IRC log for #koha, 2004-11-18

All times shown according to UTC.

Time S Nick Message
13:36 paul hello owen
13:36 owen Hi paul
13:37 paul i get a pdf file in iso8859-1, with an original file in utf8...
13:37 paul so diacritics are a little strange...
14:18 paul_away pas de bol jyl57, je dois partir sans délai.
14:19 JYL57 Ok ! à plus tard Paul
14:33 owen Hi indradg and JYL57.
14:33 indradg hi owen
14:34 indradg been busy in betwn.. logged in here after couple of weeks
14:35 indradg had got two more Koha installation / migration coming my way :)
14:35 owen It has been pretty quiet here.
14:35 indradg at KIG-India we are planning a first-ever physical meeting of Koha users in India
14:36 owen That's great!
14:36 indradg seems like there are quite a few
14:36 indradg but the main problem here is india is that Lib & Info Sci ppl aren't quite comfortable with FLOSS tech yet
14:37 indradg and Linux geeks are either to impatient or dont want to spend time to learn the nuances of Lib/Info Sci :P
14:37 owen Yeah, that's a tough one.
14:38 owen We face the same barriers here as well.
14:38 indradg we are planning to have a training session for the participants
14:39 owen My co-workers did something interesting recently at a library conference:  A "Linux Install-fest" where they told participants to bring in a computer to get Linux installed on it for them.
14:40 owen The following day they held a "Koha Install-fest" and installed Koha on all those machines.
14:40 owen It was a great way to send folks home with a Koha test machine to play around with.
14:40 indradg ppl (librarians) ask is mysql free? and AACR2 doesnt mean anything to the techs... guess problems are same in most place... maybe differing only in degrees
14:41 indradg thats an idea!!! sending them home with just the CDs of s/w dont work out
14:41 indradg we can do that too!
14:44 owen If you try it, another good thing to do is provide some sample data for them to put into their database.  That helps a lot when you're trying to understand how Koha works.
14:45 indradg sure can do... I'm using a 1200 biblio dump for demostration purpose... can share it
14:46 indradg also at KIG India we are planning to collaborate and create MARC records for Indian Books and other materials published in india... export individual biblio data... weed out the duplicates and merge it -> ready for bulkmarcimport.pl and the reservoir
14:50 owen That's  a great idea
15:57 kados owen I noticed that the "change language" feature isn't working on the opac -- is that because we don't have any other languages to choose from?
15:59 kados also, what's up with the "American Barking Association" under Recent Acquisitions?
15:59 owen Yes.  There are only English-language version of the NPL template
15:59 kados why is CVS listed as a language?
16:00 owen :) I was just trying out adding an item type a while back.
16:00 kados ahh
16:00 kados maybe we should have "gutenberg e-text" as an item type eh?
16:00 owen I think the script that looks for different language versions is simply scanning that directory for /en or /fr or whatever.  It sees /CVS and thinks its another language.
16:08 owen Would an average Koha install have the CVS directories?
16:09 kados no
16:10 kados only if it's symlinked to a CVS repo
16:10 owen So it's probably not worth fixing.
16:14 kados well I guess we could just delete the CVS directory
16:14 kados or move it
16:14 kados it's only used when working with CVS
16:14 kados something we haven't really done lately
16:15 kados I mostly use the symlinks as a central way to backup Koha
16:15 kados file structure
16:21 kados arg ... looks like I need to reboot my screen server
16:23 owen Alma?
16:25 kados nope ... I'm screening from home now
16:26 owen Sometimes I have a screen window that just stops responding.
16:26 owen All I can think to do is kill it.
16:28 kados yea that happens sometimes
23:46 kados chris around?
01:13 Genji Greetings all! Haven't been here in ages.. but little time for chitchat, im feeling motivated today. I want to put a lastseen date, formatted in excel style serial number, converted into anything using Date::Manip, into the lastseen field of Mysql. My question is, what is the format that Mysql, and koha, are expecting in the Lastseen field?
01:24 rach hi - how long are you here for?
01:24 rach chris who could probably best answer that question is out at the moment, but I think will be back around 7pm
01:24 rach our time - which is 1 hr 30 mins
01:25 Genji can be here all day. just want to keep this motivation buzz i seem to have at the moment.
01:25 Genji i remember you, rach, but not what you do. What do you do?
01:26 rach I run Katipo here in NZ
01:26 rach and I'm the figure head for the Koha project at the moment
01:27 indradg hey rach.. was looking at the admin screen mockups u posted... looked nice
01:27 rach cheers
01:27 rach will try and get somone onto it - the admin stuff was driving me nuts the other day :-)
01:27 rach no prob
01:27 Genji What do you want help with, rach? admin screen?
01:28 rach ah just that there are only about 4 things that you absoloutely have to do to get Koha going - particularly if you're just in for a play
01:28 rach but they are scattered throughout the admin stuff, in no particular order
01:28 rach and not identified in any way
01:29 rach which makes a simple setup more of a chore/hunting expidition than it really needs to be
01:29 indradg i agree
01:29 Genji what are these 4 things?
