IRC log for #koha, 2005-08-12

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All times shown according to UTC.

Time Nick Message
12:09 owen Oh, it looks like deleting members is broken altogether!
12:09 kados hehe
12:10 owen: is this in production? or rel_2_2?
12:10 owen Well, I was wondering why the deletedborrowers table on production was empty, so I was checking things out on rel_2_2.
12:10 Even in the default template, member deletions don't seem to work
12:11 kados well that seems like a problem to me ;-)
12:11 owen We delete patron records pretty rarely, so I'm not surprised no one has noticed.
12:12 kados we need some kind of QA evaluation process to check for broken functions
14:00 T-Minus 1 hour to Website / Interface Design Meeting
14:00 Meeting Agenda Posted at : http://tinyurl.com/d7de3
14:47 T-Minus 15 Minutes to Website / Interface Design Meeting
14:57 T-Minus 3 Minutes to Website / Interface Design Meeting
14:58 indradg hi all
15:00 kados OK ... So Welcome to the Third Website / Interface Design Meeting
15:00 Roll Call ... Who's here
15:01 owen We'd better wait to see if at least shaun and russ show up
15:01 (given the agenda)
15:01 kados so we're missing rach, russ, and shaun
15:01 yea
15:02 welcome russ ;-)
15:02 russ hi
15:03 kados still waiting for Shaun
15:03 russ: have you spoken to him lately?
15:03 russ yes spoke to him tuesday night NZ time
15:04 kados russ: was he planning to be here do you know?
15:04 russ but not since then
15:04 yep
15:05 i have a link to a concept he has done if he doesnt show
15:05 kados ok
15:05 we'll wait a couple more minutes
15:05 russ cool
15:07 shaun whoo, sorry i'm late
15:07 russ hi shaun
15:08 kados glad you made it shaun
15:08 ok that's quorum
15:08 so : Agenda: http://tinyurl.com/d7de3
15:08 anyone have anything to add?
15:09 russ no sounds good to me - short agenda is good - means we might actually get to talk about everything :-)
15:09 kados :-)
15:09 ok so first item
15:09 Website Preview
15:09 who's got a link?
15:09 shaun i would like to discuss something russ and i were discussing outside of #koha, the idea of humans showing the software and something which i can't remember atm (?), that's fine otherwise
15:10 http://dev.shaunevans.co.uk/koha/kohaconcept.png (please be nice, residential broadband and all that
15:10 kados shaun: ok ... we can cover that
15:11 so I assume the ?FAQ links will become the navbar?
15:11 russ shaun - do you want to run through the design like you did with me
15:11 shaun kados: yep, but i need to discuss with you what the links will actually be
15:12 kados shaun: ok ... I think we had a wireframe for that
15:12 shaun yes please russ, and i will add anything that i have thought of since
15:12 kados russ: is that right?
15:13 I like the case study box ... it could even rotate
15:13 and we could let folks submit case studies
15:14 indradg sounds good
15:14 russ yep
15:15 so the links across the top (from the site map)
15:15 will be - About Koha - Showcase - Download Koha - Support - Community
15:16 thd 'community links' understates the importance of documentation, etc. links
15:16 russ http://www.russandsarah.gen.nz[…]edev/sitemap.html
15:17 thd - the purpose of that area of the page is to bring to the front some links that would otherwise be buried deep in the site
15:17 so maybe it needs another name?
15:17 shaun shortcuts?
15:17 kados I like shortcuts
15:17 thd the name was what I was questioning
15:18 shaun or maybe "quick links"?
15:18 kados yep ... also good
15:18 owen Quick Links is a more commonly used term in web sites, I think
15:18 kados it should be 'Koha Sourceforge Homepage' I think
15:18 owen I agree
15:18 shaun kados: yep, good point
15:19 russ i like Quick Links as well
15:19 thd or savanah
15:19 kados and instead of 'IRC Information' we should have a java client that lets them connect to IRC immediately and talk to someone
15:19 russ shaun - i have a comment from rachel about the green used in the top banner
15:19 kados thd: right ;-)
15:19 shaun what does she say?
15:20 kados: how about ajax?
15:20 russ it seems a bit light - could do with more emerald (her words)
15:20 where did you get the green from ?
15:20 kados russ: what about the link green?
