IRC log for #koha, 2008-03-20

All times shown according to UTC.

Time S Nick Message
11:27 kados frederic: I only have one from you, and it appears out of order
11:27 kados frederic: can you re-send?
11:29 kados frederic: I have: Fixes updatedatabase.pl in order to add GoogleContent syspref properly
11:29 kados frederic: and that is all
11:53 nengard has noOPACUserLogin been replaced by opacuserlogin - when i change the value for the first one nothing happens - but the second actually removed the login functions ...
12:00 kados nengard: sounds like it
12:01 nengard okay - bug report on it's way :)
12:01 kados nengard: do you have some kind of doc where you're keeping track of all the sysprefs that are deprecated and missnamed?
12:01 nengard bug reports
12:01 nengard that's it
12:01 kados nengard: k
12:01 kados fbcit-away: mornin
12:02 nengard kados do you want another list?
12:14 kados nengard: it might be useful to have the sysprefs that need help all in one place
12:14 nengard kados: i'll compile a list with bug numbers
12:15 kados nengard++
12:19 nengard kados google doc created and shared
12:28 kados hey owen
12:29 kados owen: did you make some changes to the Z-search yesterday?
12:29 owen mornin'
12:29 kados cuz I can't seem to insert any of the results into the addbiblio form since this morning
12:30 kados not sure whether I should blame you or ryan ;-)
12:30 owen I did make changes to the search pop-up template
12:32 owen So when you click the import link it doesn't populate the addbiblio form?
12:33 owen It works for me, but I haven't fetched and rebased since yesterday afternoon
12:34 kados its when I do a search, and get results, I can't push a result back to therecord editor
12:37 kados owen: I don't think 'opaclanguagesdisplay' is being used to turn on/off the language switcher
12:37 owen you're talking about the z39.50 popup window, right?
12:38 kados I was, then I switched to opaclanguagesdisplay in the OPAC :-)
12:38 kados sorry
12:38 owen Don't worry, I understand you
12:39 kados hehe
12:40 owen The z39.50 search is working for me, after a fresh rebase. I enter a title in the addbiblio form, I click the z39.50 search button, I search for that title, I get results, I click 'import', the addbiblio form is refreshed with the right bib data
12:41 kados ther we go
12:41 kados weird, musta been a fluke
12:42 kados rch++ for adding the MARC and Card view
12:44 owen Yeah, that's nice
12:50 nengard for SubscriptionHistory what is the difference between simplified and full?
12:53 kados it's a display difference IIRC
12:53 kados hdl or rch might know the details
12:53 owen kados, I'm not seeing the opac language menu either way... I copied my en directory as fr
12:54 owen Is there something else I need to do?
12:54 kados owen: yea, you have to enable fr in the opaclanguage syspref
12:54 owen Cool, I hadn't seen that yet
12:54 kados it's new, and necessary when you have 30+ languages installed :-)
12:55 owen Weird. Still no language menu, and now my news has disappeared.
12:56 owen Okay, there it is. Still no news, though
12:57 kados weird
13:02 owen The opaclanguagesdisplay variable is coming through as 0 whether or not I have it set to On in system preferences
13:03 owen Auth.pm has it: opaclanguagesdisplay   => "". C4::Context->preference("opaclanguagesdisplay"),
13:03 kados as I suspected
13:04 kados I wonder if it's in the template
13:05 owen I'm messing with the template now. When I output <!-- TMPL_VAR NAME="opaclanguagesdisplay" --> it shows up as 0 either way
13:22 hdl hi
13:23 ccatalfo hi hdl
13:23 gmcharlt hi hdl
13:24 hdl for z3950 search results : some remarks:
13:24 hdl no scrollbars.  not quite good.
13:25 hdl nengard: difference should be that OPAC user should see detailed results first or not.
13:26 hdl (I showed you an OPAC view of a serial. some time ago.)
13:27 nengard hdl: thanks! I thought that might be this same thing, but wanted to be sure
13:30 owen hdl, do you have the latest revision? I made a correction for the scrollbars problem yesterday
13:34 nengard autoMemberNum says that the patron numer is auto-calculated - is this the borrownumber or the barcode?
