- Koha - lists.katipo.co.nz

Trouble with .koc-files and check-ins
by Magnus Enger 08 Jul '10

08 Jul '10

Hi all! I'm having some trouble after a client has registered a number of check ins in the offline client (http://millruntech.com/koha/koha-tools/koha-offline-circulation) The file looks A-1 OK, but when I upload and process it I get this for every item, regardless of whether it is on loan or not: Warning: Unable to determine patron from item barcode (71560695). Cannot check in. I have tried looking at the code, but have not been able to find any obvious errors. I have also tried to copy the relevant bits of code into a script that I run from the command line, and this seems to work. The script (offline_circ/process_koc.pl http://git.koha-community.org/gitweb/?p=koha.git;a=blob;f=offline_circ/proc…) does some tricks with forking processes and running stuff in the background that is above my level of incompetence, but since this is on a server with several dev-installs I was wondering if the background stuff might be losing sight of what installation it is working on, and not working against the correct MySQL database. Just a hunch though. Has anyone else had similar experiences or know about a solution? Regards, Magnus Enger libriotech.no

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Clarifying history of PTFS feature releases
by Jane Wagner 08 Jul '10

08 Jul '10

I'd like to clarify a few things and clear up some misconceptions about PTFS's existing code releases (including the Harley features) that have crept into this lengthy discussion. This is not meant to cover our future development and release plans; that's a separate discussion. But comments like the one below trouble me. -----Original Message----- From: koha-bounces(a)lists.katipo.co.nz [mailto:koha-bounces@lists.katipo.co.nz] On Behalf Of Frederic Demians Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 4:09 AM To: Chris Cormack Cc: koha Subject: Re: [Koha] Koha releases - Clarification/correction > Having said that, currently the 2 people rebasing the harley code > (developed and released by ptfs, not inherited by anyone) are the 3.2 > and 3.4 release managers, while dealing with patches and branches that > don't need to be rebased ...... slow going. Does it mean that Galen (3.2 RM) and you Chris (3.4 RM) are working on Harley integration for PTFS for free? Please tell your kids, cats, wifes and mistresses to ask directly to PTFS for food, and keep up the good work. -- Frédéric ----------------- PTFS has always committed to releasing these features. We followed the development rules as they were established at the Koha conference in Plano last March -- I created bugzilla entries for each of our features to let everyone know what was in the works (roughly 70 in the end), updated bugzilla with details and screen shots, and used the bug number for the feature branches. Per the discussion at the Plano conference (since reversed), entering new features on the RFC page was not required. We tried very hard to get the development done before the code freeze for 3.2 (the first of September). Some of our features were released over the summer and are now in head, but we were unable to get the rest done, tested, and approved by the sponsoring customers before the code freeze. At that time and at several subsequent times, various members of the community including the release managers encouraged us to just put our branches out on a git repository and issue a git pull request; others would happy to help integrate them. When we finally had the features ready to go, I said so on the IRC, pointing out that there would be a delay in releasing because the features would have to be rebased to current head; with the LibLime acquisition and accompanying major development projects, our resources were stretched thin at that point. Again, I was encouraged by several people (you know who you are) to just put the branches out and there would be plenty of help integrating them. We were told that people were anxious to get the new features and didn't want to wait until we could allocate the resources to rebasing and updating. We (and others) made it clear at the time that most if not all of these features were too late for 3.2 but would be included for 3.4. We did exactly as we were advised -- we released the Harley features as individual branches (as well as an integrated install package). And we were praised highly for it at the time -- see the listserv archives and IRC logs from two months ago. Since then, I have talked with both Galen and Chris about integrating and I noted areas where there had been parallel development in head. Chris developed a tracking page, and as of last week at ALA, Galen told us he had a plan to proceed with the rebasing and integration. (At least I think that's what I heard in a very noisy exhibit hall.) I am at a loss to understand why everyone is suddenly bashing us for following the rules and the release path we were encouraged to use for these features. Other companies and developers have followed the same procedure (new features released on a public git repository) but that doesn't seem to be a problem, and those features have been updated and integrated. A project with roughly six times the number of patches as ours is currently being worked with resources volunteered by another company. Other development projects have never been entered in bugzilla and come as a surprise when they are submitted. Why is our process in releasing these features a problem? Speaking for myself personally, I am troubled by the repeated attacks on my employer for what does not seem to be any valid reason. This is damaging the reputation of the entity that signs my paycheck and pays my mortgage. It is also potentially damaging to my professional reputation as a project manager and developer associated with this company. Apart from the 70-odd major features in the Harley release, we have contributed patches ever since we began working with Koha, following the rules and our commitment to participation in the Koha project -- I have some 30-40 commits in my own name, let alone those from our other developers. We have also participated actively on the listservs, the IRC, and the various developer meetings. I understand that there are differences of opinion with PTFS on various issues including future releases, but these existing feature releases should not be one of them. In the next few weeks, we will be releasing a very large list of sponsored development items. Our intent with all our development is to release it when it is thoroughly tested and approved by the customers. I would very much like to clarify the desired procedures for announcing, releasing, and integrating large projects such as these. Jane Wagner Library Systems Analyst PTFS Inc. Content Management and Library Solutions 6400 Goldsboro Road, Suite 200 Bethesda, MD 20817 (301) 654-8088 x 151 jwagner(a)ptfs.com