15:20 shaun ok - i will experiment; that green was a colourwheeled version of the blue below it, which i'm particularly fond of
15:21 russ right
15:21 kados my vote is that I like the greens ;-)
15:21 russ i think the green is more important than the blue
15:21 thd emarald is not an ugly browser safe colour :)
15:21 owen The grey on green doesn't pop very well
15:21 russ it is a bit insipid
15:22 shaun owen: on the faq buttons?
15:22 owen shaun: and the logo too
15:22 thd this green is better
15:22 shaun i found the green on the current site a bit *too* bold
15:23 russ at the moment koha 2.2 seems to be popping out to me more than the koha logo
15:23 kados yep
15:23 thd contrast
15:24 shaun if i make the koha v.2.2 a bit more blue and the 0 koha above a bit more white...
15:24 russ shaun - back on the green - i think it could be a touch darker/bluer
15:24 thd more emerald :)
15:25 russ :-)
15:25 shaun ok, i will experiment, that green was a bit arbitrary but i liked it and so kept with it for just that concept
15:25 kados: http://cgiirc.sourceforge.net/
15:25 thd sea like
15:26 kados shaun: exactly
15:27 russ shaun - i ask rosalie at hlt for some photos - but she didnt really have much
15:27 ideally we would like a photo to go into the 3 row where it says
15:27 shaun i think now would be a good time to get onto the topic i mentioned above: using images of people to advertise the product
15:27 russ yep cool
15:28 shaun screenshots are good, but more impressive imo is images of librarians using the product, demonstrating efficiency and usability
15:29 kados shaun: what do you think of the liblime site?
15:29 thd Where are the HDL publicity photos?
15:29 kados shaun: is that what you had in mind? or is it too abstract?
15:29 owen Two different issues, really.  Screenshots are good for people who are thinking of downloading.  Photos are good for people are thinking of having their sysadmins download :)  Photos give good feelings to decision-makers.
15:30 kados owen: good point owen
15:30 owen I think mostly photos give a sense to customers that you're the real deal if you can put some good photos on your site
15:30 russ yep - and as discussed earlier - this new site should really appeal to the decision makers
15:30 kados right
15:31 russ i agree owen - goes to credibility
15:31 shaun the librarian i'm implementing for wanted to see that this thing is actually being used
15:31 kados so what kinds of photos are we talking about for the home page?
15:31 thd I like closely cropped so that you can see something happening
15:31 look at the last photo at http://www.agogme.com
15:31 shaun also makes the site look a bit more business-like ;-)
15:33 russ thd - are you refering to the photo of the young girl using the computer?
15:33 thd russ: yes
15:33 owen or the guys building a castle ;)
15:33 kados hehe
15:33 shaun hah
15:34 thd the building a castle is just a detail too :)
15:34 not a photo though
15:35 shaun the ideal thing would be some children using the opac with the koha logo clearly in view, or perhaps a librarian loaning out some books to a patron - a sense of community
15:35 kados so ... shaun are you suggesting we find photos of actual kohaites or just nab professional photos from cheap sources like dreamstime.com?
15:35 russ katipo has a store of photos that can be used
15:35 for free
15:36 thd picturing humans and something noticeable on the screen at the same time is very difficult
15:36 russ http://www.sunflowerimages.co.nz/search.html
15:36 if that helps
15:36 kados I agree ... LibLime tried to capture that and gave up
15:37 russ i think happy smiley people is more important than trying to get a koha logo showing up on screen
15:37 the image of the screen is going to be so small
15:37 you wont see any detail
15:37 shaun maybe then the human image, with the koha logo in the bottom right hand corner of the image itself, so "you know it's koha"
15:37 thd exactly
15:37 russ what would be nice is for the photo to be taken at a library who uses koha
15:37 rather than resorting to stock photos
15:38 thd so where are the HLT publicity snaps?
15:38 kados russ: that would be nice ... but would be hard to pull off I think
15:38 russ anyone at nelsonville (or elsewhere) want to be world famous
15:38 kados russ: i doubt it ;-)
15:39 russ i am sure rosalie will be fine with us using any of the photos on her site - http://www.library.org.nz/cgi-[…]koha/opac-main.pl
15:39 only thing is none of them are quite right
15:40 kados http://www.dreamstime.com/woma[…]puter-image178708
15:40 russ i get a 404 at that link
15:40 kados weird
15:40 thd where are the librry.org photos
15:42 russ they have them dotted around their site - ie each section has a hero pic at the top of the page - http://www.library.org.nz/teens-zone/
15:42 hmm actually if i remember rightly that photo is of that couple using a computer, but the computer has been cropped out
15:42 i'll try and track that one down
15:42 thd I spent days searching stock photos and otherwise before finding a suitably engaging photo.
