Time Nick Message 13:15 slef kados or paul alive? 13:19 kados slef: yo 13:23 slef 1mo, phone 13:23 slef sorry 13:24 lloyd ;) 13:34 lloyd kados - check your mail :) 13:35 lloyd its not very exciting 13:35 kados looking 13:36 slef still phoone 13:38 kados lloyd: looks like we're behind schedule :-) 13:38 slef kados: have you looked at bookseller EDI? onix etc 13:39 kados slef: only casually 13:39 kados but I'm meeting with Ebsco at ALA next week 13:39 kados to discuss it 13:39 kados hi thd 13:39 lloyd kados - yeah very lol 13:40 kados thd: https://mail.gna.org/public/opencataloger-dev/2007-06/msg00024.html 13:40 kados thd: you can see some of the fruits of our labor last night in that email response 13:41 kados thd: feel free to join that list and add your comments to the mix :-) 13:41 kados slef: why do you ask? 13:42 slef kados: customer enquiry. Am I right in thinking it's a case of altering acquisitions to send/receive the EDI messages? 13:42 kados yea 13:42 kados it's a pretty simple process actually 13:42 kados most implementations use FTP 13:42 kados AFAIK 13:42 kados the EDI messages are gonna be different for every vendor 13:43 kados like all library standards 13:43 slef only thing I think is really new there is to feed the MARC record from 13:43 slef the supplier into the reservoir so it's ready for acquisitions 13:43 slef kados: really? ONIX looked like something half-standard. I guess we can XSLT them into a koha-common-EDI-import form? <eg> 13:43 kados well, not the reservoir 13:43 kados you want to attach it to the bib record 13:43 kados when you acquisition something in Koha, it creates a minimal bib 13:44 kados ONIX is just one of the edi standards 13:44 slef do we trust the supplier's bib that much, though? 13:44 kados EDIFAX is another I think 13:44 kados yea 13:44 kados we sorta have to 13:44 kados at least that's how it's supposed to work 13:45 kados edi does more than just grab the marc though 13:45 slef In God We Trust. All Others Bring Data. 13:45 kados hehe 13:45 kados what I want to be able to do 13:45 slef tracks the order, balances the budgets 13:45 slef what else 13:45 kados is initiate the order from koha, use a web service on the vendor's site to find books, add them to a basket, and place an order, then get back expected delivery times, etc. 13:46 kados update the budget 13:46 kados then track the order 13:46 kados allow claims automatically 13:46 kados (more than just a report) 13:46 thd the problem with EDI in Perl is that the supporting libraries are underdeveloped even if they work for the level present 13:46 kados we need a visionary library to take on the expense of developing that 13:46 kados thd: right, we would need to expand on those 13:48 slef I'm expecting to write some EDI interface modules. 13:48 thd kados: I would advise hiring the developer of them to finish that work when it becomes a valuable feature to have 13:48 kados thd: which modules? 13:48 slef I think I've got a bookseller who is willing to help me test. 13:48 kados thd: that depends on the developer 13:48 kados thd: and how well written the code is 13:48 kados thd: if it's poor code, I'd rather start from scratch 13:49 thd kados: the problem is that you cannot get all the information for all the standards easily 13:49 kados thd: *nod* 13:50 thd the developer already had dealt with some of those issues for the old UK standard which is probably still used extensively and proprietary 13:54 slef which developer? 14:03 kados http://www.xml-edifact.org/TR/XML-Edifact-3.html 14:03 kados thd: this one? 14:04 kados XML::Edifact - an approach towards XML/EDI as a prototype in perl 14:04 kados UN/EDIFACT is sometimes called nightmare of paperless office. About 3000 pages define the UN/EDIFACT standard to provide a rich semantic for electronic data interchange for trade commerce and transport. A semantic that is difficult to understand and to implement for the average programmer. 