Hi, Second question resulting from my first go at installing and using Koha. In principal html, perl and sql should allow modification of the interface and functionality very easily however my skills are not up to doing that cold. Does anyone have any howtos or recipies for useful changes? What I'd particularly like to do is have an "Add to bookshelf..." facility at some point in the acquisitions process; either a text entry field or a drop down of already defined bookshelves. Entering all the books and then returning to input ISBN's into the bookshelf entry form is going to be too tedious yet the bookshelves would appear to be the most useful feature for my anticipated browsing. If this already exists and I've missed it feel free to point out how stupid I am. :-) A request for WAP-ready XML in the archives gets a second vote from me too. I'd enable my WAP account for the ability to browse from a bookshop and forever end those "Have I got that already?" moments. Matthew
Hi Mathew Welcome to the list, and we look forward to your adventures with Koha :-)
In principal html, perl and sql should allow modification of the interface and functionality very easily however my skills are not up to doing that cold. Does anyone have any howtos or recipies for useful changes?
Hmm - the main one would be that you change the include files to change the look of the main menu - which really changes the look of the pages, and the change the CSS I guess. Otherwise there should be a .tmpl file for each .pl script - they should have the same name I think, and while they look confusing, if you get in a quiet place, and have an hour or two, you get the hang of them pretty fast I think. Just don't change anything you don't understand :-)
What I'd particularly like to do is have an "Add to bookshelf..." facility at some point in the acquisitions process; either a text entry field or a drop down of already defined bookshelves. Entering all the books and then returning to input ISBN's into the bookshelf entry form is going to be too tedious yet the bookshelves would appear to be the most useful feature for my anticipated browsing. If this already exists and I've missed it feel free to point out how stupid I am. :-)
Nope I don't think it exists - the bookshelf function hasn't been integrated into Acquisitions but it's an excellent idea. I assume you might need to change the template, but also do a bit of script for it as well? You might want to join the devlopers mailing list to get some practical "how to" help http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/koha-devel Cheers Rachel
A request for WAP-ready XML in the archives gets a second vote from me too. I'd enable my WAP account for the ability to browse from a bookshop and forever end those "Have I got that already?" moments.
Matthew
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On Sun 19 Oct, Matthew Malthouse wrote:
In principal html, perl and sql should allow modification of the interface and functionality very easily however my skills are not up to doing that cold. Does anyone have any howtos or recipies for useful changes?
The documentataion for Koha is, um, a bit thin. There is a manual, which does not say very much, and some POD documentation in a few Perl files saying useful things such as "Does this module do anything?" and not a lot else.
What I'd particularly like to do is have an "Add to bookshelf..." facility at some point in the acquisitions process; either a text entry field or a drop down of already defined bookshelves. Entering all the books and then returning to input ISBN's into the bookshelf entry form is going to be too tedious yet the bookshelves would appear to be the most useful feature for my anticipated browsing. If this already exists and I've missed it feel free to point out how stupid I am. :-)
I think the problem is that Koha seems to have been designed to be used in large public libraries where all books are arranged on shelves which follow the Dewey or some other classification. There does not seem to be any way of specifying a real shelf in Koha: the shelves referred to seem to be "virtual shelves" where eg lecturers can put reading lists for their pupils and are not intended for refering to the physical loction of books. If you look at, eg, https://www.unido.org/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?bib=3563 you will see that "location" appears to refer to the Library Branch and not to a shelf. Whether "W747" in the classification line is a shelf is not clear. I see that the MARC specification does seem to include an entry for physical shelf at number 852 (unless -- which is likely -- I have misunderstood things): eg http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/ecbdhold.html A large library is likely to work very differently from other libraries. I am a lawyer and we have offices that stretch over five floors (without a lift). Our books are on shelves on all five floors and are grouped for convenience, rather than in accordance with a formal classification. Our collection of tax books is, for example, in the basement simply because there happen to be a suitable number of shelves for it there. Many books are owned by individuals and so are kept in their rooms. We have several copies of books that are often used and these will be kept on different floors -- anyone wanting to refer to one of them will get the copy nearest to his or her room. People here are going to want to type in eg "Snell", get the result "Snell on Equity" and to see where in the building they may be able to find it -- which in that particular case will probably be in ten different places. It seems to me that the answer may be to use the location field, described by default in Koha as "Branch", to store the shelf number and to use a separate entry, possibly adding the copy number to the title, for separate copies.
A request for WAP-ready XML in the archives gets a second vote from me too. I'd enable my WAP account for the ability to browse from a bookshop and forever end those "Have I got that already?" moments.
I seem to remember something similar in the Perl Journal some years ago. There are quite a few WAP/WML modules available from http://search.cpan.org Roger -- Roger Horne, 11 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, London WC2A 3QB mailto:roger@hrothgar.co.uk http://www.hrothgar.co.uk/YAWS/
On 2003-10-20 09:59:03 +0100 Roger Horne <roger@hrothgar.co.uk> wrote:
The documentataion for Koha is, um, a bit thin. There is a manual, which does not say very much, and some POD documentation in a few Perl files
I suggest that any perl module without full docs is a bug, but not something that can block v2.0. Do any modules have full or near-full POD? Can someone post a list to koha-devel?
There does not seem to be any way of specifying a real shelf in Koha
I think this might be MARC21 field 852 too. Why not put it there? -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ slef@jabber.at Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
MJ Ray wrote:
On 2003-10-20 09:59:03 +0100 Roger Horne <roger@hrothgar.co.uk> wrote:
The documentataion for Koha is, um, a bit thin. There is a manual, which does not say very much, and some POD documentation in a few Perl files
I suggest that any perl module without full docs is a bug, but not something that can block v2.0.
