Hi Jama, On Tue, Dec 05, 2006 at 05:15:23PM +0100, Jama Poulsen wrote:

Let me first say thanks to the developers of this feature-complete free library management system. You're welcome, but the real thanks should go to the libraries who sponsor this development -- they're the real heros :-).

I just installed Koha (v2.2.7) for the first time, since I wanted to test the new faceted browsing interface shown at: http://zoomopac.liblime.com/ This faceted browsing interface is not yet avaialble in a public release of Koha ... version 2.2.7 does not include Zebra support as it seems you discovered :-).

That worked fine, and then I bravely tried to install the zebra-plugin/dev_week tree using this wiki page: http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=installingzebraplugin226

Some gotcha's I encountered: - My Koha DB was called "Koha" not "koha" (as the zebra plugin config defaults to that) - I had to type "mkdir /koha/zebradb/biblios/lock", to make the zebra server start - various other paths were missing/incorrect - various missing Perl module dependencies (beyond the wiki page hints) Yep, this process is defined mainly for developers -- we don't expect users to install the dev_week version of Koha.

Now both the OPAC and koha-backend don't work anymore, I suspect there are permission problems, since get "Premature end of script headers: mainpage.pl" but no other errors when I run the mainpage.pl script from the command-line. The needed symlinks setups have gotten somewhat messy. In my case some perl modules also needed symlinks, to get them resolvable. My point here is, that its currently quite difficult to get it the new OPAC interface to work. Do others share this opinion? Yes, it is _very_ difficult. Part of the problem is that libraries don't sponsor development of a smooth installation procedure, so that typically gets put on the back burner. However, in time, as more libraries sponsor features we'll see an official project release that will be very simple to install.

My questions:

- The 2.2.7 code did not show the faceted browsing interface, is all that code in the dev_week tree? Is the Zebra-plugin required for the new OPAC interface? (I've not fully studied all the code, yet ;-) Yes, it's in dev_week and you need Zebra.

- If all of the "Koha ZOOM" package is opensource, has anybody created a (non-commercial) "/koha" package with all the right sources and layout, so one just needs to: - install the dependencies (perl modules, yaz, zebra server, etc.), - configure Apache (provide a standard example that fits with the standard /koha setup) - Setup the CGI environment (describe permissions and logging in docs)? None of that has been created yet.

I think the install process could be simplified a lot using such a pre-build "Koha ZOOM" package. All the different layouts and old config files are really confusing IMHO.

Yep, we agree.

A more complete list of Perl modules and other dependencies (compile yax with libxml2, etc..) would also be nice have in the documentation.

I'm willing to work on such a package, and the install documentation (if there is interest), but I need to be able to understand what pieces are needed to setup "Koha ZOOM" correctly first.

The rel_3_0 branch is probably the best place to start with that. We're going to phase out dev_week eventually. I'll briefly summarize the differences between the tags: rel_2_2 is the stable tag where 2.2.5, 2.2.6, 2.2.7, 2.2.8 come from -- we'll be supporting that for a long time as lots of libraries use it. dev_week is basically rel_2_2 with a new search API (Zebra). There will probably not every be an official project release of this tag as it mainly exists because some libraries needed to switch to Zebra but couldn't wait for the rel_3_0 code to stabilize rel_3_0 is the tag that will eventually become 3.0. It includes the Zebra API from dev_week, and a re-written and cleaned up overall API that we're still working on refining. Ideally, when we're finished cleaning up and the code is stable and working, we'll have a very simple installation procedure -- once that's the case we'll release 3.0. Hope that helps explain where things are at. If you're interested in joining the development, please join the koha-devel list on savannah project; also join us on IRC at irc.katipo.co.nz #koha -- IRC is where most of the developer discussions take place :-) 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