- Koha - lists.katipo.co.nz

Frequently Asked Questions
by Nicholas Stephen Rosasco 07 Nov '01

07 Nov '01

Hello all... It's... I suppose I want to say traditional or maybe customary to include a Frequently Asked Questions file on an open source product. The various Koha websites at Katipo and the HLT websites are excellent, but aren't arranged in the usual question/answer format. Based on what I've seen on the list the common questions that seem to come up (or make sense based on the available Koha information sites we've got now), the following questions come to mind: ------------- What is Koha? What can Koha do? Where can I get Koha? Where did Koha Come From? Who or what is Katipo? Where is Horowhenua? Who maintains Koha? What is needed to run Koha? How do I install Koha? Where can I get help with databases? Where can I get help with Koha? Can I get Koha in my own language? How can I contribute to Koha? ------------- Thoughts? New items? Commentary? send to: nsr_koha(a)hotmail.com Apologies for the second email address, but I get sufficient quantities of email here to aggravate my sysadmins as it is :) NSR

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Re: [Koha-devel] For the (non)coder
by Tonnesen Steve 06 Nov '01

06 Nov '01

On Tue, 6 Nov 2001, Nicholas Stephen Rosasco wrote: > Is there any sort of target goal/date (I know MARC/z39.50 "completeness" > is coming along soon -- what a fantastic tool that is! thanks!!!) for > getting a new version packaged, and are any translation issues for the > database for the new format expected? Regarding translation. Despite living in a bilingual country, translation isn't my forte (note the use of french there. :) Translation isn't really required for the database, it's required for the interface. Ideally, every string that is displayed to the user should be sent to a gettext() call that looks up a translation to the user's preferred language, if one is available. This is no small undertaking even before any translations are done. I know that _I_ won't be doing it for this release. Steve.

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Re: [Koha] Re: [Koha-devel] For the (non)coder
by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com 06 Nov '01

06 Nov '01

an install script would be really nice... drop in the cd and stand back while the magic happens! Ed Sharpe archivist for SMECC > Subj:[Koha] Re: [Koha-devel] For the (non)coder > Date:11/6/01 11:11:32 AM US Mountain Standard Time > From:<A HREF="mailto:tonnesen@cmsd.bc.ca">tonnesen(a)cmsd.bc.ca</A> > To:<A HREF="mailto:nsr4n@tetra.mail.virginia.edu">nsr4n(a)tetra.mail.virginia.edu</A> > CC:<A HREF="mailto:koha-devel@lists.sourceforge.net">koha-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net</A>, <A HREF="mailto:koha@lists.katipo.co.nz">koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz</A> > Sent from the Internet > > > > > On Tue, 6 Nov 2001, Nicholas Stephen Rosasco wrote: > > > Is there any sort of target goal/date (I know MARC/z39.50 "completeness" > > is coming along soon -- what a fantastic tool that is! thanks!!!) for > > getting a new version packaged, and are any translation issues for the > > database for the new format expected? > > Chris, of Katipo fame, is trying to convince me to package up a new > release. I'll probably give it a shot. There are a couple of technical > issues that I need to work out: > > 1. how to start the Z39.50 daemon, and make sure it keeps running. There > are also some issues that I need to work out with the daemon itself. > Every once in a while it likes to redo all the old queries. :) > 2. how to install the YAZ and Net::Z3950 packages. > 3. script to update existing Koha databases (very scary! Will probably > have an option to allow backing up the existing databases before doing > the upgrade). > 4. Need to move away from DebConf for configuring the Koha package. I > like debconf, but it just isn't portable enough. In its place I'll > have a script that needs to be run after installing the package (be it > deb, rpm, or tarball). > 5. Need to set up a preferences configuration system so that Koha admins > can change system preferences (like which acquisitions module to use). > 6. Need to give some thought to integrating the two acquisitions modules > so that librarians can use either one at any time. > 7. Permissions controls. This is a big one. I'm not sure how HDL does > this, but I have a separate package called K12Admin that I use to > create accounts for all staff and students in my schools. I use this > package to populate the membership database of Koha, and to create an > apache password file for authenticating to the librarian interface. > How should this be handled in the generic case? I'm guessing that > there should be a superuser account that gets created when the package > is installed that has access to everything, and the "Members" section > needs to be modified to allow passwords to be stored for users, as > well as librarian permissions to be granted. As I said before, this > isn't a particular itch of mine, as all of this is taken care of by my > K12Admin program here. > > > I could probably have a package together this week that didn't take of 1, > 2, 5, 6 or 7. Actually, 7 could be semi-taken care of with the superuser > idea. Then there would be one account that had access to the librarian > interface. > > Anyway, just some random thoughts to get me moving... > > > Steve >

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Re: [Koha-devel] For the (non)coder
by Tonnesen Steve 06 Nov '01