15:43 russ right so before we spend too long on this
15:43 thd People often look bored or ditracted in front of a screen, even in posed photos.
15:44 russ we think it is a good idea to have a photo of  not bored people ? and shaun and i will try and track one down to insert in there
15:44 kados cool
15:44 ok ... so next item ;-)
15:44 call for content writers
15:44 russ just wanted to say well done to shaun
15:44 i thing it is looking good so far
15:44 kados ditto ... thanks for your work shaun
15:45 shaun sorry to interrupt the moving on - all the links are surfacing now:
15:45 http://www.austinseminary.edu/[…]rary/computer.jpg
15:45 russ now she does look bored even angry at the puter
15:45 :-)
15:45 rach she doesn't look like she is having a good time tho :-)
15:45 shaun but if she did... that would be ideal, right?
15:46 thd not the right expression certainly :)
15:46 russ yep that type of thing
15:47 shaun we're certainly not going to get anything with the right mood from stock photos, so if you visit your local library.... :-)
15:47 owen The right photo will be sharper, more dynamic, and with a happier subject
15:47 kados shaun: I'm not sure about that ... there are some surprising finds in stock photo databases
15:48 thd kados: Do you have no image of a proud patron charging out a stack taller than he can lift with the NPL self checkout system/
15:48 kados but whatever ... you guys can find some good photos and we can discuss it next time
15:48 thd: no ;-)
15:48 so ... Call for Content Writers
15:48 russ yes content
15:48 kados russ: your topic I believe
15:48 russ: do you want to assign sections or how do you want to do it?
15:49 russ well first up do we have volunteers to write content?
15:49 thd I would be pleased to volunteer for FAQ and Features
15:49 kados I'll volunteer to write
15:50 russ thd and kados will be busy :-)
15:50 ok well what i have done
15:50 shaun i would be happy to do the 'apology for open source' bit, and i will fill in on any low-content pages that are essential to the site, i.e. the homepage, downloads etc
15:50 russ http://www.russandsarah.gen.nz[…]edev/sitemap.html
15:50 thd not apology of course :)
15:51 russ is for each page in the site made a "meta" page
15:51 shaun it seems that way in way too many proposals i have seen though...
15:51 russ so
15:51 http://www.russandsarah.gen.nz[…]t/about-koha.html
15:52 so title, breadcrumb and a short description of the type of content to go on the page
15:52 i have also given pages a priority
15:52 as to the ones i think a mandatory (that we cant do with out)
15:52 and others that can wait if need be
15:52 kados right ... looks good
15:52 shaun russ: while on this, i don't really think news should be in About Koha
15:52 russ so i would like writers to sound on the mandatory pages
15:53 kados I also like the writer/editor/approver
15:53 shaun: where do you think it should go?
15:53 russ irma (from sydney) has volunteered to do editing - so that there is continuity of style - at least for the first cut of the site
15:54 shaun as one of the main levels, but not as part of the main navigation
15:54 kados that's right ... great!
15:54 russ main level but not in the main nav?
15:54 thd what is the spelling convention, I have an email on koha-devel about that?
15:55 kados thd: British English
15:55 thd :)
15:55 russ nice decision kados :-)
15:55 shaun russ: i was thinking about putting something like that up in the top-left corner
15:56 russ ah right so in a an aux  nav type of thing
15:56 shaun yeh
15:56 thd yes I had referred to that as intrnational English
15:57 russ ok shaun we can address the news thing a little bit later
15:57 but re content
15:57 kados thd has volunteered to write Features and FAQ
15:57 russ cool
15:57 shaun sorry to distract - i'll take support/contributing
15:58 kados I'd be happy to take 'Koha Team', History, Support, Awards
15:58 and 'Pay for Support'
15:59 shaun kados: i see a pattern there :p
15:59 kados shaun: :-)
15:59 thd kados: Pay for Installation, Support, and Development.