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Re: [Koha] Reports
by Joseph Faneuf 08 Jul '10

08 Jul '10

I was able to create the overdue notices by adding the appropriate << and >> to the sides of the data element names but how can I get the librarian to run the notices? She won't be able to log into the server and run the script. She will need to run it when she requires it. And then how will she access them afterwards? Joseph Faneuf Tech Support Specialist Narragansett Regional School District Baldwinville, MA -----Original Message----- From: Jane Wagner [mailto:jwagner@ptfs.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 10:05 AM To: Joseph Faneuf Subject: RE: [Koha] Reports If the HTML file is generated but with no content, it usually means there wasn't a matching overdue -- the script will generate empty files if it doesn't find any for the day. Doublecheck your checkouts and triggers, and make sure the patron category is set to receive overdue notices (that's bit me a few times). Jane Wagner Library Systems Analyst PTFS Inc. Content Management and Library Solutions 6400 Goldsboro Road, Suite 200 Bethesda, MD 20817 (301) 654-8088 x 151 jwagner(a)ptfs.com -----Original Message----- From: Joseph Faneuf [mailto:joseph@americandreaminc.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 10:00 AM To: 'Jane Wagner' Subject: RE: [Koha] Reports There are no email addresses for any of the users. - Joe -----Original Message----- From: Jane Wagner [mailto:jwagner@ptfs.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 9:43 AM To: Joseph Faneuf; koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz Subject: RE: [Koha] Reports Did the patron for whom the overdue notice was being triggered have an email address in the patron record? The print notice feature will only pick up and redirect notices for which there is no email address. Jane Wagner Library Systems Analyst PTFS Inc. Content Management and Library Solutions 6400 Goldsboro Road, Suite 200 Bethesda, MD 20817 (301) 654-8088 x 151 jwagner(a)ptfs.com -----Original Message----- From: koha-bounces(a)lists.katipo.co.nz [mailto:koha-bounces@lists.katipo.co.nz] On Behalf Of Joseph Faneuf Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 9:16 AM To: koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz Subject: Re: [Koha] Reports I appreciate the quick response. I am a bit confused as to how this works. I have gone in and created a notice using the circulation category and added a few fields from the list. I then went into overdue notice/status triggers and chose "that" notice for all patron categories and put 1 as the Delay. I then logged in as root to the koha server and created the directory /tmp/noticedir and then I ran "sudo /usr/share/koha/bin/cronjobs/overdue_notices.pl -n -html /tmp/noticedir. It created the html file but was just full of field names. Few questions: Can I do this from the web interface, I wish to make it so that the librarian will be able to just run this notice batch at will? What did I do wrong to make all the field names appear as apposed to the data? The test notice I created looks like this: borrowers.firstname, borrowers.surname branches.branchname biblio.title items.content any help would be greatly appreciated. - Joseph Faneuf Tech Support Specialist Narragansett Regional School District Baldwinville, MA -----Original Message----- From: koha-bounces(a)lists.katipo.co.nz [mailto:koha-bounces@lists.katipo.co.nz] On Behalf Of Colin Campbell Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 8:19 AM To: koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz Subject: Re: [Koha] Reports On 07/07/10 12:39, Jane Wagner wrote: > Nicole is referring to our print notice function, but it does not print to > .pdf -- the notices for people without email addresses are sent into an HTML > file in a web-accessible directory. Staff can then open that file in a > browser and send it to the printer. The HTML has a page break between each > notice. There's a firefox add-on printpdf which allows you print a web page to a pdf file. I've done some custom work generating orders and claims as web pages and then using it to produce a nice printable output file. Worth trying the plugin if you want to do something from the html output of this (or any other) function. Colin -- Colin Campbell Chief Software Engineer, PTFS Europe Limited Content Management and Library Solutions +44 (0) 208 366 1295 (phone) +44 (0) 7759 633626 (mobile) colin.campbell(a)ptfs-europe.com skype: colin_campbell2 http://www.ptfs-europe.com _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha

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Koha 2.2.8
by ALUNGA AMBAYO 08 Jul '10

08 Jul '10

Hallo, I have just installed Koha 2.2.8 for trial purposes in my XP. There are a couple of issues I was wondering if anyone can help me solve. 1. From where can I edit the specifying of due dates. The year ends at 2008, and I would like to add more years. 2. How do I send overdue notices.

