[Koha] Re: several messages

[Chris Cormack]

* Mark Tearle <mtearle at tartarus.uwa.edu.au> [000906 03:15]:
> On Tue, 5 Sep 2000, Chris Cormack wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Im not entirely sure what I will do with Slang modified modules ... whether
> > I fork the cvs tree, or give them new names and add them.
> > 
> > I could tar them up and pop them on www.koha.org for download I guess, until
> > they have been tested. Then if its all good they can replace the CDK based
> > modules.
> 
> I'm not entirely sure what to suggest, ideally there should be a strong
> separation between the modules that do the work and those that deal with
> the interface.  For curiousitys sake, can you tell me more how the HLT have
> Koha setup?

Ok, at hlt we having Koha split over two machines. This is mainly because
the issues and returns machines, plus the opacs in the Levin library are
diskless 486's so they run off one of the servers (dewey).

Dewey also has all the telnet code, ie issues and returns.
Ronnie the other server, runs the webserver and the mysql database.
We also have dewey set up to run a replica of the database (for backup
purposes).

Anohter purpose of the rewrite was just that, to move all of the interface
code into one or two modules.
So that it would be simple to change the interface to a web based one, or
back to curses, or whatever took someones fancy.
In the hectic run up to new years day, some of our good intentions werent
followed through and a lot of the code dealing with issues and returns ended
up with calls to CDK in it.


> 
> How split are you development/production environments?
> 
Basically HLT is production, and we do most of the development on our own
server.
Having said that, things often go into "production" at quite an early stage.
As it is quite hard for the librarians to test them without live data.
The core things like issues and returns tho get tested on our server quite
heavily before shifting live.
(Last thing we want to do is lose books :-) )

> > > My next major conumdrum is where to start working on Koha, any suggestions?
> > > 
> > I know Benedict from poland is very keen to work on localising koha. He has
> > offered to write some locale files in polish. So that koha can be modified
> > to uses locales::gettext.
> > He's not a programmer tho, so he will need help on editing the perl scripts
> > to use gettext. 
> > 
> 
> That shouldn't be two difficult, I'd be glad to help out here.  
> 
> (mental note for self: this'll be good for changing all the Aussie jokes to 
>  New Zealander ones :) )

*grin*
> 
> > Hmmm, there are also some bugs/glitches in acquisitions.
> > One of the biggest being, the librarians often want to order some books
> > with the same title but in a different format.
> > Eg A video, a talking book and a paperback copy of the same title.
> > The also might want each one of these to come out of a seperate bookfund.
> > At the moment there is no easy way to do this, and they would have to place
> > 3 separate orders.
> 
> I'll start having a closer look at that.

That would be excellent

> 
> > Another section that needs work is what im calling a catalog maintenance
> > section.
> > So, somewhere you can go to edit/delete subject headings in the subject
> > authority file. 
> > Or edit the other authority files.
> > Were you could tidy up mistakes easily, like merge two identical biblios.
> > And anything else the librarians need :-)
> > 
> > This may well fit into your goals below.
> > 
> > If any of the areas I mentioned seem like a good place to start, let me know
> > and we can work out a good way to go about it.
> > 
> > There are also lots of other things to work on. So let me know what you think.
> > 
> > Chris
> 
> All three sound good, where shall we start?
> 

Hmmm, how about the catalogue maintenance section?
This will be a whole new section, but will probably make use of some of the
functions in C4::Search and C4::Acquisitions
Both of which are current in 1.04
So it might be good to work on this, while we sort out anon cvs, etc?
You could send me the files uve written, and patch files to any of the
existing code if you like.

Let me know if this is feasible.

Thanks

Chris