15:59 russ ok just checking against any missing mandatory pages
15:59 i'll do the showcase section
16:00 shaun somebody needs to do testimonials and case studies, but that's more of a collection than a composition task
16:00 kados russ: is 'Purchase' better than 'Pay for'
16:00 russ kados - yes
16:00 kados russ: it might also be good to have a 'Sponsor Features' section
16:00 or 'Sponsorship Opportunities'
16:00 shaun kados: yes ^ - i got a weird look from the librarian over that
16:01 thd kados: the and development meant sponsor features.
16:01 rach how about "Wish List"
16:01 kados thd: ?
16:01 rach as a more enticing title, and then explain the sponsorhip thing
16:02 kados rach: hmmm ... that doesn't sound professional to my American ears
16:02 shaun rach: how about making it part of a contribution section spanning a few pages?
16:02 thd kados: Pay for Installation, Support, 'and Development'.
16:02 rach or New Features?  Upcomming Features?
16:02 thd s/Pay/Purchase/
16:02 kados well ... we have a 'under development' section
16:02 rach paying for development isn't necessarily the same thing
16:02 kados so we don't want to replicate that
16:03 rach I'm thinking things we'd like to do, but would like a sponsor for - wether that be people to pay, or someone to champion/explain how it should work
16:03 kados I've been using the word 'sponsorship' lately with clients and they seem to like it ... but that's just US clients
16:03 rach under development sounds like things that have got a sponsor already...
16:03 and are being worked on
16:03 kados rach: right
16:04 thd kados: Purchase for Installation, Support, and Custom Development.  Something shorter is needed though for a brief heading.
16:04 kados thd: Purchase Support ;-)
16:04 rach sponsor is ok if people get it
16:05 kados rach: right ... does it sound ok to you?
16:05 rach it has some connotation of not really getting anything :-)
16:06 kados rach: hehe
16:06 rach: right ... I get that a bit too ...
16:06 rach so if you sponsor things here, it's like a charity and you might get your logo on the programme
16:06 thd kados: Purchase Support & Custom Development
16:06 kados rach: maybe there's a better word
16:06 rach rather than that we want someone who really wants this thing
16:06 thd kados: Support & Custom Development Options
16:06 rach what about it thd
16:06 custom development isn't what I mean either
16:07 custom development is doing something special for a particular library
16:07 which is cool, but doesn't cover some of our "wish" things like say other language translations
16:08 kados right
16:08 ok ... well we can think about it  ...
16:08 rach yep
16:09 shaun "invest in koha" :p .... patronise? subsidise?
16:09 thd rach: every feature starts as custom development to fill a partiular need
16:09 kados russ: any more critical pages that need writers?
16:10 thd shaun: I like invest in X.
16:10 rach not in the way that implies I think - we put out our "wish list" of things we'd like to see in Koha, and libraries/developers picked up on the ones that interested them - that's a different concept to saying "we'll customise it for you"
16:10 it
16:10 russ no i think we are covered
16:10 i'll sort the community one out
16:10 kados hone call
16:10 rach it's more proactive to say what you're wanting someone to sponsor your for
16:11 russ i'll do an email with the assignments and up date those pages on my site
16:11 kados phone call
16:11 thd rach: you mean a list of features waiting for sponsorship
16:11 rach yep
16:12 and sponsorship doesn't necesarily mean money
16:12 thd of course
16:13 shaun beer, silly... hah
16:13 owen Duh!
16:13 russ i'll also include how i would like the content sent through
16:13 in terms of deadlines for writing content
16:14 is sunday 21st too soon to recieve all first drafts?
16:14 gives us a week and a half
16:15 thd not if I can get the feature list Kados completed for a forthcoming article.
16:15 shaun i think so... it's my summer holiday, so i'm hoping to get exposed to natural light at some point, how about the week after?
16:15 russ i would dearly like the new site to be live before 11sept
16:16 we have the new zealand libraries conference
16:16 thd shaun: natural light only causes skin cancer :)
16:16 russ do you get sunlight in the uk ? :-)
16:16 shaun i'm aiming for early september too, school term starts and i want to impress the librarian... and my classmates, for that matter....
