Time  Nick    Message
11:23 osmoze  bye
17:02 kados   chris: any thoughts on Paul's koha-devel email?
17:02 kados   rach, russ ?
17:02 russ    hi kados
17:03 kados   mornin ;-)
17:03 russ    can someone forward that to me again please?
17:03 russ    what is it evening for you?
17:03 chris   thats the template email kados?
17:04 paul    I can stay for a few minuts before going to bed if you want to speak of it kados.
17:04 chris   forwarded it russ
17:04 russ    cheers chris
17:04 paul    hello chris & russ & kados
17:04 kados   hehe
17:05 kados   evening paul
17:05 kados   I see you perked right up ;-)
17:05 paul    perked ?
17:05 rach    help
17:05 rach    erg
17:05 kados   perked = became alert ;-)
17:05 rach    hello :-)
17:05 rach    freudian slip there :-)
17:06 kados   hehe
17:06 russ    does someone have koha up and going with owen's templates somewhere?
17:06 kados   owen: still around?
17:06 russ    i havent seen them
17:06 kados   I don't ...
17:06 kados   sorry
17:06 kados   I think paul's problem is that they are not user friendly enough for a programmer right paul?
17:06 paul    i was just wandering near my computer when I heard the irc noise that occurs when someone type my name !
17:06 kados   for testing and such?
17:07 kados   hehe
17:07 paul    right.
17:07 paul    most pages are dead end.
17:07 paul    quite unusable.
17:07 kados   owen's contention (and mine since I'm dealing with more than just NPL now) is that it's too hard to maintain a template with more complex templates
17:08 kados   now katipo just designed a whole new set of templates for rangitiki right chris?
17:08 chris   would it be more easy if we used includes more?
17:08 chris   designed is a bit strong
17:08 rach    yes we did new templates, we did plain ones,
17:08 kados   plain?
17:08 chris   we took npl templates, ripped all the colours out
17:08 rach    but probably not as plain as I think Owen was doing - so they still had some menues
17:08 kados   right
17:08 owen    And lots of visual formatting (tables, etc)
17:08 chris   yes
17:08 rach    black and white - no colours, other than links, but still with formating
17:09 chris   and then we coloured them back in
17:09 rach    but the least formating that we thought we could get away with
17:09 chris   one for rangitikei
17:09 kados   I see
17:09 chris   and one for hlt
17:09 kados   yea that's basically what LibLime's client tempaltes are like
17:09 kados   NPL with different colors ;-)
17:09 kados   but even still, as new things are developed it's a bear to update the templates
17:09 kados   it's almost a full-time job
17:09 rach    you saw them I think - basically with no colours, and less menus
17:10 kados   for each set of templates
17:10 chris   http://koha.rangitikei.katipo.co.nz/cgi-bin/koha/mainpage.pl
17:10 chris   thats it coloured back in
17:10 rach    yep we certainly found that
17:10 russ    i hear that kados - the bulk of our effort for rangitikei and hlt upgrade was updating templates
17:11 rach    that it's a big job doing the templates, I can tell you it takes about 40hrs I think to update a set of templates each new version of KOha
17:11 kados   yep ... and it will continue as you maintain it ;-)
17:11 rach    might actually be more than that it's true
17:11 russ    rach i think 40hrs is probably ligt
17:11 kados   rach: that's maybe even a bit of a low estimate ...
17:11 russ    light
17:11 paul    rach said something important I think. maintaining intranet template is a BIG work.
17:11 kados   agreed
17:11 paul    and I don't see how it can not be.
17:12 chris   yes its just like redesigning a medium sized website
17:12 kados   yep
17:12 rach    yep
17:12 paul    (for OPAC it's different as there is less than 20 templates)
17:12 chris   yes
17:12 kados   cool ... so we all agree mostly about at least the Intranet template
17:12 rach    that it's a lot of work :-)
17:12 paul    So I think we should clearly define what we need in intranet template.
17:12 kados   now the PROG templates were supposed to alleviate the processes of weeding through _changes_
17:12 paul    and define what kind of CSS styles we need.