14:04 kados typical library standard :-) 14:08 thd I was looking but I did not find my old notes easily for this 14:09 slef But we're no average programmers, right? :) 14:10 thd there was one Perl module which included support for X12, X11, TRADOS, and EDIFACT all in one 14:10 kados slef: heh 14:11 thd TRADOS being the proprietary standard used in the UK 14:13 thd use of EDIFACT is largely confined to major business outside the US and Canada 14:13 slef UK Book Industry Communication seems to be pushing ONIX today 14:14 thd ONIX is designed more for bibliographic metadata than orders 14:14 slef I can find the EDIFACT details, but it doesn't seem promoted 14:14 slef ONIX seemed to cover QUOTES and INVOICES and so on when I read it 14:15 thd ONIX was developed by the Book Industry Study Group in the US for bibliographic data 14:15 slef http://www.bic.org.uk/ecommerce-implementation.html#2 14:17 slef oh yeah, it hooks to EDIFACT for the INVOICES stuff 14:17 slef sorry 14:17 slef I'm in a maze of twisty standards, all different. 14:18 kados slef: yea, welcome to libraries 14:18 thd slef: TRADOS may be from my poor memory perhaps the proprietary standard is Tradicoms 14:18 thd which is in the page that you posted 14:19 slef TRADOS looked like someting for translations 14:19 thd I have not looked at this in detail for about a year and a half 14:20 slef It doesn't look like it has changed since 2002 at latest 14:21 thd the PERL modules which I had were sufficient for doing something but they worked a much lower message level than most people expected 14:23 thd there was no high level abstraction for the common tasks people wanted to perform because that level of the work on the modules was unfinished 14:31 slef I don't mind a bit of heavy lifting. 14:34 thd I found it 14:34 thd http://www.s-mart.net/medici/ 14:35 thd that is the most complete set of modules for EDI in Perl 14:36 thd I could not remember MEDICI in association with EDI 14:37 slef thanks 14:38 thd kados: are you still here? 14:38 slef approach sounds sane (driving expat) 14:39 kados thd: just in theory :-) 14:40 thd kados: I found MEDICI for EDI in Perl, which I had forgotten; but I wanted to ask you about the list to which you pointed me 14:40 thd kados: what is that list? 14:41 kados thd: that's the opencataloger list 14:41 kados thd: for the opencataloger project 14:41 thd the classroom part? 14:42 thd or is that list also being used for the Koha development as well 14:42 thd ? 14:43 thd what is the structure of the classroom work if it is no longer competitive teams starting from nothing but some direction to the standards? 14:44 thd kados: and also where do I subscribe? 14:44 slef vrooooooooooooom 14:45 slef https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/opencataloger-dev 14:46 slef as an aside, please ask opencataloguer to "use but not rely on" javascript ;-) 14:46 kados slef: ha! 14:46 kados slef: that's not the purpose of opencataloger 14:47 kados slef: the existing MARC record editor in KOha fulfills that goal 14:47 kados we're creating something else with opencataloger 14:47 slef fiddling with each college's browser to allow koha's admin interface to run scripts is getting very boring 14:47 kados heh 14:48 slef This project has not yet submitted a short description. You can submit it now. 14:48 slef That's not informative! 14:48 slef https://gna.org/projects/opencataloger 14:48 slef so what is opencataloguer? 14:48 slef http://home.gna.org/opencataloger/ 14:49 slef and are you worried by the spelling error? ;-) 14:49 thd kados: I thought the purpose of open cataloguer was cataloguing, not necessarily cataloguing in JavaScript 14:49 kados slef: that's the american spelling 14:49 slef No gg? 14:49 lloyd bloody americans 14:49 slef lloyd: knickers to them. 14:50 kados a name change may be in order 14:50 kados http://kados.org/stuff/opencat-fixedfield_editor.png 14:50 lloyd opencatlog :) 14:50 kados http://kados.org/stuff/opencat-help.png 14:50 kados http://kados.org/stuff/opencat-results.png 14:50 slef I really don't know how US spells it. I do well to remember that they don't use ue on the end ;-) 14:50 kados some screenshots if you want to know what it is 14:51 kados http://wiki.liblime.com/doku.php?id=catalogingproject 14:51 kados historical info on the origins ofthe project and the goals 14:51 slef heh, tabs... anyone want a http://www.useit.com/alertbox/991114.html 14:52 thd kados: what is the structure of the classroom work if it is no longer competitive teams starting from nothing but some direction to the standards? 