16:17 russ cos i am thinking that we will need to give irma at least 10 days to proof
16:17 and then it all needs to be loaded in and approved
16:17 so it is getting tight
16:17 shaun russ: enough to make my neck sting for days when somebody touches it
16:18 owen Remember what Kurt Vonnegut always says, "Wear sunscreen"
16:18 russ remeber it is the web, and we can always add to the content we have later
16:19 shaun - if writing content is going to take away from your design time
16:19 i think it best you concentrate on design
16:19 thd russ: nice about that aspect :)
16:19 russ as we will need some inside pages to go with this homepage
16:20 and i think the community portal page
16:20 will look more like a secondary homepage than an inside page
16:20 so that will need some thought as well
16:20 shaun i've already sorted the inside pages, but they're not particularly impressive in terms of design when placed next to the hp
16:20 russ i will get my wireframe ideas up soon
16:21 thd Is there a design default template for page content?
16:21 styalistically, etc.
16:21 shaun thd: sorry, i only have the outline version, the concept is in progress atm
16:23 russ shaun - are you writing the code at the same time as doing these designs?
16:23 shaun nope
16:23 russ cool
16:24 along with the writing assignments i will get a new draft schedule up
16:24 thd who is doing documentation?
16:24 russ thd ?
16:24 shaun shedges at www.kohadocs.org, afaik
16:25 russ apologies everyone - but i have another meeting that i need to go to
16:25 thd russ: I mean the documentation content element or is that just a direct link?
16:25 russ direct link
16:25 to kohadocs
16:27 i will do an email to the dev list about the content and with a new schedule
16:27 shaun there will be an email waiting for you in the morning with some stuff about the inside pages
16:28 bye all
16:28 shaun russ: ok, thank you
16:28 russ: bye
16:28 thd russ: bye
16:29 kados sorry ...
16:29 thd Is there a good tutorial for your CMS?
16:30 kados sorry about that ... phone call and then my IRC crashed
16:30 shaun i'm not sure about opencms... never used it, probably never will
16:32 thd rach: you use it.  Do you have a pointer to brief tutorial?
16:32 kados so our deadline is in Sept ... right?
16:32 we've got writing assignments
16:32 only thing left on the agenda is the programmer's templates ...
16:32 owen: how's that coming?
16:33 owen Pretty well.
16:33 The only things left to do are some sections that I'm not very familiar with: serials and authorities
16:33 kados great
16:33 owen Then I'll need to do another synch with the default template to catch up
16:33 thd kados: Sept. is an amorphous deadline considering the coordination required.
16:34 kados thd: well ... let's see how it goes ;-)
16:34 owen Right now I've just been comitting to HEAD. I don't know how all the programmers feel about switching over to these right away.
16:34 kados thd: I'll have my content written before that ;-)
16:34 shaun my deadline for purely design will be 01/09 - speaking of which: would owen, slef or another designer be able to check over my coding when it's going?
16:34 kados owen: right ... I'd say that's best
16:34 shaun: I'd like to look ;-)
16:35 thd shaun: what aspect of your coding?
16:36 shaun excellent, just to make sure it's all robust, i am known to miss things that the w3c thingy hasn't caught either
16:36 xhtml and css, plus how it all complies to WCAG
16:38 thd shaun: I have experience forcing xhtml compliance for some very old browsers.
16:38 rach sorry someone asked about opencms?  I've had a play but wouldn't say I'd used it
16:38 shaun russ says it's a requirement from the katipo end; opencms over mambo
16:40 rach yep   - do I need to explain that again?
16:40 shaun i probably missed it the first time, sorry
16:41 rach ok - we don't have anything particularly against mambo, I'm sure it's a fine piece of software, but we've identified open CMS as a good candidate for doing large info websites - which is something we're into, and wanting to find a good product for
16:41 we don
16:41 so what we want to *get* out of  this project other than a fab new koha site
16:42 is something we can do a proper test of open cms with
16:42 if it's shite of course we'll dump it :-)
16:43 thd rach: I had assumed that you had already proved its merit :)
16:43 shaun same here :)
16:43 rach we've tested it not in real life - and think it's good
16:43 but we need a real site, with lots of contributers to really put it through it's paces
16:44 it's pretty hard to test a cms when the site isn't "real" for want of a better way of putting it
16:44 chris its in use in huge organisations all over the place so we arent worried about it being up to the job
16:44 more "do we really like it"
16:44 and you cant learn that without using it
16:44 rach yep
16:45 chris and with the pain i went thru to install java sdk, and tomcat to get it running
16:45 you better like it :-)
16:45 shaun kados and i have plenty of mambo running big stuff - and i've got this thing against java as well... grr...