06 Nov '01

On Tue, 6 Nov 2001, Nicholas Stephen Rosasco wrote: > Is there any sort of target goal/date (I know MARC/z39.50 "completeness" > is coming along soon -- what a fantastic tool that is! thanks!!!) for > getting a new version packaged, and are any translation issues for the > database for the new format expected? Chris, of Katipo fame, is trying to convince me to package up a new release. I'll probably give it a shot. There are a couple of technical issues that I need to work out: 1. how to start the Z39.50 daemon, and make sure it keeps running. There are also some issues that I need to work out with the daemon itself. Every once in a while it likes to redo all the old queries. :) 2. how to install the YAZ and Net::Z3950 packages. 3. script to update existing Koha databases (very scary! Will probably have an option to allow backing up the existing databases before doing the upgrade). 4. Need to move away from DebConf for configuring the Koha package. I like debconf, but it just isn't portable enough. In its place I'll have a script that needs to be run after installing the package (be it deb, rpm, or tarball). 5. Need to set up a preferences configuration system so that Koha admins can change system preferences (like which acquisitions module to use). 6. Need to give some thought to integrating the two acquisitions modules so that librarians can use either one at any time. 7. Permissions controls. This is a big one. I'm not sure how HDL does this, but I have a separate package called K12Admin that I use to create accounts for all staff and students in my schools. I use this package to populate the membership database of Koha, and to create an apache password file for authenticating to the librarian interface. How should this be handled in the generic case? I'm guessing that there should be a superuser account that gets created when the package is installed that has access to everything, and the "Members" section needs to be modified to allow passwords to be stored for users, as well as librarian permissions to be granted. As I said before, this isn't a particular itch of mine, as all of this is taken care of by my K12Admin program here. I could probably have a package together this week that didn't take of 1, 2, 5, 6 or 7. Actually, 7 could be semi-taken care of with the superuser idea. Then there would be one account that had access to the librarian interface. Anyway, just some random thoughts to get me moving... Steve

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Z39.50 testing
by Tonnesen Steve 04 Nov '01

04 Nov '01

To those of you who have been testing the Z39.50 interface on 142.28.224.14, you should know that some other Koha features on that machine are badly broken at the moment. I'm working on integrating full MARC record support on that machine, so things like editing records are in a sad state. In particular, I know that Modifying a biblio record will result in an internal server error, although it will successfully modify the biblio record and the underlying MARC record before returning the error. :) I've changed the z39.50 querying daemon so that it will fork up to 20 separate processes for doing queries. This speeds up the results considerably. I've also set up a new database table so that additional Z39.50 servers can be added for different Koha installations quite easily. Thanks to everyone who's been testing this and pointing out my obvious mistakes. :) Steve.

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Z39.50
by Tonnesen Steve 02 Nov '01

02 Nov '01

Just let me know if you are getting sick of my posts. :) Cleaned up the interface quite a bit. Separated out the "uploaded marcs" from the "Z39.50 Searches". You can now specify which Z39.50 servers to query. I have the LOC and the NLC hard coded in, but I'd like to make those configurable for each installation of Koha. You can also now specify an arbitrary Z39.50 server for each query. The format is: z3950.loc.gov:7090/voyager amicus.nlc-bnc.ca:210/AMICUS etc. One thing I don't like about all of this is that it requires that the YAZ libraries be installed. That adds an extra step to the installation of Koha, although I don't think the YAZ license would restrict us from distributing it directly with Koha. Steve.

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More on Z39.50
by Tonnesen Steve 02 Nov '01

02 Nov '01

Thanks for the testing! Your testing pointed out some small problems which I have corrected. I wasn't removing the '-'s from ISBN's. I am now. You can put in the dashes or leave 'em out. They'll be removed before querying the Z39.50 servers. I wasn't accessing the full AMICUS database at the National Library of Canada, so whoever searched for "Global action for biodiversity: an international framework for implementing the Convention on biological diversity" will find that it finds it successfully now. I've added a note saying how many records were found for each query in the queue. Now I really need to get full MARC support in Koha so that all of this data doesn't have to get mangled. :) Steve.

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Z3950 searches
by Tonnesen Steve 02 Nov '01

02 Nov '01

Z3950 searches appear to be working now. This is a pretty rough and roudy interface. Definitely needs some cleaning up. However, if you want to try my Z3950 search, go to: http://142.28.224.14/ Acquisitions Marc Importing Tool Enter a query term and select one of ISBN, LCCN, or Title. At the moment, it searches the Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada. Steve.

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Z3950
by Tonnesen Steve 01 Nov '01

01 Nov '01

I just tried the latest Net::Z3950 perl module and the rawdata() call now works. Woohoo! That means that I can now do Z3950 searches and download the raw marc data directly from Koha. Now I just wish I had two sweet clues how to format Z3950 queries. I know that @attr 1=4 "Linux" returns records with the title Linux. Anybody know what I have to use to search on ISBN or LCCN? Steve.

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Marc Importing Tool
by Tonnesen Steve 01 Nov '01

01 Nov '01

I've revised the marc importing tool at: http://142.28.224.14/cgi-bin/koha/acqui.simple/marcimport.pl If you don't like typing in long URLs, just go to 142.28.224.14 and follow the "Acquisitions" and "Marc Importing tool" links. so that you can upload sets of marc records to the server. Give it a whirl, if you like. Try not to upload too large of a set of MARC records, as it may take a long time to process. Besides, my Internet connection is not very snappy here. :) Try to stick to less than 25 or so MARC records. Steve.

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