[Koha-devel] Separating MARC Framework Structure from Display

[Ian Walls]

Colleagues and Friends,


I've been doing a training for a library in Maine, and working with their
cataloguers has got me thinking a lot about the MARC Frameworks.

Right now, our Frameworks are doing two jobs:  defining what MARC means, and
determining how that information will display in the editor and MARC views.
 It seems to me that we may benefit from separating these two functions more
thoroughly.  Doing so would allow us to have one or two framework structures
per MARC flavour, but as many displays as we like.  I'm thinking of the
further future of Koha where we support more than just MARC (like native DC,
MOD, METS or EAD data), and having the semantics and display separated is
more critical (so we can provide a common display layer to all those
formats)

To that end, I'd recommend some changes to how the display information is
handled in the GUI.  First off, having 'basic' constraints and 'advanced'
constraints (hidden by JQuery) should be eliminated in favour of a semantic
section and a display section.  Secondly, the 'hidden' value should no
longer be an integer (at least in the GUI), but a dropdown, or series of
dropdowns, laying out in plain text under what conditions you're hiding the
value.

Does this make sense to others, or am I writing too late into the evening?

Cheers,


-Ian

-- 
Ian Walls
Lead Development Specialist
ByWater Solutions
Phone # (888) 900-8944
http://bywatersolutions.com
ian.walls at bywatersolutions.com
Twitter: @sekjal
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