13:36 owen borrowernumber is always auto-calculated, so it must be barcode
13:36 owen ...but I'm not sure how it works
13:36 owen Sorry, maybe not
13:36 kados nengard: that refers to the patron barcode
13:37 nengard kados thanks
13:38 owen I suppose having that on run the risk of creating collisions if two people are adding patrons at the same time?
13:38 kados owen: yep, it sure does
13:41 owen kados, do you have any ideas, or should I file a bug for the opaclanguagesdisplay issue
13:42 kados owen: I'll take a look real quick
13:42 kados got one idea
13:45 kados I added <!-- TMPL_IF NAME="opaclanguagesdisplay" --> to the footer and it seems to have worked
13:45 kados I'll push up that patch
13:45 owen That didn't work when I tried it
13:46 owen If you output <!-- TMPL_VAR NAME="opaclanguagesdisplay" --> in the template does it display the correct value?
13:48 owen Wait, am I only seeing this problem on opac-main?
13:48 kados owen: yea, it outputs correctly
13:48 frederic kados: I just send you a patch for GoogleBook cover. Hope it works. I will try to send you the facets patch, but since it's old now, I'm afraid it won't apply.
13:49 kados frederic: I emailed you now 4times about the facets patch, did you get those emails?
13:49 kados frederic: thanks, I'll investigate the GoogleBook cover patch
13:50 frederic kados: now? Does it mean today? I received your previous emal (March 4th). And since I sent a new patch which seems to have disappear.
13:51 kados frederic: I will look at the new patch
13:52 frederic kados: thanks
13:53 owen nengard: on my system, the AnonSuggestions system pref is coming up as type YesNo. Is it on yours?
13:54 nengard owen: no - on mine it's a text field with a 0 in it
13:54 nengard want me to attach an image to my bug - did I have a bug for this - I can't keep track :) hehe
13:54 owen Hm. My database is quirky.
14:04 nengard owen: your database sounds like it's right - it makes sense that it should be a Yes/No option
14:04 nengard owen: oh wait - we're supposed to put a borrownumber in there - nevermnd - it needs to be a textbox
14:05 owen I can't get it to work either way.
14:07 atz Yeah, it can't be yes/no.   It's supposed to designate the fake "anonymous" user that you have set up as the stand in.
14:11 owen <!-- TMPL_VAR NAME="AnonSuggestions" --> outputs 1, but <!-- TMPL_IF NAME="AnonSuggestions  " --> evaluates as false?!
14:14 atz check for typos?  something like TPML or no "!" ?
14:17 owen typo. The space after AnonSuggestions!
14:17 atz tricky!
14:19 nengard next preference question: checkdigit - says If ON, enable checks on patron cardnumber: none or "Katipo" style checks - what is a Katipo style check?
14:20 atz might have to ask Katipo.   I imagine it is the conventional mod13 or something similar.
14:20 hdl katipo was the previous Chris Cormack employer.
14:20 atz they implemented the original Koha
14:25 nengard atz & hdl: that I know - but what is the style :) ... how do I explain it in the manual?
14:25 atz "If you're not in NZ, leave this off"
14:25 atz not literally... but basically it's a "you'll know if you need to use this" feature
14:27 nengard atz: hehe
14:27 nengard okay
14:30 owen Shouldn't that be generalized somehow? Let the librarian create their own checkdigit?
14:31 atz no way
14:31 nengard what digit is it checking?
14:31 atz it has to be on every barcode
14:31 atz and it has to be the same methodology
14:32 atz i.e., a mod10 checkdigit is invalid to a mod13 check
14:32 nengard k
14:32 atz it's basically an extra number on the end of the barcode to ensure internal consistency
14:32 atz but if you use it, there's no halfway
14:33 atz everything has to comply, or it isn't a valid barcode in the system
14:33 owen Right, but could there be a way for different libraries to determine what is valid? Right now it's either "none" or Katipo-only
14:33 atz this was a bigger deal when scanner tech was crappy
14:34 atz owen: yeah, we could implement some other algorithms
14:34 atz or specify the Katipo algorithm by name, at lest
14:34 atz *least
14:35 atz most of them have perl modules to support them
14:39 nengard uh oh - sorry to start this discussion :) hehe - for now I put what atz recommended in the manual
14:50 fbcit atz, owen: I'll put that checkdigit syspref on my list to look at since I've been wading through Labels.pm a lot lately
14:54 owen Thanks fbcit, I don't know that it's a priority for anyone, though
14:55 owen Man, did we just lose koha.org again?