14:52 owen slef, do you really exist in a world completely free of javascript? 14:53 owen It's ridiculous to expect a modern web application to fully function completely free of javascript 14:53 owen ...unless the audience *specifically* requires no javascript for some technical reason. 14:53 slef owen: no. I exist in a world where Javascript is used sparingly, 14:53 slef because of its accessibility, energy and abuse problems. 14:53 slef hang on, some tike is banging on the building vents again 14:54 owen And you believe that a cataloging client would need to adhere to those standards, assuming that "abuse" is not relevant here? 14:54 kados thd: now it's just one student working, the google summer of code guy 14:54 kados and toins / paul did much of the interface work in XUL 14:54 slef too slow :-/ 14:55 thd owen: I hope to live in a world where either every device supports JavaScript perfectly or JavaScript is not required to accomplish any task 14:55 slef owen: lots of college machines have javascript blockers by standard these days. 14:56 owen So they don't use /any/ current web application 14:56 slef It's completely stupid to prevent non-javascript clients from accessing basic services. Even google is slowly tracking back on that, opening maps up to non-javascript browsers and so on. 14:56 thd owen: unfortunately the real world meets neither of those conditions so we either have to change the world or change the applications and changing the applications is easier 14:57 kados slef: a cataloging application is not a basic service 14:57 slef a cataloguing application has basic services 14:57 kados slef: if I were rich, I would agree with you 14:57 kados but I'm poor and I need to make something that works for my customer 14:58 owen slef, have you evaluated commercially-available cataloging clients for accessibility? 14:58 thd kados: it should be though as long as your libraries' records cannot be overwritten by the patrons 14:58 kados slef: and they require javascript to perform what they want to perform 14:58 slef part of the motive for web applications is "the Martini approach" - any time, any place, any where 14:58 thd slef: what does Martini mean in that context? 15:00 slef kados: I've found javascript to be a huge resource drain unless you lock down to only support one browser. I hear the ajax compatibility libraries are improving it, but use much CPU 15:00 slef thd: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=459065&in_page_id=1879 15:03 slef kados: use it if you want, but please leave a basic version usable without it (or at least have some idea how one could be made, leave the door open) if you want the widest possible audience. 15:03 kados slef: we're locking down to firefox 15:03 kados slef: there is no budget for this, it's being done on a shoestring 15:03 kados slef: if you want to contribute code, that woudl be welcome 15:06 slef Maybe some time, but it looks like a html version is prevented by the XUL tech requirement. 15:14 slef owen: I've not evaluated the commercial cataloguers. One of my FE colleges did a while back and I think they had one Windows one which was OK. 15:15 owen And it qualified as "accessible?" 15:16 slef I think it got grade 3 on their 5-point scale. So not brilliant, but usable with adaptations that they already had. 15:18 thd owen: I think that ensuring that every function can be performed quickly with the keyboard alone using the tab key or whatever is much more important than ensuring it works without JavaScript 15:18 thd slef: I think that ensuring that every function can be performed quickly with the keyboard alone using the tab key or whatever is much more important than ensuring it works without JavaScript 15:20 slef thd: the keyboard can move the pointer at a push, so I'd put them the other way around, but both is best. 15:21 slef hrm, I can't remember how to do that in X though :) 15:21 thd slef: I only use mouse keys as well 15:22 thd slef: shift-numlock starts the mouse keys function 15:22 thd in X-windows 15:22 slef oh yeah, and tap shift while pointing to go faster 15:23 slef I tried ctrl-alt-numlock, which was close but no cookie 15:23 slef and 5 to left-click 15:23 slef where are the other mouse buttons? 