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

Re: [Fwd: Re: [Koha] Koha Documentation Project]
by Joshua Ferraro 23 Sep '04

23 Sep '04

I missed the Koha IRC meeting due to a really unfortunate miscalculation of 1900 GMT, so I didn't get a chance to chime in on the documentation discussion... > The original manual covered Sysadmins (mainly install, when parameters > were much simpler) and staff, and developers (we had a handy chunk of > why/how-stuff-is-done info -- some architectural info for > presentation/explanation wouldn't hurt either -- never occured to me until > recently how hard it was to explain some of the webserver/perl/db > potential issues etc until I looked over some of the more typical > questions). Here's the current index of the sysadmin guide that I've been working on: (I'm hoping for feedback ... so if you see something you don't like or you don't see something that should be included let me know) Koha Systems Administrator Guide Introduction Further Reading and Resources Part I: Installation and Migration Introduction hardware software 1: Installing Koha on Debian (jferraro) 2: Installing Koha on Redhat AS (shedges) 3: Installing Koha on Fedora (jferraro) 4: Migrating to Koha (shedges) 5: Customizing Koha's Template System (oleonard) Part II: Maintenance and Troubleshooting 6: Updating Koha setting up a testing environment(jferraro) setting up CVS symlinks(jferraro) tracking arch (mjr) 7: Backups (jferraro) backing up and restoring the database role of replication as backup backing up and restoring the filesystem 8: Optimization (jferraro) optimizing MySQL load balancing with replication 9: Troubleshooting (jferraro) Koha's error reporting database corruption worst-case scenario: utilizing the statistics table Part III: Participating in the Koha Community 10: Communicating with the developers(jferraro) mailing lists IRC Wiki 11: Reporting Bugs (jferraro) 12: Submitting Code (jferraro) 13: Koha Translating (??) Part IV: Introduction to Libraries for Sysadmins 14: haven't given this much thought but we need a section on MARC. Appendix: Installing the Z3950 Server (jferraro) Cleaning up the issues data (shedges) Renewals (shedges) Reserves (shedges) Handling Overdue Items (shedges) MJ suggested part IV, "introduction to libraries for sysadmins" which would be a great addition but we need someone to write it ... So the initial draft of this document is slated to be released on Monday or Tuesday of next week (in time for OLC annual) but not all the above chapters will be finished by then :-). > Also needed, and always a problem, is work re the FAQ and troubleshooting > info -- come to think of it, some newer hardware recommendations wouldn't > be amiss (CMSD I think gave us their original specs). Thoughts? I've slid a hardware section into the intro of Part I ... great idea! > I'm thinking MARC and associated questions will need special handling. > Possibly a "Cataloging In Brief" for the MARC-uncomfy... also, some wise > words on tags wouldn't kill us. That'd fit nicely into the "introduction to libraries for sysadmins" part ... anyone want to write it? > Ditto something on translating. If someone writes it that'd be a great addition too (ch 13 in the above scheme). > In the past (formal) docs have been in DocBook SGML/XML.... advantage here > is that it permits easy multi-format output, and is relatively easy to > translate the raw XML for other languages (we successfully handed the file > over to people with them returning translations of stuff between tags). > And gives a nice, clean look and feel. Opinions? I've never used DocBook but from what I've heard it's a good medium ... I'll check it out this weekend if I have time. I've been thinking that it might be a good idea to use a Wiki for at least the initial editing of the document (so that any of us can make changes/additions to the content) and then when we're all satisfied we can move the text to more universal formats (maybe through Docbook) ... how does that sound? Flames, comments, suggestions: all welcome. Thanks, Joshua

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plugins for editor and collection (for Koha-doc)
by Paul POULAIN 23 Sep '04