14:56 atz ?
14:56 hdl kados ?
14:56 hdl or someone who worked on install
14:57 fbcit hdl: its been a while, but fire away
14:57 atz owen: looks OK from here... i think the primary DNS may have had to time out though, since it waited about 8 secs.
14:57 owen yeah, finally came up for me
14:57 hdl OK. I tried to make an install  from scratch today.
14:58 hdl It appears that koha-zebra* scripts, when choosing dev install option are not adapted to use environment variables.
14:58 atz hdl: that's correct
14:58 hdl Is it a bug only for my install ?
14:58 atz I filed a bug on that
14:58 hdl OK bug.
14:59 hdl What I thought also was : what if i wanted to have multiple instances of koha on one box.
14:59 fbcit that'll be a gmcharlt issue
15:00 gmcharlt hdl, atz, fbcit: hope to get to that one this week
15:00 hdl Wouldnot it be nicer if we had DB1-conf.xml
15:00 fbcit hdl: just select differing install dirs and munge up the koha-httpd.conf accordingly for each install
15:00 hdl rather than having always the same name.
15:00 atz hdl: you can use whatever you want
15:00 atz with the KOHA_CONF env var.
15:01 hdl But all the zebra conf file will be the same unless I misunderstand.
15:02 hdl well... my problem is very a-typical.
15:03 gmcharlt hdl: the file pointed to by $KOHA_CONF *is* the main Zebra config file - it refers to the other ones in the <config> elements
15:03 atz gmcharlt: I think he is asking about the name of that file as it is generated
15:03 gmcharlt setting up for multiple instances on the same server is just a matter of choosing a directory directory prefix for each one
15:05 hdl gmcharlt: not that much if I wanted to run one deamon with all the zebraservers
15:05 hdl (as I can run one apache for multiple virtual hosts)
15:05 gmcharlt well, you can change the name, but all of the config files are under KOHA_CONF_DIR and ZEBRA_CONF_DIR (to use the installer's terminology), and those directories should be separate for each DB, unless you are very careful about the config
15:05 hdl I wanted to do one directory with all the *.xml files
15:06 atz hdl: make symlinks ?
15:06 hdl then koha-zebra-deamon would read all of them.
15:07 hdl atz:  why not.
15:07 hdl But I thought I could find a handier way to do it.
15:08 gmcharlt well, since Zebra and Koha config settings are in the same file, you still need one for each database
15:08 gmcharlt you can also create a separate Zebra config file that does the Z39.50 service for all of your databases
15:08 gmcharlt and run zebraserv from that one
15:09 gmcharlt instead of the individual Koha/Zebra conf files
15:17 qiqo ohh it's back!
15:17 qiqo what happened?
15:28 owen ryan or kados, do you know the origin of OPACUserCSS? Was that meant to be a link? An embedded <style> block?
15:34 sylvain hi all
15:35 sylvain I was wondering if there was a way to merge two biblios ?
15:36 sylvain (on 2.2.9)
15:37 nengard for this preference: patrons can be linked to institutions does this mean you can have institutional members and then link individuals to it - or something else?
15:37 nengard forgot to paste the preference: memberofinstitution
15:41 ryan owen: yes, an embedded <style> block
15:42 owen Okay, ryan, can do
15:43 ryan owen: I noted that opaccolorstylesheet is applied before opac.css
15:43 nengard let's try wording that question the right way:
15:43 nengard for this preference: memberofinstitution it says "patrons can be linked to institutions" - does this mean you can have institutional members and then link individuals to it - or something else?  If something else - what does it mean?
15:43 ryan I assume this is not intentional ?
15:44 owen ryan, I think opaccolorstylesheet is going away, unless anyone can convince me otherwise
15:44 ryan ah, how to apply local css then ?