17:13 paul    then, everybody can have it's own css
17:13 paul    and be happy ;-)
17:13 rach    yep the idea of programmer templates, was one set that the programmers could make functionality changes too
17:13 kados   because IMO we won't really ever agree on what our clients' want in their tempaltes
17:13 rach    that were useful enough to test agains
17:13 rach    against
17:13 kados   for instance, rangitiki doesn't have the left-hand navbar
17:13 russ    kados: and nor would we want to, i see it as a feature of koha
17:13 kados   wheras NPL and LibLIme's clients depend on that
17:14 rach    it doesn't have your left hand sidebar :-) we tend to favour 2 bars
17:14 kados   russ: agreed
17:14 paul    I have a solution for such problems with my customers : I explain how much work is needed when a new release is released, and that they would have to pay !
17:14 paul    thus, every body in France has default templates for librarian interface ;-)
17:15 kados   rach: well ... more than that even ... ranji doesn't have any 'shortcut' keys or quickscan options in their nav bar
17:15 kados   paul: makes sense for a small community I think
17:15 rach    yep we could easily put those back in
17:16 chris   we probably will for hlt
17:16 chris   they were quite taken by the idea of quick keys
17:16 rach    yep - rangitikei are quite "low tech"
17:16 kados   paul: but eventually it might be more expensive for multiple clients to have to have their templates updated than it would be to go with a proprietary system
17:17 kados   paul: IMO we need to take advantage of code reuse more in the templates
17:17 kados   but I must admin
17:17 kados   admit even
17:17 rach    yes - so I guess the question is, is there enough in common between the templates that we could actually "agree" on a default set?
17:17 kados   I'm not sure what the best way to approach code reuse is
17:17 kados   or even, is our whole approach to templates thusfar deficient in some way
17:18 kados   for instance,
17:18 kados   how do other projects handle multiple templates
17:18 kados   mambo for instance, or gallery, or ...
17:18 kados   etc.
17:18 owen    I think to a certain extent they treat alternate templates as solely the responsibility of the author
17:19 kados   one question that I've been interested in is whether we could accomplish all our different designs in CSS only
17:19 owen    I think there's only so much you can do with CSS
17:19 owen    You reach a point where you really do have to move stuff around on the page.
17:19 rach    I think that we have a somewhat different issue - I think that we are adding features (and major ones) at a fearsome rate
17:19 rach    compared to other systems
17:20 kados   yep
17:20 rach    so that while that still continues, we're going to have a problem
17:20 kados   makes sense
17:20 rach    I would think (although maybe we will continue which would be cool :-) that after the next release we might get a bit more of a hiatus
17:20 kados   I think that's where the PROG template idea emerged
17:21 rach    on the feature front - or at least less major features being added
17:21 kados   PROG might alleviate the process of updating all the templates if it's used
17:22 owen    The idea with the prog templates being, a DIFF will more easily show what has been changed if you don't have to sift out the presentational aspects
17:23 rach    yep that was the idea
17:23 kados   so would it make sense to say that we each will develop new functionality using our own templates
17:23 kados   but when we commit code we agree to commit to the PROG templates as well as our templates?
17:23 paul    mmm... sounds quite ambitious to me...
17:23 rach    and (for me anyway) I wanted something that might be easier to test with
17:24 kados   paul: yes it's problematic because it requires coders to commit twice :-/
17:24 paul    i'm not sure we would have enough ressources to test enough each release with each set of templates
17:24 rach    yep
17:25 kados   ok ... so ... other suggestions?
17:25 paul    and that would be quite hard to say : if you want featureX you need template katipo, while featureY is with template liblime.
17:25 kados   can we modify the role of PROG templates?
17:25 rach    well that's pretty much what we do now
17:25 kados   exactly
17:25 rach    if you want non marc with normal acquisitions, then you go for hte katipo templates
17:26 rach    at the moment, it's kinda ok for "us" ie paul/joshua/katipo, because we all have templates we're familiar with
17:26 paul    and my problem is that i'm not sure that marc=off and acqui=normal works fine with default templates.