23 Sep '04

Hi, I've just commited a new version of the plugin 210/225 adapted to the 2.2 version (with MARC authorities) How to set up value builder for 210c (editor) and 225a (collection) : * create a authority category called "EDITORS" * set : 200$a => ISBN 200$b => editor 200$c => (repeatable) collection. Then enter, for example : $a 23 $b Hachette Litterature $c collection1|collection2|collection3 Map your "editor" field to plugin 210c, your "collection" field to plugin 225a Once you arrive on the editor field, if the beginning of the ISBN exists, the editor is automatically found. Once you arrive on collection field, click on ... you can choose in the collection list. The 210c / 225a comes from the UNIMARC editor/collection field, but should work as well with MARC21. (Note the 200$a $b $c are hardcoded, but everything else is not) -- Paul POULAIN Consultant indépendant en logiciels libres responsable francophone de koha (SIGB libre http://www.koha-fr.org)

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RE: [Koha-devel] Moving to Arch?
by Anthony Youngman 23 Sep '04

23 Sep '04

Not that I'm aware of ... What it is, is that Koha is getting bigger, and CVS doesn't scale ... just look at linux and bitkeeper. Arch means basically that any developer can maintain their own tree, without worrying about treading on any body else's toes. With CVS you always have the worry that either you are going to be unable to work because somebody else has checked out the module you want, or somebody checks in a module and blows away someone else's work because they both had the same module checked out at the same time ... okay CVS is meant to prevent the latter, but that only works when you have a PHB handing out tasks ... CVS is excellent for a tightly managed project - in other words NOT a big distributed FLOSS project. Arch, bitkeeper, ?subversion? et al are designed to handle distributed development. And at the end of the day, even with CVS, don't you need a single director in order to prevent anarchy? :-) Cheers, Wol -----Original Message----- From: koha-devel-admin(a)lists.sourceforge.net [mailto:koha-devel-admin@lists.sourceforge.net] On Behalf Of Owen Leonard Sent: 23 September 2004 15:49 To: koha-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Koha-devel] Moving to Arch? > > So does this mean that I can't merge back into the main > > branch ... that you > > have do do that? In CVS anyone with devel privs could > > commit to the main repo ... or am I mising something? > > Either the RM or their automaton will need to do the merge. > This is a deliberate model change from CVS which both allows > more people to do more development tasks without waiting for > approval, and allows the RM to say "show me the code" before > accepting it into the final release tree, if they want. It sounds like this is quite a shift of power, if I understand correctly, from a group of trusted developers to a single director who chooses what goes in and what doesn't. Do I understand correctly? Have we had problems in the past that will be alleviated by this shift of power? -- Owen ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: YOU BE THE JUDGE. Be one of 170 Project Admins to receive an Apple iPod Mini FREE for your judgement on who ports your project to Linux PPC the best. Sponsored by IBM. Deadline: Sept. 24. Go here: http://sf.net/ppc_contest.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. ****************************************************************************

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Incorrect mapping of Copyright between Breeding Farm and Koha Tables?
by Rachel Hamilton-Williams 23 Sep '04

23 Sep '04

Hi I'm going to report this as a bug, but I thought I should check here as well as I'm not that strong in this area... Details: Koha V 2.0 on Windows, Vanilla Templates, MARC OFF, Simple Acquisitions I think that this is a problem in the scripts or the template.Basically the person gets their record in from their national library (Kinetica) into their breeding farm, and it comes with a copyright date, but when they select it to use and drag it into Koha the copyright date doesn't come accross. I *think* this is either a template problem, or a mapping problem, but I'm not sure which - or if there is anything she can do about it - is there a test I can run to make sure it's not the data though? Any help would be appreciated I'm sorry they don't have their intranet available for looking at - but I'd hope that others would know if this is a problem they've had to? Cheers Rachel -- _____________________________________________________________ Rachel Hamilton-Williams Katipo Communications MANAGING DIRECTOR Ph 021 389 128 or +64 04 934 1285 mailto:rachel@katipo.co.nz PO Box 12487, Wellington http://www.katipo.co.nz New Zealand Koha Open Source Library System http://www.koha.org

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Bugzilla Allocations
by Mike Mylonas 23 Sep '04