15:45 hdl sylvain: not on 2.2.9
15:45 owen ryan: I'm just not convinced that it's really worthwhile to split the CSS between a layout stylesheet and a color stylesheet.
15:46 sylvain hdl: ok, it's what I was thinking. And on 3 is this possible ? I can't find it on the alpha ...
15:46 hdl not at the moment. Maybe in 3.4
15:46 ryan owen: i'm ok with that -- but if I want to drop a css file in includes/css , and have it applied after opac.css, what do I do ?
15:47 sylvain ok thanks for the info !
15:48 owen ryan, is that assuming you don't want to edit opac.css?
15:49 ryan owen: yes, I want to keep opac.css unchanged and just apply some styles over top of it
15:50 ryan then I can have a couple different colors.css and I don't have to merge them all with opac.css when changes are made
15:50 owen So you'd like to have two custom stylesheet options: one for specifying an include file (for those who have access to their server) and one for specifying an embedded CSS block (for those who don't)
15:51 ryan owen: ideally, yes
15:52 owen Okay, so I'll add OPACUserCSS, and I'll file a bug to rename (or at least re-explain) opaccolorstylesheet so that it can do that job
15:52 ryan owen: cool, thx
15:57 nengard preference: patronimages - this preference wants me to enter a file extension for images of patrons - I have mine set to 0 and yet it still let me upload images - what does this do?  And can I use more than one extension?
15:57 owen I'm not sure that's up to date... fbcit?
15:58 fbcit nengard: your install sounds like its out of sync
15:58 fbcit this is currently a YES/NO pref
15:59 nengard fbcit: ahhh - thanks for letting me know - kados can you check this??
15:59 qiqo hi guys, are we close to beta?
16:00 fbcit qiqo: only one letter away... ;-)
16:00 owen Yeah, mine is a YES/NO too, but a bug should be filed to get the explanation changed
16:00 fbcit the explanation should be correct as well, is it not?
16:01 owen fbcit: Mine says "Enable patron images for the Staff Client; to enable, specify a file extension (e.g., png)"
16:01 fbcit current sql file says: INSERT INTO `systempreferences` (variable,value,explanation,options,type) VALUES('patronimages',0,'Enable patron images for the Staff Client',NULL,'YesNo');
16:02 fbcit http://git.koha.org/cgi-bin/gi[…]be2e265c676b883b5
16:03 fbcit it appears I missed it there which explains why it is missing on existing installs
16:03 fbcit I'll get a patch off to fix that immediately
16:05 fbcit hmmm
16:05 fbcit I assume all sysprefs are in EN in the database and are translated on display?
16:07 owen No translations yet. There's talk of changing the way sysprefs work to improve that situation.
16:12 fbcit kados: I sent that patch to rm@koha.org if you could push it when you get a chance.
16:12 kados fbcit: will do
16:12 fbcit owen, nengard: that should fix the problem
16:13 fbcit nengard++ on debugging :)
16:13 nengard thanks fbcit
16:16 kados fbcit: pushed
16:16 kados nengard: your install is also updated
16:16 fbcit tnx kados
16:16 nengard kados:thanks that was quick - i did a bug report for the problem we were talking about - just so you know - guess it can be closed - it was 1956
16:16 nengard what about this prob?
16:16 nengard for this preference: memberofinstitution it says "patrons can be linked to institutions" - does this mean you can have institutional members and then link individuals to it - or something else?  If something else - what does it mean?
16:17 kados nengard: yea, fee free to close that bug out now
18:15 nengard owen do you know XSLT
18:16 owen I haven't had the pleasure.
18:17 owen Why?
18:33 hdl_laptop but i couldnot find time to see.