16:45 rach right - that's why mambo is less interesting
16:46 chris sure we have played with mambo before
16:46 thd chris: you chose the Java CMS :)
16:46 rach and we might have a different definition of "big" sites?
16:46 shaun quite probably... kados, what's big? :-)
16:46 rach we're looking at thousands of pages, up to 50 editors etc
16:48 chris and thats just one of them
16:48 rach if it's rubbish we'll change it, all we're wanting is that we give it a go see if it's good
16:48 you never know you might love it :-)
16:49 shaun how does it work for dynamic content like blogs and news?
16:50 thd rach: very big might be 10s of thousands of editors and tens of millions of pages.  I know a CMS that does that but many do not like its resource consumption for that scale.
16:50 rach sure
16:51 http://www.opencms.org/opencms/en/
16:53 all their reference sites have news etc, so I'm pretty sure it has all that
16:53 shaun kados: this is breaking up a bit, so how about closing the meeting or going back to one of the flagged topics?
16:53 rach http://www.opencms.org/opencms[…]pport/tour/5.html
16:53 sorry I thought it had closed
16:54 I see russ is runing off to an in person meeting
16:54 thd I am still uncler about the status of programmer templates.
16:54 What is the name of that template set?
16:55 shaun i don't understand what's happening with templates at all atm - including the default ones in 2.4
16:55 owen 'prog', and it's only in HEAD
16:55 thd I have not looked for them in CVS.
16:55 owen: Would these be the templates where nothing is ever broken :)
16:56 owen well, right now they're where everything is always broken
16:56 shaun heh
16:56 owen Paul's been roughing up the sandbox a bit ;)
16:56 thd owen: what is the prognosis for usability
16:57 owen the programmer's templates are not designed for usability
16:57 They're designed for programmers and template-writers only
16:58 thd owen: sorry, poorly worded.  Do they expose all variables and put them some place now?
16:58 owen That's part of the goal
16:58 But probably not achieved in this first draft
16:59 thd owen: I am assuming I understand their purpose, maybe I am missing something.
16:59 owen: what is(are) the other part(s) of the goal?
17:00 rach and i thought plainer templates would be easier to work with - particularly for testing and adding in new stuff
17:00 owen the primary goal of the programmer's templates is to provide the programmers a bare-bones framework with which to add and modify features
17:00 The stripped-down nature of the templates will hopefully make it easier for custom template-writers to discern what is new functionality when updating their templates
17:01 thd owen: which requires exposing all variables, does it not?
17:01 owen With no layout or styling, the programmer templates can be a blank canvas for new templates
17:02 thd: I said that.  I only qualified it by saying that that goal has probably not been fully achieved in this first draft
17:02 slef timezones, life
17:03 owen Gotta run everyone!
17:03 shaun owen: for when the designer has the mind power to go through hundreds of template files and add classes and semantics ;-)
17:03 slef shaun: I'd like to look at it.
17:03 shaun http://dev.shaunevans.co.uk/koha/kohaconcept.png - wdyt?
17:04 slef shaun: I meant the end. Not mad about round-rects everywhere or "open source" but generally good. Looks like it will be "fun" to code to fit all window sizes and shapes.
17:05 shaun: more power to your elbow.
17:05 thd kados: what happened with your unexpected z39.50 results?
17:06 slef Can it be called "Developer" rather than "koha Sourceforge homepage"? Sourceforge is someone else's brand name, not recognisable and not koha's homepage (and paul posted about moving).
17:07 rach sorry 10am here, work calls
17:08 shaun i would suggest "developer" is far too general, especially considering this is an open source project, and the sourceforge site is also currently used for downloads
17:09 slef Maybe we need >1 links to things there?
17:09 "download" has its own link anyway
17:10 thd Is the developer wiki intended to be absorbed into the new koha.org?
17:11 shaun i don't think so, looking at the difference in content structure
17:12 thd I had thought that part of the motivation was to coordinate content struture in a unified way.
17:14 shaun: thus making it easier to find things.
