----- "Kevin O'Rourke" <lists@caboose.org.uk> wrote:
Joshua M. Ferraro wrote: The fines module in Koha is a fine example of a feature that hasn't been fully exposed to the system administration section of the admin interface. For now, the assumption is that if you need to enable fines and you're managing Koha yourself (as opposed to getting commercial support from one of the available providers), you'll be spending some time customizing the fines script and module to suit your needs. That said, have a look at the fines2.pl in misc/ that relies on C4/Circulation/Fines.pm, it's a good example of how to start out with fines management in Koha. Thanks for the information. So it looks like the documentation is wrong and fines2.pl does work, but needs customisation. I've had a look at it and it's not pretty, there are far too many magic numbers in there. For example, there's a maximum fine variable buried in the code, set to 5. However, here in Nigeria that's far too low (there are about 130 Naira to the US Dollar). If I had the time I'd rewrite it to read things out of system preferences. I'm not sure which documentation you're referring to, but yes, the fines stuff in Koha could definitely use a re-write.
Would I be right in saying that for each "fine cycle" (7 days or whatever) this will add an additional line item to the borrower's record?
Getting support from one of the available providers would be great, but Nigerian educational organisations just don't have the money. I understand completely. Lack of money is a challenge that us providers face as well :-). Since you've been given the opportunity to work on Koha, perhaps you'd be able to share your solutions with the community. It's exciting to hear that the educational organizations in Nigeria have decided to invest in the project, we're always looking for new programmers to join the effort. Welcome :-).
Cheers, -- Joshua Ferraro SUPPORT FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE President, Technology migration, training, maintenance, support LibLime Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS jmf@liblime.com |Full Demos at http://liblime.com/koha |1(888)KohaILS