18:33 hdl_laptop read
18:34 owen That's usually what happens when I buy a tech book
18:35 fbcit that way it could be conditioned for display based on the context the user is in
18:35 fbcit this would allow for maximum re-usability of scripts and templates
18:36 gmcharlt fbcit: C4::Context could check the HTTP referrer and store it for client code, possibly doing some smart parsing of it to establish the context
18:38 fbcit currently I have been passing around a CGI param 'src' to do this, but that seems to be hack at best
18:39 fbcit gmcharlt: I like that idea. I'll take a look
18:40 gmcharlt one warning: please check the HTTP_REFER (or whatever the env var is) directly, rather than instantiating a new CGI object in C4::Context - there's some code that relies on the scripts (as opposed to C4 modules) being in control of when CGI.pm slurps up the POSTDATA
18:46 fbcit yea, I seem to remember some trouble when instantiating a new CGI object in the wrong place :)
18:59 fbcit gmcharlt: HTTP_REFERER does the trick with the possible catch being it is client controlled and could be modified not to reflect the actual referring uri
18:59 gmcharlt fbcit: yep; I doubt many library user agents turn it off, but yeah, code will have to be able to deal with cases where no referer is sent back
19:00 owen As long as you're not using it for anything security-related
19:01 gmcharlt owen++ # exactly
19:01 fbcit I suppose that handing the referrer around via perl is the most reliable method
19:04 fbcit what I am trying to achieve is similar to what I have done with the 'modification log' tab on the moremember.pl page
19:05 fbcit viewlog.pl remains displayed in that 'context' (moremember.pl) each time it is called from that context
19:06 fbcit calling it directly displays it a bit differently
19:07 fbcit a unidentified referrer will result in an 'out of context' display
19:08 fbcit maybe I'm doing it the hard way :-\
19:10 atz what are you trying to get out of REFERER?
19:11 fbcit basically the referring script name
19:11 atz what about $0?
19:12 atz is it just for logging or some kind of actual trigger?
19:12 fbcit I hadn't even thought of it
19:12 fbcit its a trigger
19:13 atz yeah, avoid using the headers, since they are notoriously unreliable
19:14 atz the ENV vars that apache sets are fine, as long as they don't derive from client headers
19:16 fbcit atz: for example if the referrer to viewlog.pl is 'circ' (aka moremember.pl) then viewlog.pl populates and displays circ-menu.inc
19:17 atz can't  you just modify the links to it to say  ?origin=X  or ?origin=y
19:19 atz that would probably be the easiest
19:19 fbcit currently I do ?src='foo'
19:19 atz w/ the quotes?
19:19 fbcit no
19:20 atz ok
19:20 fbcit it seems a bit of a hack, but may turn out to be the best way
19:20 atz does that fall short anywhere?
19:20 fbcit no, it works fine actually :)
19:21 atz cool
19:22 fbcit tnx for the input atz, gmcharlt, owen
20:06 atz owen: so I have a form problem w/ tagging on list
20:07 atz basically, i want to put a form w/ each item, and it conflicts with the checkbox form down the right side
20:07 atz er, left side
20:08 owen Are you talking about the form layout?
20:09 atz yeah, my little forms can't live inside the bigger form (validation wise)
20:09 atz but they don't make sense anywhere else in the layout
20:10 owen Do you have an example I can see?
20:11 atz http://atz.dev.kohalibrary.com[…]sort_by=relevance
20:11 atz I can do stuff w/ js scripts after the fact, but don't know how to make it valid for basic HTML
20:13 owen Hmmmm.... I see what you mean
20:13 owen I see a couple of options, off the top of my head
20:14 owen First: name the submit button (biblionumber+some name?) and put some form processing in opac-search to check for that form value
20:14 owen If that form field is present, process the tag info
20:15 atz owen: name already done
20:15 atz yeah, I guess that would be it
20:15 atz move the logic I have in the tags page
20:16 atz I've already been bulking up opac-search.pl though
20:16 atz don't really like it  :\
20:16 owen Yeah, I understand your hesitation there
20:16 owen I think the only other choice is to give up on the inline form field for non-js users, and control the submit action with js otherwise
20:17 atz yeah, i think you're right
20:17 hdl_laptop gmcharlt: have you received my patch for cleanborrowers ?
20:26 gmcharlt hdl_laptop: one moment please
20:29 gmcharlt hdl_laptop: is it the 'CleanBorrowers fixing' patch that you submitted (I think) yesterday?
20:29 gmcharlt if so, it's now been pushed
20:33 hdl_laptop gmcharlt: I have worked on it again.
20:33 hdl_laptop since kados told me but was not solved.