17:26 paul    so I don't suggest it to my libraries...
17:26 rach    yep - it doesn't :-)
17:27 russ    it certainly doesnt :-)
17:28 kados   we need a $100,000 USD grant to hire some QA folks ;-)
17:28 rach    and none of us are very confident that anything works in windows :-)
17:28 kados   ha!
17:28 kados   one problem that I can forsee with LibLime
17:29 kados   is that the ammount of customization that each library requires
17:29 kados   makes Koha not much cheaper than some of the smaller proprietary solutions
17:29 kados   (in fact, it's more expensive than the really small ones)
17:29 kados   I'm not sure whether that's just the nature of the beast
17:29 chris   yep, but it is that ability to customise that makes koha better
17:29 rach    yep it pretty much is I think
17:30 chris   i think competing on price only gets so far
17:30 kados   chris: in some ways I agree ... but in many cases I think it could work better 'out of the box'
17:30 kados   not that it's anyone's fault
17:30 kados   we're all strapped for time and resources
17:30 rach    yep
17:30 chris   yep, the installer could set up more stuff
17:31 russ    yeah we were talking about that werent we chris?
17:31 chris   i think time is the biggest resource we are short of
17:31 chris   well me anyway :)
17:32 kados   hehe
17:32 kados   you are the biggest resources we are short of chris ;-)
17:32 kados   resource even ...
17:33 kados   so any more ideas about the PROG templates?
17:33 kados   paul can you imagine a way that they could be useful?
17:34 paul    could we developp a "template compiler" (a XSL stylesheet ?) that transforms PROG into something else ?
17:34 chris   that would be cool
17:34 chris   we could make the PROG template xml
17:34 kados   hehe ...
17:34 paul    yep, i'm afraid !
17:35 kados   that may be a Koha 4.0 thing
17:35 owen    We might as well just chuck the prog templates if the only solution is that complicated (given our lack of time)
17:35 kados   go 100% XML
17:35 kados   yep
17:36 paul    chuck ?
17:36 kados   paul: get rid of ;-)
17:36 russ    chuck = throw
17:36 owen    (sorry paul)
17:36 paul    maybe, but the main thing ppl said with koha is : it' not nice/fun/pretty ...
17:37 paul    so we need to have a 3.0 really nice.
17:37 kados   paul: you say in your email:
17:37 chris   i think our aim for 3.0
17:37 paul    and that needs rewritting templates, not making default one evolving.
17:37 kados   in my idea, the PROG templates should give a framework for template designers
17:37 russ    man after going to the lianza conference
17:37 chris   is we should consider pretty templates as important as other features
17:37 kados   chris: agreed
17:37 russ    i dont think there are any ils that can say they are nice/fun/pretty
17:37 chris   ie, we should make sure koha looks nice as well as works before a release
17:38 kados    <quoting paul>in my idea, the PROG templates should give a framework for template designers</quoting>
17:38 chris   as russ says
17:38 kados   do we all agree with this?
17:38 chris   other library systems are butt ugly, lets not join them :-)
17:38 kados   is that the purpose of PROG templates?
17:38 rach    indeed
17:39 chris   hmm
17:39 kados   from the point of view of a template maintainer ... is it useful to have such a framework?
17:39 rach    yes - the ideal would be, IMO of course :-) that with the addition/use/changing of some includes and some css files, people could get functional non hideous templates from the programer templates
17:39 rach    without having to actually make new .tmpl files
17:39 chris   IMHO just one set of templates that are known to work would do
17:40 chris   it would make making/maintaining other sets easier
17:40 kados   owen: your thoughts?
17:40 chris   if there was one that worked
17:40 kados   chris: who does the template coding for katipo?
17:40 chris   not me
17:40 rach    coding or design?
17:40 chris   i wave my arms around and say make it pretty
17:40 kados   coding
17:40 rach    coding generally is bob
17:40 chris   and it just happens
17:40 chris   :)
17:40 kados   is he around?