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Inventory tool - problem column
by Nicole Engard 08 Jul '10

08 Jul '10

Can someone tell me what the problem column is used for in the Inventory tool? It always none for me and I was wondering if anyone has seen it say anything else? Nicole

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When we should close the order basket?
by Vimal Kumar 08 Jul '10

08 Jul '10

Dear Friends, One doubt regarding Acquisition module. When we should close the order basket, after placement of order or after receiving books? Regards, -- Vimal Kumar V. Asst. Librarian Asian School of Business Technopark, Trivandrum-695 581 Web: http://www.vimalkumar.co.nr Blog: http://vimalkumar.oksociety.in OK Society Volunteer. http://oksociety.in --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I forget what I was taught. I only remember what I have learnt" -Patrick White

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Items for bulk ebook MARC records
by Jos Black 08 Jul '10

08 Jul '10

Hello This is my first question to the list since introducing myself a few months ago, so please forgive me if I’m asking a silly question, but I haven’t yet been able to find an answer out there. I’m currently trying to set Koha up as a catalogue and access gateway to our eresources collection, as our current (proprietary) library system is a nightmare to import anything into. As a first attempt I have successfully imported nearly 3000 MARC21 bib records from one of our ebook suppliers into a test install of Koha (3.00.00.107, hope to upgrade soon!). However, when I search for any of the titles in the OPAC, I get the ‘Availability’ message ‘No items available’ in the brief results, and in the detail holdings tab I get ‘No physical items for this record’. The MARC records as supplied don’t have any item data, either in the Koha 952 item tag, or even item data I could map across in the 852, and I’m yet to hear from the supplier that they can supply item data. These messages will be off-putting for most of our readers, many of whom are new to using libraries, and the vast majority probably won’t ask for help, so I need to find a way to sort this out. How could I tackle this apart from a huge effort in reader education, modifying my copy of Koha, or individually creating thousands of items? I have a couple of ideas but don’t want to reinvent the wheel so would truly appreciate your help. Thanks! Jos

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Re: [Koha] Koha releases - Clarification/correction
by Owen Leonard 08 Jul '10

08 Jul '10

On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 1:01 PM, Stacy Pober <stacy.pober(a)manhattan.edu> wrote: > > In the meeting, I asked how long they estimated it would take for the > official Koha community to integrate the code once it had been > released. First one Liblime staffer said two or three years and then > another one said, 'more like four or five years'. Very nice. An anonymous Liblime troll takes the opportunity to insult the Koha community. Look: Either PTFS/Liblime can integrate the code or not. The Koha community is not going to undertake any four to five year integration process. Anything that would take that long to accomplish would be easier done by starting from scratch. > Today, someone from Liblime contacted me to explain that the estimate > of 4 or 5 years as the time for the community to integrate such a > large amount of code was a "humorous ad lib comment" rather than a > serious answer to my question Perhaps someone from Liblime could sign up for the mailing list and start communicating directly? What seems clear from this exchange is that PTFS/Liblime believes that it is the responsibility of others to integrate their code into Koha rather than something that is inherent to the process of working on an open source project. If this is the case, then LEK and Harley are not trunks. They're forks. -- Owen -- Web Developer Athens County Public Libraries http://www.myacpl.org

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Screenshot of the Aquisitions Module
by Quinones, Sylvia 07 Jul '10

07 Jul '10

Hi all, I would appreciate two or more screenshots of the Acquisitions module to see what it looks like. I am interested in paying invoices to track invoice payments. Thanks. Sylvia Quinones NYU Ehrman Medical Library ph. 212-263-5398 Fax 212-263-6534 mailto:quinos01@nyumc.org<mailto:quinos01@library.med.nyu.edu> </PRE> <html> <body> ------------------------------------------------------------<br /> This email message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain information that is proprietary, confidential, and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure, or distribution is prohibited. If you have received this email in error please notify the sender by return email and delete the original message. Please note, the recipient should check this email and any attachments for the presence of viruses. The organization accepts no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this email.<br /> ================================= </body> </html> <PRE>

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Another terminology survey: Debarred, restricted, etc.
by Owen Leonard 07 Jul '10

07 Jul '10

Nicole writes in Bug 4947 (http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=4947) > In the patron management and overdue notice settings you can 'debar' a patron, > but when you do that the patron record says they're 'restricted' - we should > use the same language so that it's clear that this is why the patron cannot > check out "Debar" is the term Koha originally used. When we were working on 3.0 we were doing an "audit" on librarian-speak and trying to come up with more user-friendly terms. "Restricted" was chosen for the staff client because it seemed to be a more commonly understood term. To make matters more confusing for us, the term "frozen" is used in the OPAC. In my opinion as a speaker of American English, "Restrict" is better and we should be working to eliminate "debar." I don't mind that the patrons see "frozen" because I think that best reflects their status from their point of view. What does everyone else think? -- Owen -- Web Developer Athens County Public Libraries http://www.myacpl.org

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