20:34 gmcharlt hdl_laptop: I'll be happy to take a look at your new patch if you wish
20:34 hdl_laptop I realized it was because the person who designed it used a casual way to use CGI.
20:37 hdl_laptop sent. But since it is from my laptop, and it is a new laptop... maybe there could be some configuration problem.
20:39 gmcharlt got it
20:53 gmcharlt hdl_laptop: I think your patch is fine as far as it goes, but a couple things need to be added
20:53 hdl_laptop can you detail ?
20:54 gmcharlt GetBorrowersWhoHaveNotBorrowedSince needs to not include patrons that have current issues but no old_issues
20:54 gmcharlt this can be done by adding a join on issues and modifying the group by and having slightly
20:54 gmcharlt I can send you a patch for that in a moment
20:54 hdl_laptop you're right.
20:55 gmcharlt same thing for GetBorrowersWhoHaveNeverBorrowed
20:56 gmcharlt I'll send you a patch for these in a few minutes, then you can test, and if you like them, send both yours and mine onward
20:57 hdl_laptop gmcharlt: I think that Locale::PO, Unix::Syslog and CGI::Session and YAML::Syck should be added to requirements.
20:59 gmcharlt I agree
21:00 hdl_laptop which file contains dependancies ?
21:02 gmcharlt Makefile.PL (which has a couple of those modules already listed)
21:03 r0ver hello. I'd like to ask if there's any news about the plone contest
21:03 gmcharlt also about.pl and installer/install.pl
21:06 chris would it make sense to have a file called dependencies .. or something, that those 3 scripts (and whatever else) could use?
21:07 gmcharlt chris: yeah, having one place for those would be good
21:08 gmcharlt hdl: just emailed you my follow-up cleanborrowers patch
21:08 hdl_laptop Sure... But I think that Makefile.PL should be  authoritative
21:10 hdl_laptop Since it is the most important one.
21:15 gmcharlt chris, hdl_laptop: how about this - make a new C4 modules for dependencies that does nothing more than providing a non-exported function to return a list of modules and min versions
21:15 gmcharlt about.pl and installer.pl can both use the module
21:15 chris that'd work
21:15 gmcharlt and so can Makefile.PL, since C4/Dependencies.pm (or whatever) is always going to be in a known place relative to Makefile.PL
21:16 chris yep
21:16 hdl_laptop Good.
21:18 gmcharlt hdl_laptop: good night
21:19 gmcharlt r0ver: kados will folow up about the state of the plone contest
21:40 r0ver ok, i'll wait for kados then. Thanks
21:42 JimmyTheGeek hello, all
21:42 JimmyTheGeek Doing some research here & wondering about usefulness on bookmobile in real time
21:44 gmcharlt JimmyTheGeek - if the bookmobile has internet access, no problem; there's an offline circ module that in the works that should deal with circ if the truck doesn't have net access
21:47 JimmyTheGeek BM has a laptop with wireless broadband. Our current solution can't handle the latency for real-time transactions. That's what we're really after.
21:48 gmcharlt assuming that the latency is on the order of seconds, not minutes and minutes, Koha should be able to deal with that for regular circ ops
21:48 JimmyTheGeek Current solution requires <300ms latency, best we can do in-house is ~230ms, so it's iffy at best here.
21:49 JimmyTheGeek Out in the 'wild' latency was as much as 5.5 seconds, but I was still able to browse web sites and such
21:49 JimmyTheGeek better than the dial-up I have at the house!
21:49 gmcharlt what's your peak volume of circ transactions per hour?
21:51 JimmyTheGeek On the bookmobile, probably no more than 75 at any given time. In house, we've done over 230 a few times
21:52 gmcharlt Koha should be fine with that
21:56 JimmyTheGeek Thanks for the answers to my questions, gmcharlt
21:58 gmcharlt JimmyTheGeek: you're welcome
21:58 JimmyTheGeek The bookmobile thing is going to be the deal-maker for us. Director won't migrate to Vista (thank God!), and I know my way around Linux a bit. So, I'm going to be researching & convincing
22:00 JimmyTheGeek Community support will be important to me as well, and so far I like what I see.
22:02 gmcharlt good luck with your research
22:04 JimmyTheGeek Thanks!

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