01:29 rach you must have at least one itemtype
01:29 rach and if you are importing from another system, your itemtypes must match the incoming ones
01:29 rach you must have at least one branch
01:30 rach for the simplest running of Koha you should choose "marc off" and then you can ignore all the rest of the marc stuff :-)
01:30 rach and simple acquisitions - and then ignore the rest of the budget stuff
01:31 rach need one borrower category if you're going to have patrons
01:32 indradg lol@rach's comment
01:32 rach I have no prob with importing marc records, is v good, like it a lot, and editing etc - sweet
01:33 indradg rach: I have been talking to librarians here in India who are either using Koha or just testing the waters
01:33 rach awesome
01:33 rach that is great
01:34 indradg rach: and what I find is that most dont have a clue as to how simple it actually is to create a new template for Koha... thinking that what-you-got-is-all-that-can-be
01:35 indradg methinks time for a Templating Koha HOWTO (or is there one already???)
01:35 rach that would be really good
01:35 rach no there isn't one already
01:36 indradg ok
01:37 Genji templating is fun and easy.
01:37 rach yeah that's what I think
01:37 rach but people are a bit intimidated by it
01:37 indradg not that I understand it all too well myself (perl isn't exactly my cup of tea).. but I've been making changes in the templates... and can prolly start out by getting my work notes together
01:37 rach that would be great
01:38 rach you hopefully don't need much perl to make big changes to how things look
01:38 rach mostly people want to just comment out fields, or change their order etc
01:38 indradg right! thats my only consolation :)
01:38 rach :-)
01:39 rach ta
01:40 indradg ok... I'll start work on the HOWTO and post abt it on the devel list
01:40 indradg rach: probably u can help correct my mistakes
01:42 Genji rach: can you check on my subscription email addy? I may need it changed.
01:43 rach yep
01:43 rach yep, yep
01:43 rach that is 3 in a row :-)
01:44 rach OK genji what's your mail addy?
01:45 rach genjimoto@ezysurf.co.nz
01:45 rach is the one I have
01:46 Genji genji18@yahoo.co.nz is the one that it needs to change to.
01:46 indradg rach genji bye for now! got a meeting coming up at the office... time to earn my living :)
01:46 rach culater
01:47 rach genji you want the old one unsubbed?
01:47 Genji yup.
01:48 rach done
01:48 Genji why i am doing this, is because i can't use the smtp server on ezysurf anymore.
01:48 rach sure
01:50 Genji wheres this mock up of this admin page, rach?
01:52 rach http://katipo.co.nz/gallery/koha-admin
01:53 rach there have been some good suggestions as to how to break some of them up differently
01:53 rach but the general idea was to group them in some sort of saner way
01:56 Genji wheres the html files these pics are based on?
02:04 Genji eh, before im going to do the admin screen, i have to install 2.2.RC1.
03:13 rach ah yes probably
03:14 rach I think those templates are the "vanilla" ones
03:14 rach or possibley the "katipo" ones
03:14 rach chris tells me it's the "katipo" ones for the intranet
03:35 Genji eh... then this admin page is fully functional?
03:37 rach nope
03:37 rach all the actual admin options are currently in the template
03:37 rach they are just not arranged in this way
03:38 rach they are higgledy piggledy
03:38 Genji So, where do the gallery mock ups come from?
03:43 rach I made the mockups in photoshop
03:43 rach so I took the existing template - took a screen shot
03:43 rach and then rearranged the text
05:42 paul hello rach
05:43 rach hi paul
05:43 rach how are you today?
05:44 paul fine, thanks
05:44 paul working on 3 RFPs
05:44 paul i've more than 10 RFP for instance...
05:44 paul (for 2 i've answered & it's OK, for 3 others, i've answered and it should be OK soon...)
05:44 paul (lot of job on Koha :-) )
05:45 paul one of them (CMI)
05:45 paul funds an interface for a new nice feature...
05:45 rach great
05:45 paul Koha will work with a 3M self-borrowing bot
05:45 rach cool
05:45 rach that is excellent
05:46 paul only 1 weakness : their machine is old and SIP compliant, not SIP2
05:46 paul rach, could you take care of making noise on Koha 2.2RC1 ?
05:47 rach Yes - is it out?
05:47 paul yes, of course.
05:47 rach ah then I am just dim
05:47 paul didn't you see the announces on koha & koha-dev ?
05:48 rach ahh at 3am
05:48 paul http://sourceforge.net/project[…]release_id=283087
05:48 paul yes
05:48 paul (3PM for me :-D )
05:48 rach :-)
05:48 rach I'll put out something tommorrow
05:51 rach Paul someone who upgraded from 1.2.3 (against our advice I might add), has got into a world of hurt
05:51 paul he upgraded to 2.2RC1 ?
