[Koha] Google Summer of Koha - thought on 1 idea you posted

[Steven F.Baljkas]

Friday, March 16, 2007   16:03 CDT

Hi, Josh, et al. at LibLime,

Congratulations on your selection as mentor for the Google Summer of Code program! It looks to be an amazing thing.

I don't know if this'll be useful for you folks or not, but here goes anyway ...

I noticed in your list of ideas the following --

        Improve Koha Cataloging Interface
        Have had some customer feedback that they’d like to see a
        more "traditional" cataloging interface; best way I can 
        describe this is a line interface like you would expect in
        a text editor vs the tabularized interface we currently have.

        Could it be just a big <textarea> ? 

-- and I have been wondering for a while if what Terry Reese had accomplished with MARCEdit's text-based editor might somehow be "incorporated"/"integrated" into Koha.

I know from off listserv communication that at least one person running Koha on linux was able to use MARCEdit, which is ostensibly Windows-based, successfully (i.e. without trouble).

Is that perhaps a sign that the underlying code might be 'friendly' and easy to convert or integrate?

I don't understand the nature (or limitations) of the mentorship arrangement LibLime is undertaking, but perhaps it would be possible to contact Terry Reese and see if there were any possibility of code sharing for development.

He offers MARCEdit cost free to the library community already so it would seem that he already believes in the benevolence that underlies open source. Plus there is the statement on re-distribution and integration of MARCEdit on his page at
   URL <http://oregonstate.edu/~reeset/marcedit/html/help.html>
that would seem to bode well.

Perhaps if the code from MARCEdit could be adapted/integrated somehow that would save your student protegés programmers some time and effort and make a better MARC editor within Koha a step closer.

Just a thought anyway.

Good luck to all involved in your summer program! I am sure whatever projects are accomplished will be golden!

Cheers,
Steven F. Baljkas
library tech at large
Koha neophyte
Winnipeg, MB, Canada

============================================================
From: "Joshua M. Ferraro" <jmf at liblime.com>
Date: 2007/03/16 Fri PM 01:28:13 CDT
To: koha <koha at lists.katipo.co.nz>, 
	koha-devel <koha-devel at nongnu.org>
Subject: [Koha] Google Summer of Koha

Hi all,

Just a heads up to the Koha community that LibLime was
selected as a mentor for the Google Summer of Code program.
We've got a few ideas defined already, but are certainly
open to additional suggestions:

http://wiki.liblime.com/doku.php?id=googlesummerofcodeideas

So if you've got a neat koha-related project that's doable in
a three month period by a student or group of students, let us
know. And of course, if you happen to be a student, we'd love to
have you involved. You can select from one of the ideas above,
or come up with something completely new ...

More info about the program and the application process is
available at the Google Summer of Code site:

http://code.google.com/soc

The deadline is fast approaching so get those applications
in.

Cheers,

-- 
Joshua Ferraro                       SUPPORT FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE
President, Technology       migration, training, maintenance, support
LibLime                                Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS
jmf at liblime.com |Full Demos at http://liblime.com/koha |1(888)KohaILS
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