17:41 owen    I could see modifying the programmer templates so that the addition of one or more include files would round it out to a fully functional template.
17:41 kados   might be interesting to get his perspective
17:41 owen    But a lot more subjective decisions would have to be made regarding formatting and navigation
17:41 rach    he would be, but he's on a tight deadline for another job
17:42 owen    You can't include from an include file in HTML:Template, can you?
17:42 russ    nah is not that tight, he has done some sterling work this morning
17:43 kados   morning bob
17:43 bob     hi everyone
17:43 chris   yep owen
17:43 kados   we're brainstorming for how to streamline the process of maintaing Koha tempaltes
17:44 kados   and we're hoping you have some ideas ;-)
17:44 chris   <!--TMPL_INCLUDE something something
17:45 chris   you can even write a routine to html::template can use that parse <!--#include virtual .. and converts them to <!--TMPL_INCLUDE
17:45 kados   bob: owen has worked up a set of minimal 'programmer' templates .. dunno how up to speed you are on them
17:46 kados   bob: but the idea was that programmers would commit changes to these minimal templates and it would be easier to update a set of 'real' templates using them as a guide
17:46 bob     umm, i don't know if i've seen them yet
17:46 kados   bob: but there are logistical problems with maintaining two sets of templates ...
17:47 kados   bob: any thoughts?
17:47 bob     it would be helpful to have at least a list of what variable a template could have
17:48 bob     so not exactly a minimal template - could be a text file
17:49 kados   interesting
17:49 kados   I wonder if there's an automated way of generating that
17:49 bob     that way i could know what i could display without altering perl code
17:49 kados   owen: would that be useful from your perspective too?
17:51 owen    I experimented with doing that with some of the prog templates
17:51 owen    moremember.tmpl at least, as I recall
17:51 owen    But it wasn't automated at all
17:56 russ    would it help if we asked bob to do a bit of a write up to the devel list?
17:56 paul    yep.
17:56 paul    it's midnight for me, maybe time to go to bed. and maybe i'll dream the best solution ;-)
17:56 russ    cos as kados pointed out, he is a little on the spot
17:57 chris   sleep well paul
17:57 owen    Thanks for staying up, Paul
17:57 rach    nice to see you paul :-)
17:58 russ    this template thing - is it stopping you from doing stuff paul?
17:58 paul    a little bit russ.
17:58 paul    I mean i've some features to add, and i was wondering if it was better to wait a little or to write them on default or on PROG
17:59 paul    writing them on prog is probably too hard.
17:59 paul    maybe PROG would be useable if we just added a standard menu.
17:59 kados   paul: do you plan to maintain your 'default' templates in 3.0?
17:59 paul    nope.
17:59 kados   owen: will you have time to add a standard menu?
17:59 kados   paul: would you?
17:59 paul    I plan to use a very nice one that someone else will develop ;-)
18:00 paul    (I really love katipo "fall" theme)
18:00 paul    (& think liblime one is nice too)
18:01 kados   owen's gonna jet on us ... he's off as of 1 minute ago
18:01 paul    that's another interesting question : should we wait until a decision has been taken & made reality, or continue with default for instance & port it after.
18:01 paul    ?
18:01 kados   good question
18:01 owen    I'm willing to make whatever modifications necessary to make the prog templates workable.  But only insofar as they keep their functionality as programmer templates
18:02 owen    ...And yes, gotta go! I'll catch up on the logs later
18:02 paul    I agree owen. With a TMPL_INCLUDE, it could be quite easy to do something simple.
18:03 kados   lets think it over ... if anyone has any further ideas mail them to koha-devel
18:03 paul    ok, so I go to bed. Pls kados, as RM, don't forget to take a decision on this topic.
18:03 paul    because it's slowing me & hdl atm.
18:03 kados   I'll make a decision before end of week paul ;-)
18:03 paul    ok, great.