23 Sep '04

Hi Team, In the process of re-organising and streamlining things, I am doing a bit of a review of the allocations of the various components in Bugzilla. There are a couple of areas that are currently allocated to Steve Tonnesen and Pat Eyler who as we know at this point in time are committed with other activities and it would be great if a few people could help out with sharing the load. The main areas that we need updating are listed below ... please let me know if you are interested in picking up any of these areas. About (The about section) - currently assigned to Pat Acquisitions (Simple) (Simple acquisitions system) - currently assigned to Steve Authentication (Koha's Authentication System) - currently assigned to Steve Installation (Bugs with the installation script or installation instructions) - currently assigned to Steve Parameters (Bugs with setting Koha paramaters /admin/ directory) - currently assigned to Steve If any of these areas are ones that interest you, please let me know, and I will update Bugzilla. Cheers Mike

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Clarification of jargon & tidying up
by lars＠rovaniemelainen.com 22 Sep '04

22 Sep '04

As I'm going through and translating the strings extracted by tmpl_process3.pl, I'm finding there is about 50% French text. Is that redundant? I am hoping to translate from English only so it would speed up the process if I could weed out the redundant text. Also, there is some unfamiliar slang or jargon and some other things which are a little hard to translate out of context (i.e. using a .po file and kbabel). Could I ask for a little clarification or confirmation/denial of my initial guesses? Specifically, * what are "tags"? MARC/UNIMARC/MARC21 fields? e.g.: mandatory "tags" empty * what is "Biblio"? A bibliographic record? * What do "biblionumber" and "biblioitemnumber" refer to? Is one the metadata and the other the instance / physical artifact? Also, is there a recommended writing style guide? Also, going through the strings, I can see some easy places for improvement: * The use of "click", as in "can be clicked", is hardware/software dependent and should be avoided in favor of some other wording. * white space inside hyperlinks e.g. <a1> foo </a> instead of <a1>foo</a> could be removed * as can space before punctuation, e.g. " :" instead of ":" A slightly more labor intensive change would be to use more CSS for layout in the future versiosn so that we don't continue to use high repetitions of   for horziontal layout. -Lars ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through L-secure: http://www.l-secure.net/

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Meeting Notes
by Rachel Hamilton-Williams 21 Sep '04

21 Sep '04

Kia Ora everyone, We had a good IRC meeting yesterday, it was great to see so many people, and it was hard to get back to work afterwards :-) A few decisions and resoloutions were made... Firstly a huge thank you to Pat Eyler who has done such a lot for the project over the last couple of years as our first Kaitiaki! Pat is still keen to be involved with the project, but doesn't quite have the time right now, so I've stepped in as the new Kaitiaki. I'm really excited about Koha at the moment, with bug fixes in 2.0 (thanks Slef), and a new snapshot from Paul for 2.1 things are really moving at the moment. Slef/MJR has agreed to keep supporting 2.0 until at least 2.2 has gone stable. Thank you :-) Paul Poulain is the current 2.2 Release Manager and when 2.2 becomes stable he will continue to be the 2.2 Release Maintainer which is going to be great continuity. Paul hopes to have a release candidate ready within a month or so, assuming all goes well with the last few bugs, and testing. Emiliano has been coaxed into being the 2.4 Release Manager with support from Paul and I'm sure all the rest of us too, so thanks Emiliano, we look forward to your leadership. His first task is to get a roadmap started - so feel free to start putting your thoughts forward. We are hoping that 2.4 will have code from a few differnt coders, so if you've got an itch you want to scratch see if you can get it into 2.4. Stephen Hedges has already started in his role as Documentation Tyrant - we thought we needed a librarians perspective to make sure we actually get the documentation they need. Nick is I hope continuing with his able work actually *writing* documentation without which we are all sunk :-) This tends to incorporate organising/linking in translations as well I think. Russel Garlick is going to be testing and QA'ing the 2.2 release - although I'm sure we're going to need a small army doing that really. Mike Mylonas and Rachel Priebee (not at the meeting) have volunteered to work on the website side of things - I'm hoping Mike will sort out what it should say and find all the "stuff" and Rachel will be happy to actually do the coding. Chris Cormack is still the man in charge of version 1.x, and he is hoping to get his hands into Koha again in the next year I know. IF you missed the meeting and would like to read it then the Log is available at http://koha.org/irc Click on Koha Organizational Meeting 2004-09-21 Thanks everyone Ka kite Ano Rachel Koha Kaitiaki -- _____________________________________________________________ Rachel Hamilton-Williams Katipo Communications MANAGING DIRECTOR Ph 021 389 128 or +64 04 934 1285 mailto:rachel@katipo.co.nz PO Box 12487, Wellington http://www.katipo.co.nz New Zealand Koha Open Source Library System http://www.koha.org

