[Koha-devel] we've got a winner :-) => IMPORTANT

[Andrew Arensburger]

On Thu, 3 Oct 2002, paul POULAIN wrote:
> About parameters :
> -------------------------
> I think we're on a dangerous way... some parameters are in
> /etc/koha.conf, some are in systempreferences table. I think, and chris
> too, that we should use koha.conf ONLY for DB parameters, and
> systempreferences for everything else.
> Example : it's bad, i think, to have theme in systempref and theme-path
> in koha.conf.

	I'm not sure. It seems that the systempreferences table ought to
apply to the entire Koha setup throughout the library, and /etc/koha.conf
should have a) information necessary for the web server to find the
database, and b) information pertinent only to that particular web server.
	For instance, let's say that a library has branches in New York
and in Washington, DC. There are two web servers, www.dc.library.org and
www.ny.library.org. On the Washington server, the template files are in
/software/web/koha/themes, whereas on the New York server, they are in
C:\Web Documents\Koha\Local\Themes (Perl is quite portable, so I see no
reason why Koha couldn't be ported to Windows, MacOS, etc.)
	The library as a whole might want to set "MyTheme" as the
site-wide default theme, so it makes sense to put that in the Koha
database. But each web server needs to find that theme in its own setup,
which can vary from one server to the next, so it makes sense to put that
in /etc/koha.conf.

	One gray area that comes to mind is printers: when Koha prints
something, the printer that it uses depends on several things: who the
user is (librarian or patron, and perhaps children shouldn't be allowed to
print at all), which machine ve is using (a librarian in her office should
be able to print to her printer, whereas a patron on the 3d floor of the
New York branch should print to the 3d floor common printer. A patron
using Koha from home shouldn't be allowed to print to a library printer at
all).
	I'm not sure how much, if any, of this should go in
/etc/koha.conf, and how much in the database. On one hand, it's the web
server that will be printing (and it can find out which queues are
available to it), so perhaps the default printer should be set there. On
the other hand, this is Koha configuration, not web configuration, so
perhaps it should go in the database.

	On the whole, I agree that /etc/koha.conf should contain as little
as possible. I'm just trying to come up with scenarios in which it would
make sense to put additional stuff in /etc/koha.conf.

-- 
Andrew Arensburger                      Actually, these _do_ represent the
arensb at ooblick.com                      opinions of ooblick.com!
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