15:24 thd sets the left button 15:24 thd slef: / sets the left button 15:24 thd slef: * sets the middle button or both 15:24 slef and - the right, gotcha 15:25 thd slef: - sets the right button 15:25 slef I think that's changed since I last used it. 15:25 thd slef: - 0 holds the button down 15:26 slef and 5 to release again... mmm 15:26 thd slef: - . releases the button 15:26 slef heh 15:26 thd slef: . releases the button 15:26 thd slef: + gives a double click 15:27 thd slef: all the numbers around 5 point in their relative direction of course 15:28 [K] *** part FreeNode!#koha: _lloyd_ n=lloyd_p0@nat.wsufftrust.org.uk 15:29 thd slef: the only problem I have with the built in X-windows function is that the feauture turns itself off after some minute and then I type a number unexpectedly 15:29 slef 9 15:30 thd slef: 9? 15:30 slef I type a number unexpectedly 15:30 thd s/minute/period of minutes/ 15:32 thd there is are programs for better control of the feature but none are packaged for Debian unless you use Gnome or KDE 15:32 thd s/is// 17:52 kados hey foxnorth 17:52 foxnorth hey kados: great email this morning. took me a while to digest. :) 17:52 kados took a while to write :-) 17:52 foxnorth i'm just about to send some use cases as i see them right now to the list 17:52 foxnorth i bet! 17:52 kados but it's important I think 17:53 kados it's easy to get caught up in the thrill of fast development 17:53 foxnorth very- dunno if you saw my reply from a short while ago yet? 17:53 kados yea, I did 17:53 foxnorth yeah, i think we need to pause and figure out what we want from this thing :) 17:53 kados yea 17:53 foxnorth ok, just sent my list of workflows/uses to opencat-dev 17:55 kados oooh, yes 17:55 kados thought of that last night: open file of MARC records 17:55 foxnorth yeah, need that 17:55 kados and saving too 17:55 kados definite must 17:57 kados cool 17:57 kados we do own the opencataloger domain 17:57 foxnorth so, i wanted to get down what's working, what isn't and what we want to work...ultimately 17:57 kados but for now I'd prefer to use the liblime wiki: wiki.liblime.com 17:57 foxnorth sure, whatever's easiest/best. 17:57 kados we may end up changing names 17:58 foxnorth right, hadn't thought of htat 17:58 kados because of the spelling differences of catalog and catalogue 17:58 foxnorth good point 17:58 kados short sighted ofme 17:58 foxnorth so, on the whole, how does this list jive with what you're envisioning (if that' s not too much to ask in chat??!) 17:59 slef no, I just wondered whether it should be cataloger or catalogger - I don't know how it conjugates 17:59 foxnorth i havne't included everything, of course... 17:59 kados slef: :-) 17:59 kados foxnorth: Save changes in opencataloger (xml dom...eventually sqlite?) 17:59 slef oh wait, do you write referer? 17:59 kados foxnorth: Google has a tool for this 17:59 foxnorth a tool for which? 18:00 kados foxnorth: Google Gears 18:00 foxnorth ah, i've seen but haven't played with 18:00 foxnorth yet 18:00 kados there's also the Dojo Offline Toolkit 18:00 kados which might be better than an extension 18:00 slef oh yeah, strange US English 18:01 foxnorth you mean better than making opencat an extension, or using google gears? 18:01 kados I'd prefer to avoid making a firefox extension unless there are strong reasons too 18:01 foxnorth yeah, it seems counterintuitive. i guess there's xulrunner, but i really don't know what the status of it is... 18:01 kados but I'm in favor of using available toolkits like dojo, jquery, yui 18:01 slef referer - A misspelling of "referrer" which somehow made it into the 18:01 slef HTTP standard. (foldoc) 18:02 kados xulrunner is really nice actually 18:02 kados that's what EG's staff client is packaged in 18:02 kados I think there's only an installer for windows though 18:02 foxnorth yeah, i thought i saw that. it works pretty well for eg? 18:02 kados yea, very well 18:03 kados slef: yea, isn't that nuts 18:03 kados slef: I've actually been thrown by that a few times 18:04 foxnorth kados: you had said a while back you preferred sticking to xul as opposed to a js toolkit like ext/yui-- do you feel like the main benefits to xul are separation of ui and js scripts? Is it also stability you're concerned with in the other js toolkits? 