| Time |
S |
Nick |
Message |
| 13:19 |
|
mn |
hello |
| 13:19 |
|
dewey |
salut, mn |
| 13:20 |
|
mn |
i'd like to know some things about koha before trying it |
| 14:55 |
|
mn |
especially concerning barcodes |
| 14:57 |
|
mn |
i'd like to have the whole circulation as a self-service-station with a barcodereader |
| 14:57 |
|
kados |
hi mn |
| 14:58 |
|
mn |
hi |
| 14:58 |
|
kados |
mn: LibLime has a separate self-service self checkout module for Koha that's not yet been contributed |
| 14:58 |
|
kados |
and it uses barcodes |
| 14:58 |
|
kados |
so patron scans their barcode, then the barcodes of the items they are checking out |
| 14:59 |
|
kados |
then clicks on 'complete transaction' |
| 14:59 |
|
mn |
exactly what i was thinking about |
| 14:59 |
|
mn |
where is the hook? |
| 14:59 |
|
kados |
it will probably be wrapped into a future version of the public release |
| 14:59 |
|
kados |
but we haven't had enough sponsorship for it to afford that thusfar |
| 15:00 |
|
kados |
it was developed for one client on a strict budget |
| 15:01 |
|
mn |
well i'm not someone to sponsor something. I'm on a strict (read no) budget myself. I do a ~5000 books private lib for around 150 patrons |
| 15:01 |
|
kados |
public library? |
| 15:02 |
|
mn |
no not public |
| 15:03 |
|
mn |
i was inspired by our city library though but they use something comercial |
| 15:03 |
|
kados |
right |
| 15:03 |
|
mn |
it will run on a celeron with 98mb ram |
| 15:04 |
|
kados |
you can run koha on a PDA :-) (I've done it :-)) |
| 15:04 |
|
mn |
really? sounds cool |
| 15:04 |
|
kados |
yea, was a bit of fun I had a few years back :-) |
| 15:05 |
|
kados |
anyway ... |
| 15:05 |
|
kados |
here are some demos: |
| 15:05 |
|
kados |
http://liblime.com/demos |
| 15:05 |
|
kados |
of Koha, if you want to experiment |
| 15:06 |
|
kados |
there are plenty of free support options, including this IRC channel and the mailing list |
| 15:06 |
|
kados |
and there are companies that offer inexpensive support as well |
| 15:06 |
|
kados |
http://koha.org/support/ |
| 15:07 |
|
mn |
great, thank you. How long do you think will it take me to set it up and enter the books? |
| 15:07 |
|
kados |
hard to say |
| 15:08 |
|
kados |
are you going to run on linux? debian? |
| 15:08 |
|
kados |
install and maintain yourself? |
| 15:08 |
|
kados |
do you have basic command-line skils? |
| 15:08 |
|
kados |
understand apache, mysql, etc.? |
| 15:09 |
|
kados |
if so, it should only take a day or two at the most |
| 15:09 |
|
kados |
but if you're also learning all of that stuff, it could take a while |
| 15:09 |
|
mn |
presumably ubuntu. cli proficient. mysql too. but it is always a pain for me to maintain apache |
| 15:10 |
|
kados |
if you want a system up and running immediately, some of the companies offering hosted packages can get your system installed in a few hours |
| 15:10 |
|
kados |
probably not on a sunday though :-) |
| 15:11 |
|
mn |
why could that be? |
| 15:11 |
|
mn |
how do i checkout something without barcodes. Isn't this going to be error-prone? |
| 15:12 |
|
kados |
you need barcodes to check something out |
| 15:12 |
|
kados |
or at least some identifier in place of a barcode |
| 15:12 |
|
kados |
that's unique |
| 15:14 |
|
mn |
so barcodes for the books but not for the users. And your system is for users? |
| 15:19 |
|
kados |
the koha you download from koha.org has two interfaces: |
| 15:20 |
|
kados |
1. public interface for searching, placing reserves, checking account information |
| 15:20 |
|
kados |
2. a staff interface for managing patrons, checking out items, adding books to the collection, etc. |
| 15:20 |
|
kados |
liblime has a separate interface that allows: |
| 15:20 |
|
kados |
3. patrons to use a unique identifier (usually barcode) to check out books to themselves (using another uniquie identifer for the book) |
| 15:21 |
|
kados |
#3 is not in standard koha, it's only available on LibLime's hosted platform |
| 15:21 |
|
kados |
we may eventually contribute it if we find sponsorship for the project |
| 15:23 |
|
mn |
i see ... |
| 15:25 |
|
mn |
and koha can print barcodes for the books? |
| 15:25 |
|
kados |
yep |
| 15:26 |
|
mn |
but not for the patrons? |
| 15:26 |
|
kados |
a previous version could print for both, but that feature isn't currently maintained |
| 15:26 |
|
kados |
printing barcodes is pretty easy |
| 15:26 |
|
kados |