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Koha and the Open Archives Initiative Protocol
by Joshua Ferraro 21 Sep '04

21 Sep '04

Benjamin, I think this question is a good one for the whole Koha community. Personally, I would love to see an interface between Koha and the Open Archives Initiative Protocol but I've not heard any discussion along those lines thusfar. What do folks think? > Thanks for your message, which my colleague Peter Pissierssens passed to > me and which I found very interesting. > Sorry to pester you with questions, but I was also wondering if there was > any interface between Koha and the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for > Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). (and consequently Dublin Core). Several of > our colleagues and partner organisations have expressed interest in this > initiative as a way of getting the benefits of a distributed database > without the communication headaches of a fully distributed search. > > I have now subscribed to the mailing lists mentioned, so if you feel that > this question would be better answered by the community please feel free > to forward it on. > > Regards, > Benjamin Sims > Information Services > IOC/UNESCO > http://ioc.unesco.org > 1 rue Miollis > 75732 Paris Cedex 15 > FRANCE > Tel: [33] (1) 45 68 39 92 > Fax: [33] (1) 45 68 58 12 > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Joshua Ferraro [mailto:jmf@kados.org] > Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 2:31 PM > To: Pissierssens, Peter > Subject: RE: KOHA > > > Peter, > > Greetings. The Z3950 Server for Koha works fine on a MARC21 system (NPL > has been using it for statewide resource sharing for several months now) > and can be found either as an add-on to Koha 2.0 (on my website at > http://kados.org/LibraryScience/zed-koha-server.pl) or in CVS in the > 2.2 tree. In both cases it is necessary to install the SimpleServer > Perl module from Indexdata (http://www.indexdata.dk/simpleserver/) > > The server can be started by running the zed-koha-server.pl script > in a terminal. Eventually it would be nice to build the server > into a daemon process but for now it is necessary to leave the > terminal open--it also logs all activity to the screen. > > There has been some talk about adding UNIMARC support and I would be > willing to develop that but would need shell access to a Koha system > using a UNIMARC database. If you require customizations for your > holdings data that could be arranged as well. > > If you want to see a Koha catalog in action you can check out Nelsonville > Public Library's at > > http://koha.athenscounty.lib.oh.us > > If you have any further questions don't hesitate to ask. You may also > be interested in checking out the Koha lists. You can subscribe at > > http://www.koha.org/mailing/ > > Regards, > > Joshua Ferraro > > > >> Hello MJ, >> >> Thanks for your quick reply. The reason I mailed you is that I am more >> comfortable writing in English than in French for technical subjects. As >> Z39/50 compliance is a pre-requisite for our use I will contact Joshua >> Ferraro to find out how far he has reached with that task. >> >> Thanks! >> >> Peter >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: MJ Ray [mailto:mjr@ttllp.co.uk] >> Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 6:25 PM >> To: Pissierssens, Peter >> Subject: Re: KOHA >> >> >> Hello Peter, >> >> I'm curious to know why you chose to contact me instead of the French >> developer? I studied in a university department which is active in >> oceanography, so I'm quite happy to help you, but I rarely get >> contacts from France. >> >> On 2004-03-01 13:30:48 +0000 "Pissierssens, Peter" >> <p.pissierssens(a)unesco.org> wrote: >> >>> I found your name on the KPHA web site. We are looking for an open >>> source >>> library management software application and Koha seems to fit that >>> description. However, one important feature I could not find on the >>> KOHA >>> site is Z3950 compliance. Can a KOHA library database be queried by a >>> z3950 >>> server? >> >> In 2.0, koha can query Z39.50 targets but cannot be queried. Joshua >> Ferraro, jmf(a)kados.org, is developing the Z39.50 interface for koha >> 2.2. >> >> By the way, should UNESCO people say "free software"? We are blessed >> with the UNESCO free software portal and directory, after all. >> http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_freesoftware/ >> >>> Also, can you lead me to a few KOHA based online catalogues? >> >> I suggest looking at the "Test Drive" koha servers on the www.koha.org >> site for now. I can't publish details of many servers. If you are >> looking for a demonstration of a particular feature, I can try to find >> someone using it for you. >> >>> Thanks in advance for your reply >> >> I hope you find this useful. >> >> -- >> MJR mjr(a)ttllp.co.uk www.ttllp.co.uk +44 (0)870 4321 9 10 >> Creative copyleft computing consultancy, code and articles. >> Latest news: Working on ISP control panels and koha.org 2.0 >> >