18:05 kados I think xul is really fantastic interface technology 18:05 kados that's my main interest there 18:05 foxnorth cos to be perfectly honest, (in my limited experience) i've been finding xul a bit cumbersome and rigid. but that may very well be my limited exp. w/ xul compared to ext/yui/jquery etc 18:05 kados if you think you could do better in ext/yui/jquery ... 18:05 foxnorth i'm not sure! 18:05 kados I'm not gonna hold you back ;-) 18:06 foxnorth but the xul has been interesting, and i also would hate to lose the work that's been put into opencat's xul interface 18:07 foxnorth which comprises much of opencataloger at this point... 18:07 kados slef would probbaly agree with you 18:08 kados about re-designing it without XUL 18:08 foxnorth anyway, as we think about bigger goals and new features, i'm just wondering how it will be to implement in xul. but again, i'm not extremely familiar w/ xul or any other toolkit in particular, so i'm not the best judge. 18:08 kados I guess where is the future? 18:08 foxnorth hhm. 18:08 foxnorth right, where is the future??? 18:08 foxnorth i love the idea of xul. 18:08 kados are people building xul or ext/yui/jquery apps these days? 18:08 foxnorth yeah, xulrunner seems to have a certain amount of popularity 18:08 foxnorth although the ajax/js toolkits have their fans as well 18:09 kados yup 18:09 kados well I guess Firefox is a XUL application 18:09 foxnorth good point :) 18:10 foxnorth and thunderbird 18:10 slef the future is oranges 18:10 kados and is it developed in xulrunner now? 18:10 foxnorth those are the main two i guess, plus songbird?? 18:11 kados there's something sexy about a browser-based MARC editor that works really well 18:11 foxnorth for sure 18:11 slef kados: I wonder about your romantic abnormalities. 18:11 kados I guess the pain of the current implementation in Koha caused me to swing the other way and look for something radical 18:11 kados like XUL 18:11 foxnorth i could definately see that 18:12 kados but if we can acomplish the same goals using ajax toolkits I'd be happy 18:12 foxnorth well i also don't know about the divisino of labor betw. front and backend in terms of the marc editing.... 18:13 kados such as? 18:13 kados not sure I understand 18:13 foxnorth like, using perl on the backend to manipulate marc would be a lot easier than dom manipulations in js 18:13 foxnorth then return the record to display 18:13 foxnorth but that's getting close to what koha is now, no? 18:13 kados well 18:13 kados not quite 18:14 kados koha now converts a form submission into a MARCXML string 18:14 foxnorth and then converts marcxml string into marc::record and puts into db? 18:14 kados well 3.0 stores natively as MARCXML 18:15 foxnorth ah right, in zebra? 18:15 kados storage is in mysql 18:15 kados indexing is in zebra 18:15 foxnorth gotcha 18:15 foxnorth got to get 3.0 setup here 18:16 foxnorth anyway, perhaps this is too far afield for opencat 18:16 kados foxnorth: the docs in that package I sent should help out so long as you have a debian etch box 18:16 foxnorth i'm running ubuntu but i could always put debian etch in vmware 18:16 kados I'd recommend it 18:16 foxnorth will do 18:17 kados installation is a bear 18:17 kados ROAR 18:17 kados :-) 18:17 kados anyway 18:17 foxnorth right, 18:47 thd kados: look at the message which I just posted to the opencataloger-dev list 18:47 kados thd: looking now 18:53 thd kados: if what I describe is not available in open cataloger, you will lose the value of a major differentiator for Koha. I image that will be very expensive loss for marketing Koha support 18:54 thd kados: you will not of course lose anything which you have already but only a significant