there are plenty of websites that let you do that for free |
| 15:27 |
|
kados |
or you can just buy some pre-printed ones pretty cheaply too |
| 15:27 |
|
mn |
i didn't know that... And will i find compatible barcodereaders in europe? |
| 15:28 |
|
kados |
yep |
| 15:29 |
|
kados |
barcode standards are international |
| 15:29 |
|
mn |
yeah i mean in terms of devicedrivers |
| 15:30 |
|
kados |
? |
| 15:30 |
|
kados |
not sure I understand your question |
| 15:32 |
|
mn |
well i asume that the barcodereader connets via usb. And then? There has to be some part which brings this into the perl-application that is koha |
| 15:32 |
|
kados |
koha is web based |
| 15:32 |
|
kados |
and a barcode reader is just a keyboard to the computer |
| 15:33 |
|
mn |
So you have to place the cursor in the right field? |
| 15:33 |
|
kados |
there is auto-focus built in |
| 15:34 |
|
mn |
so i can use any barcodereader? Even one with RS232? |
| 15:34 |
|
kados |
yep |
| 15:34 |
|
mn |
cool |
| 15:39 |
|
mn |
if your self-checkout module only works with an online-server it is unusable to me anyway |
| 15:40 |
|
kados |
well, all of Koha is web based |
| 15:41 |
|
mn |
yes but i can install mysql+httpd+perl+firefox on the same machine, right? |
| 15:42 |
|
kados |
yep, if you want to |
| 15:43 |
|
mn |
well for our needs everthing else would be overkill. Althogh backup and the like are going to be a problem |
| 15:51 |
|
mn |
well thanks a lot for answering my nasty questions! It should be quite late now in nz! Thanks a lot and a nice week! |
| 15:52 |
|
kados |
no prob |
| 15:52 |
|
kados |
and btw, I'm based on our US office |
| 15:52 |
|
kados |
ohio in fact :-) |
| 15:53 |
|
mn |
so its more like noon there |
| 15:55 |
|
kados |
15:00 in fact |
| 15:55 |
|
kados |
and it's early morning in NZ |
| 05:17 |
|
toins |
hello world |
| 05:22 |
|
chris |
hi toins |
| 05:23 |
|
toins |
hello chris |
| 05:23 |
|
chris |
how are things? |
| 05:27 |
|
toins |
chris, good ! |
| 09:07 |
|
kados |
morning #koha |
| 09:09 |
|
hdl |
hi kados |
| 10:45 |
|
kados |
morning owen |
| 10:45 |
|
owen |
Hi kados |
| 10:46 |
|
kados |
so I spent a few hours over the weekend on YUI |
| 10:46 |
|
kados |
it's actually pretty simple to use |
| 10:47 |
|
kados |
I think the hardest thing about the design for 3.0 is gonna be the design part |
| 10:47 |
|
kados |
implementation shouldn't be too hard |
| 10:48 |
|
owen |
Tell me about what you tried with YUI |
| 10:48 |
|
kados |
I played with the following components: |
| 10:48 |
|
kados |
Button |
| 10:48 |
|
kados |
DataTable |
| 10:48 |
|
kados |
Menu |
| 10:48 |
|
kados |
TabView |
| 10:48 |
|
kados |
and ... |
| 10:49 |
|
kados |
there's a general layout one |
| 10:49 |
|
kados |
can't remember what it's called :-) |
| 10:50 |
|
kados |
Grids |
| 10:52 |
|
kados |
actually, of them, I think Grids is probably the one we want to start with |
| 10:52 |
|
kados |
it's so simple to use and works so well |
| 10:52 |
|
owen |
yeah, we talked briefly about that one on Saturday |
| 10:53 |
|
kados |
as I played around it struck me that we're really not that organized about what types of data elements we have |
| 10:53 |
|
kados |
in the intranet |
| 10:53 |
|
owen |
What do you mean? |
| 10:53 |
|
kados |
(probably in the opac too, but I was looking at the intranet) |
| 10:53 |
|
kados |
well for instance, there are global navigation elements |
| 10:54 |
|
kados |
in NPL templates that aren't in default or katipo |
| 10:54 |
|
kados |
and vice versa |
| 10:54 |
|
kados |
and each module presumably has its own set of navigation elements |
| 10:54 |
|
kados |
I was also mentally experimenting with the idea of 'action' vs 'view' |
| 10:55 |
|
owen |
that sounds interesting |
| 10:55 |
|
kados |
so 'change password' or 'delete' is an action |
| 10:55 |
|
kados |
whereas 'Fines' and 'Reserves' are views |
| 10:56 |
|
owen |
Much like we did in the OPAC |
| 10:58 |
|
kados |
yea |
| 10:58 |
|
kados |
something else that's cool about YUI is you can have different behaviors for different elements of the same class |
| 10:58 |
|
kados |
so take tabs for instance |
| 10:58 |
|
kados |
you might have 4 tabs on a detail page |
| 10:58 |
|
kados |
three of them have pre-loaded content |
| 10:58 |
|
kados |
one of them is a link to another page |
| 10:59 |
|
kados |
with YUI, you can make them all behave and look like one set (of course the new page would have to be set up to look the same, etc.) |