20:13 JustJoe does anyone have experience setting up koha, i seem to be having a problem getting apache to show the website properly
20:14 JustJoe when i am on the server, i can hit the website fine in lynx, however when i am connecting to it from another machine in a normal web browser i get apache's placeholder page
20:15 JustJoe it just seems funny that localhost forwards me to one place and being on the network forwards me somewhere else
20:19 chris   what url do you hit it on when u check it locally
20:19 chris   vs over the network
20:20 chris   cos if you have <Virtualhost localhost>
20:20 chris   ServerName localhost
20:20 chris   etc
20:20 chris   and then hit it on
20:21 chris   192.172.12.1 (i just made that ip number up)
20:21 chris   its not going to match that virtualhost
20:21 chris   so you get the placeholder page
20:22 chris   what you probably need is
20:22 chris   a
20:22 chris   ServerAlias whatever.you.access.it.on.the.network
20:22 chris   in your apache config
20:25 JustJoe i use localhost when i hit it locally
20:25 chris   if you look at you koha-httpd.conf file
20:26 chris   it probably says <Virtualhost localhost> ?
20:28 JustJoe <Virtualhost music-lib-svr:80>
20:29 chris   and in /etc/hosts
20:29 JustJoe 127.0.0.1       localhost.localdomain   localhost       music-lib-svr
20:30 chris   there we go
20:30 chris   and when you access it from the network, what url do you use?
20:30 JustJoe i just hit its network IP address
20:30 chris   right
20:31 chris   in theory
20:31 chris   if you take music-lib-svr off that line in /etch/hosts
20:31 chris   then put one
20:31 chris   its.network.address      music-lib-svr
20:31 chris   and restart apache
20:32 chris   then lynx http://music-lib-svr/ should work
20:32 chris   and from outside http://networkaddress/ should work
20:35 JustJoe thanks, that worked.  Now i just got to figure out the hosts file correctly.  This seems to be where the problem is.
20:35 chris   yep
00:03 indradg chris. who uses lynx these days ? ;)
00:03 chris   not me, i use links :)
00:03 chris   but its generally on most machines :)
00:04 indradg heh
00:06 indradg chris, head over to http://foss.in/2005/ when u r free
00:06 chris   links is cool because the mouse works in it
00:06 chris   even over ssh
00:06 chris   which is really handy for testing stuff on ppls intranets
00:06 indradg i'll be talk about Koha (mostly)
00:06 indradg chris, i agree
00:08 chris   wow, in good company :)
00:09 indradg yup!
00:09 chris   excellent
00:09 indradg http://foss.in/2005/schedules/
00:10 indradg some really nice sessions in there
00:10 chris   sure are
00:10 chris   looks like a great conference
00:12 indradg last week at a conference a guy from MSFT Research chatted me up.... we ended up discussing device driver models in FreeBSD vs. Linux... the guy's fav platform is Mac OS X... which he uses at work :)
00:13 chris   i like OS X a lot
00:13 chris   its a pity that macs cost so much
00:13 chris   i wouldnt mind an ibook laptop
00:14 chris   but im pretty fond of debian too :)
00:14 indradg yeah... even 2 years back a 128 MB RAM clip used to cost 16000 rupees (~ 3500 USD).... argh!
00:14 chris   yikes
00:15 indradg sorry that would be 350 USD... extra zero ;)
00:15 chris   ahh thats better... still expensive though
00:15 chris   so foss.in is an annual event?
00:16 indradg now things have changed... can get a decent mac laptop with DVD writer and stuff in india for about 1,700 USD in indian currency
00:16 indradg chris, yes... FOSS.IN is an annual event... till last year it used to be called as Linux Bangalore... changed the name this year for an all india flavour
00:17 chris   right
00:17 chris   and usually in december?
00:17 indradg yes... the best time to visit india :)
00:20 chris   darn, india will be in south africa in december
00:20 indradg lol
00:20 chris   i was hatching a cunning plan to combine a visit to india with foss.in and a cricket match :-)
00:21 indradg :)
03:48 osmoze  hello
09:28 Sylvain hi !
10:13 Sylvain paul ?