part of the potential 18:59 foxnorth thd: do you mean an autocomplete-type list populated w/ values such as: a - Language material | c - Notated music ....so that a short description is included along with the value to use? 19:01 thd foxnorth: yes, but also dynamic so that choosing a value for one part/position constrains values for another part/position 19:02 foxnorth yeah, i think both of these would be extremely useful and well received 19:03 foxnorth whatever repetition is necessary in a record (e.g. date in fixed fields and date in publication date area) should be handled by the editor 19:03 foxnorth and eventually validated by the editor where possible (e.g. with dates) 19:06 thd foxforth: however, it is important that the user can avoid being forced to use the additional view by using some preference about what happens upon entering the relevant field/subfield/indicators. But it should always be available contextually with some command or tabbing to a point where it can be actuated and pressing space or enter to actuate. 19:06 foxnorth yeah, i agree 19:06 foxnorth no need to burden someone when they don't need it. 19:06 foxnorth but the option should be available 19:07 thd yes: cataloguers hate repetition which is why often only the textual value subfields are completed for some data elements 19:10 thd foxforth: I did not understand what was intended by a preference to not have popups except that something like what I described which exists as part of the JavaScript forms based Koha editor would not be possible 19:12 foxnorth thd: what i was thinking was that a popup window slows the cataloging down (have to wait for window to open, read, then close), whereas a dropdown or autocomplete appears w/o obscuring the rest of the record, and yet could give the same semantic information (a - Language material ...) 19:13 foxnorth well, it obscures part, but not as much as popup window perhaps? 19:13 thd foxnorth: yes I agree 19:16 thd foxnorth: although it should be possible to have a view which shows all at once the semantic values recorded for an entire field rather than one position or position group at a time 19:18 thd foxnorth: also some position values must constrain the values for other positions and some positions are only filled collectively with others as a group 19:22 foxnorth yeah, a help pane or dialog box or something should be available to provide help for a particular field, with all positions shown 19:23 foxnorth yeah, the fixed fields are complicated! 19:24 thd foxnorth: no feature should unnecessarily constrain the speed of the record editor but the speed of completing a fully completed record is what is important and referring to documentation is much slower than selecting a value directly from a self documenting form 19:24 foxnorth we need a good way to define them and their interactions within the fixed fields and within the larger record as a whole 19:24 foxnorth that's right 19:24 foxnorth as you said, referring to documentation is a deterrent 19:24 foxnorth external documentation, that is 19:27 thd foxnorth it is not only the fixed fields which have his problem but also some indicators work together; many subfields have coded values; and some subfields especially in UNIMARC have fixed length positions just like fixed fields 19:27 foxnorth yes that's true 19:27 foxnorth and i need to get familiar w/ unimarc 19:29 thd UNIMARC 1XX are the equivalents of MARC 21 006-008 19:29 foxnorth that's about as far as i've gotten in my understanding so far :) 19:30 foxnorth i wonder i there's a tutorial somewhere comparing marc21 and unimarc for catalogers 19:31 foxnorth bbl 19:31 thd there is a UNIMARC to MARC 21 conversion program at LC 20:01 thd kados: are you still there? 00:28 thd kados: ping 08:37 lloyd morning slef 08:50 slef hi 08:50 dewey hello, slef 08:51 slef I started at 8am with a server crash :-/ 08:54 lloyd ahhh nice 08:54 lloyd crappy h/w? :) 08:55 slef No, software needs upgrade, but machine too loaded ATM 08:56 lloyd ahh 08:56 lloyd i started the day at 7:45 with a coffee and 15mins of big brother before getting ready for work :) 09:01 lloyd sad I know