I agree. But it's a huge job... And we also lack a "global" documentation too to understand how Koha is written (note I can't write such a doc as i speak english quite well, but it's not my mother language. So i'm very tired after 2 hours of complete english :-) )
Do any modules have full or near-full POD?
Can someone post a list to koha-devel?
C4/Biblio.pm. A few bugs maybe in the POD. I documented this module, as it's the most important one for MARC cataloguing (hu... the only one in fact :-) ) All other C4/*.pm are a little documented. I'm afraid that's all. -- Paul POULAIN Consultant indépendant en logiciels libres responsable francophone de koha (SIGB libre http://www.koha-fr.org)
On 2003-10-21 08:39:52 +0100 paul POULAIN <paul.poulain@free.fr> wrote:
And we also lack a "global" documentation too to understand how Koha is written (note I can't write such a doc as i speak english quite well, but it's not my mother language. [...]
Is French your native language? Write it in French and we'll translate? To be honest, any documentation, even in French, is ahead of where we are now. That said, I'm a bozo. I forgot that I have some global documentation already written. It's not a technical guide yet, but it gives an introduction to the system structure as I see it. I shall clean it up and put it online for review this week. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ slef@jabber.at Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
On Mon 20 Oct, MJ Ray wrote:
I think this might be MARC21 field 852 too. Why not put it there?
But try doing so from Koha. If you click on "add biblio" you will get a screen which actually lists that field, but there seems to be no way from the subscreen to actually add a shelf: the default details are things like price. I would like to suggest that those about to release the next version should try installing a new system from scratch without any existing data. There must be thousands of people who will try Koha out with just one member and one book to see how it works. I did not find it easy (RH9, Perl 5.8.1, Konqueror). Oh, and can I suggest a very simple chane to the installer: put the MySQL Password into a loop. Does anyone remember all their passwords? Entering the wrong one in this field and finding the installer dies is a bit annoying (since many files will have been installed, which tends to cause difficulties with the next attempt). Adding "Wrong, try again" would make things much easier. Roger -- Roger Horne, 11 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, London WC2A 3QB mailto:roger@hrothgar.co.uk http://www.hrothgar.co.uk/YAWS/
On 2003-10-21 09:45:27 +0100 Roger Horne <roger@hrothgar.co.uk> wrote:
But try doing so from Koha. If you click on "add biblio" you will get a screen which actually lists that field, but there seems to be no way from the subscreen to actually add a shelf: the default details are things like price.
OK, I think I might understand now. Do your "branches" use different shelving systems? So, what is kept on shelf K1 in one place is on N13 in another, for example. You want each item (not each biblio) to have its own shelving location? But what happens when a book from one branch moves to another?
I would like to suggest that those about to release the next version should try installing a new system from scratch without any existing data.
I do this already and I consider pre4 badly broken. It's particularly bad for MARC21 users, as I think the main developers use UNIMARC instead. Most of the bugs should have been shaken out, but I would like access to updated MARC21-Koha mappings. I think I need a file containing the output of the command: mysqldump -u KOHAADMINUSER -p koha --opt --quote-names --no-create-info marc_subfield_structure marc_tag_structure
Oh, and can I suggest a very simple chane to the installer: put the MySQL Password into a loop.
I will do this today. This annoyed me before I was working on the installer, but I normally remember my MySQL password. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ slef@jabber.at Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
On Wed 22 Oct, MJ Ray wrote:
OK, I think I might understand now. Do your "branches" use different shelving systems? So, what is kept on shelf K1 in one place is on N13 in another, for example. You want each item (not each biblio) to have its own shelving location? But what happens when a book from one branch moves to another?
Well this is the first library software we will be using so its hard to say... Yes, books keep on getting moved. Roger -- Roger Horne, 11 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, London WC2A 3QB mailto:roger@hrothgar.co.uk
On 2003-10-22 12:18:47 +0100 Roger Horne <roger@hrothgar.co.uk> wrote:
Well this is the first library software we will be using so its hard to say... Yes, books keep on getting moved.
It sounds to me like you need a single shelving markup scheme and, instead of normal circulation, use some sort of "circulate by transferring between branches". Alternatively, we could adapt the copy status screen to show the current borrower for you, which might be simpler. That isn't a common way of working for normal libraries, but I think that university departments and community groups are increasingly going this way. These are random thoughts as I try to figure out how to adapt koha to your needs. I haven't investigated them in detail (and to do so may require money, the way work is here just now). -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ slef@jabber.at Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
Roger Horne said:
On Mon 20 Oct, MJ Ray wrote:
I think this might be MARC21 field 852 too. Why not put it there?
But try doing so from Koha. If you click on "add biblio" you will get a screen which actually lists that field, but there seems to be no way from the subscreen to actually add a shelf: the default details are things like price.
To add more subfields to a MARC tag, you have to define them first in the parameters, "MARC tag structure admin." Find the tag you want (e.g. 852) and click on "subfields," then click on "edit subfields." At the bottom of the screen is a blank where you can add your own new subfield. Note, however, that the 852 tag already has a subfield (c) for "shelving location." -- Stephen Hedges Skemotah Solutions, USA www.skemotah.com -- shedges@skemotah.com
participants (6)
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Matthew Malthouse -
MJ Ray -
paul POULAIN -
Rachel Hamilton-Williams -
Roger Horne -
Stephen Hedges