions). The forum will talk about day to day use of Koha, answer basic questions about using the system and share resources such as training materials. I would also like to discuss regional training possibilities. Please email me at pamela.bidwell(at)usp.ac.fj if you would like to be involved. Past Koha Events April General IRC Meeting The April general IRC meeting was held on 4 April 2012. More info, including the agenda and links to the minutes, is here. Upcoming Koha Events May General IRC Meeting The May general IRC meeting will be held on Wednesday, 2 May 2012. More info is here. Symposium Koha 2012 Symposium Koha 2012 will be held at BULAC in Paris 14-15 May 2012. The symposium will be a forum for exchange and meetings between Koha users, future users, and providers. More info is here. Koha and Dspace Training in India Two-day Koha training and certification workshops are being offered in Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi. More info is here. Three-day Koha and Dspace training and certification workshops are being offered in Mumbai and Bangalore. More info is here. KohaCon12 KohaCon12 will be held in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, 5-7 June 2012. A hackfest will be held 9-11 June. This is a free conference for everyone interested in the Koha library system. There is no registration fee, but attendees are asked to pre-register. The organizers are seeking sponsors to help defray the cost of the conference. Sponsors so far include Tamil, PTFS Europe, Catalyst, Libriotech, Projektlink Konsult, and The Galecia Group. Information on sponsorship is here. More details on the conference can be found here.

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