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Re: [Koha-devel] Clarification of jargon & tidying up
by Owen Leonard 21 Sep '04

21 Sep '04

> > * what is "Biblio"? A bibliographic record? > > * What do "biblionumber" and "biblioitemnumber" refer > > to? Biblionumber refers to the unique identification number of a record in the biblio table in the database. This table contains the most 'general' information about a particular title: title, author. biblioitemnumber *might* refer to the id number of a record in the biblioitems table, which contains the next level of information: isbn, publication year, number of pages. It *could* also refer to 'biblio item number,' which would refer to the id of a record in the items table-- where the last level of detail is kept, with barcode number, branch code, etc. It can be very confusing! > > A slightly more labor intensive change would be to use > > more CSS for layout in the future versions > > There are CSS-based templates for OPAC. I'm not sure about > intranet. The NPL intranet templates for version 2.0 are CSS-based. There are also new CSS-based templates for the latest pre- release version, developed by Paul and replacing the current default templates. -- Owen

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Koha 2.1.2 has been released
by Paul POULAIN 20 Sep '04

20 Sep '04

Hi all koha-fans, A few hours before the IRC meeting, i'm happy to announce that Koha 2.1.2 has been released : RELEASE NOTES ============= ROADMAP : A roadmap for Koha 2.2 is available here : http://www.saas.nsw.edu.au/koha_wiki/index.php?page=KohaRoadmap This is the 3nd UNSTABLE VERSION of the future Koha 2.2. Please install this version only if you want to test and give some help to the team that develops this software. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER use it on a production machine. WARNING : * This version is ONLY available in ENGLISH. biblio frameworks are only available in UNIMARC - french. * This version is tested only with mozilla. Should work (partially) with IE. * Any 2.1.0 install must be uninstalled before installing 2.1.1 No update is provided for 2.1.0. INSTALLATION * Download the package * tar xvfz koha-version.tar.gz * cd koha-version * ./installer.pl * Follow the instructions UPGRADE from previous 2.0.0preX or RCx version * Download the package * tar xvfz koha-version.tar.gz * cd koha-version * ./koha.upgrade * Follow the instructions UPGRADE from previous 1.2.x version : UPGRADE TO A 2.0.0 version before upgrading to 2.1.2 This will be mandatory for the 2.2 official release. UPDATE from a 2.1.x version is NOT AVAILABLE. Don't install 2.1.2 on a 2.1.x test database. A lot of DB changes have been done since 2.1.x & could not be handled by the DB updater. ============ WHAT'S NEW ============ * Barcode printing : a barcode printing module has been added in the "parameters" module. It requires PDF::API2 Perl module. this requirement is NOT tested by the installer, and will be non-mandatory on official 2.2.0 release. * A lot of bugfixes. The list is too long to be done. This "snapshot" is a good basis for translation process. Feel free to subscribe to koha-translate and become involved in a localisation to your own language. =========== WHAT'S NEXT =========== This version is quite stable. The next one should be called "2.2.0RC1". It still requires some work in LDAP handling. -- Paul POULAIN Consultant indépendant en logiciels libres responsable francophone de koha (SIGB libre http://www.koha-fr.org)

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