05:51 rach do you think it's better to go forward to 2.2 and try and not try and get 2.0 going
05:51 rach No they went to 2.0
05:52 rach and I specifically told her not to
05:52 paul ok. They MUST get a 2.0 working then upgrade to 2.2
05:52 paul the 1.2 => 2.2 upgrade does NOT work (it's in capitals in release notes)
05:52 rach so she has mapping problems with their marc etc - so that should get sorted out before an upgrade?
05:55 rach rather than try and work out whats gone wrong with their DIY attempts
05:55 paul I think it's exactly the same
05:55 rach ah ok
05:56 paul the biggest pain with 1.2 => 2.0 upgrade is MARC mapping & rebuilding
05:56 rach yep and that's what's gone wrong I believe
05:56 rach chris managed it for UNIDO tho - although maybe that was marc already, I forget
05:59 rach ah well - time for me to go for a shower and bed I think
05:59 paul ok, have sweet dreams.
07:01 Genji hiya paul
07:01 Genji you still awake?
07:01 paul yes, it's 11AM for me :-D Not a time to go to bed !
07:01 Genji of course, England huh?
07:01 paul france
07:03 Genji cool. Okay, I have dates all in excel's serial number based format.. i can convert them to anything easy enough using a Date::Manip statement.. but my question is, what format does koha want me to put the lastseen date in, in newitems()?
07:03 paul mmm... dates are always a pain...
07:04 paul if i'm right : YYYY-MM-DD should work fine
07:04 Genji aye. looked in the mysql.. the field type is DATE
07:05 Genji Hmm.. i could do a test..... update lastseen value 2004-11-09 where biblionumber=1
07:05 Genji right?
07:05 paul yep (with quotes)
07:05 Genji with quotes?
07:12 Genji eh crap. koha.update doesn't work on win32 machines.. because POSIX::termios is not implemented for win32.
07:37 Genji hmm.. koha.upgrade doesn't work on win32 soo .. im doing a straight copy, and run the updatedatabase script.
07:37 paul should work
07:47 Genji -blinks- 2.1.3 saw heaps of things changed in the database... 2.2.0rc1 .... very little changed, according to updatedatabase
07:48 paul nothing iirc. that's why I think 2.2RC1 is stable enough
07:48 Genji i went back to my backup of 2.0.0pre2 data.. and updatedatabased it.
07:48 Genji so how come alot of database changes were done in 2.1.3?
07:48 paul ??
07:50 Genji and is it completely certain that all the code from 2.1.x that relates to those other fields were removed? i mean.. i had a whole screen of changes on the 2.1.x update.. 2.0.0pre2 to 2.2.0... only 8 lines of changes.
07:51 paul mmm... really strange, you're right
07:51 paul do you have subscriptions tables ?
07:51 paul (subscription and subscriptionhistory)
07:52 Genji ya. i do.
07:52 Genji wierd.
07:53 paul so, your DB was not a 2.0.0 one !
07:53 Genji hmmm.. then what was it?
07:53 Genji 1.9.2/
07:53 Genji ?
07:53 paul subscription table appeared in 2.1.0 or 2.1.1 NOT before
07:53 paul 1000% sure !
07:54 Genji well.. i just did the update script... it may of added it without showing up.
07:54 paul it should have,
07:54 Genji got a bug report in my mail from koha list.
07:55 Genji of course the net is being crap so it may take a minute to get it.
07:56 Genji that or its a big report..
07:57 Genji what i can do, is erase my koha db.. put my suspected 2.0.0 one in there, and check for those tables.
07:57 paul that's a possibility
07:57 Genji eh? leaving?
07:57 paul yep
07:58 Genji drat. should be more people up at this time to support those coding.
07:58 Genji mail is in... one moment.
07:59 Genji Global symbol "$context" requires explicit package name at /usr/local/koha/intranet/script​s/z3950daemon/processz3950queue line 110.
07:59 Genji simple bug... wonder why it escaped.
08:01 Genji there should be a version field somewhere in koha, in a "About this installation" table.. with the database version number.
08:01 Genji bye paul.
08:01 paul_away good idea, not easy to do
08:02 Genji deleted my koha database, restored previous version backup....
08:03 Genji subscription table doesn't exist...
08:04 Genji ahh.. second time lucky, all the updates are running.
08:05 Genji and done.
08:06 Genji eh.. in IE.. the templating needs alot of work.
08:08 Genji And the new main page using javascript, doesnt work in opera.
08:49 paul back Genji
08:51 paul Koha librarian interface DON'T work on IE.
08:52 paul and won't probably never work (at least, I won't do anything to make it work : there is no good reason for librarian to use IE)
08:52 paul (of course, if someone modify Koha to have a librarian interface working under Mozilla AND IE, i'll accept it ;-) )
08:53 paul (note also that OPAC must work on any browser. IE compliance is important here. But it should work I think)

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