17:16 rach our first priority was to get a good "sales tool" together
17:17 shaun this is just my opinion, so feel free to steamroller it if you object to it:
17:17 rach the portal is to link to all the other stuff
17:17 shaun i think that a very large proportion of the wiki could be removed altogether, and made into the community/portal site
17:18 the doco parts of it could be moved over to www.kohadocs.org
17:18 and the links are on the homepage as "quick links"
17:20 really, i would suggest making a split between www.koha.org, the product, business, "community gateway" site; and the community/portal site, which is very much by developers, for developers or people very closely involved with the project
17:23 thd shaun: There is certainly a content overlap between parts of the wiki and koha.org site map.  Presently, the wiki is serving as a significant extension of the portal for essentially portal purposes such as direction to this channel.
17:25 shaun direction to this channel itself is a bit of a grey area - it also comes under "free support"
17:26 thd should be listed multiply of course.
17:30 kados: are you still around?
17:43 shaun: something left out of the spelling standard consideration is including important document terms and their spelling alternates in a meta keywords header.
17:46 shaun: so US librarians searching for catalog etc. in Google can find the page where it is spelt catalogue.
17:47 shaun yep, i've got that considered - i would like to see how opencms manages pages, because it might do generation of keywords, descriptions, rss links et a;
17:49 rach back briefly
17:50 just a bit of an odd note perhaps - I have a some ambivilance about pointing the general public to this chanel - and about giving the impression this is a 24hr helpdesk
17:51 it really isn't a 24 hr help desk - unless we actually get a roster going or something, and for newbie questions the mailing list is a much better vehicle
17:51 shaun i was thinking about that earlier - has it ever been considered to have more than one channel?
17:51 rach IMO this is like where we "work"
17:52 yep - we have had more chanels, we had a koha-support for a while, but it wasn't used
17:52 shaun newbies are, in my experience, generally unwilling to send to mailing lists, i'm not sure why
17:53 rach most of us here have jobs (or things to do for sig portions of the day :-) so I'm not sure that we could cope with a big influx of people
17:53 yep - I get a lot of direct questions by mail, and if I can't answer them I direct them to the mailing list - or if they ask more than a couple of questions basically
17:54 thd rach: If you had a big influx of people, that should cure itself.
17:54 rach so having a clear "ask your questions here" e=mail addy is IMO better than getting people on the chanel
17:54 well thd, you've been someone who's spending a good deal of time on the channel actually talking, but that's pretty unusual
17:55 we'll just get the actual developers using another chanel I gues
17:55 if you think of our big meetings, having more than about 6 people actually trying to converse is just a nightmare
17:56 thd rach: I have tried to help some of the newest Koha experimenters as a very useful learning exercise myself.
17:56 rach we have several hundred people on the mailing list, we wouldn't want them all to show up :-)
17:56 absoloutely - I think we all do that
17:57 I'm just cautioning against pushing IRC as *the* place to get help etc - which is why it isn't plastered all over the place now
17:58 thd rach: The koha list seems to have fewer links to it than the IRC channel.
17:59 rach on the koha site itself, the mailing list link is on every page
17:59 once you get into the developer stuff on the wiki etc, I would imagine the IRC starts to pop up more?
18:00 thd rach: I had gone to the sourceforge site more often so that directed me to the wiki, which looked more current than koha.org
18:00 kados rach: I'd like to have a koha-lobby
18:00 rach nice idea
18:01 thd kados: what is the topic of koha-lobby?
18:01 kados and a link from the main Koha page to a http://cgiirc.sourceforge.net/ IRC client
18:01 rach we have one for our katipo chanel - so #katipo is invite only
18:01 kados so they don't have to download anything ... they can just start talking
18:01 rach (you might not want to go that far :-)
18:02 thd kados: you mean #koha-lobby?
18:02 kados thd: yep
18:03 shaun and then i suppose the cgi-irc points at the lobby, not at #koha
18:05 kados shaun: exactly
18:05 thd rach: If you wish to discourage common user questions on #koha then you should post direction to #koha-lobby and I will try to be sure the FAQ is progressively more complete.
18:06 Does opencms have a FAQ module?
18:06 shaun thd: yes
18:07 thd what prevents the FAQ module from being used as a spam board?
18:08 shaun i reckon there will be a large number of people dropping by and then realising they didn't want to be there, and possibly newbies in need of a good LARTing or who just haven't read the site properly
18:09 it's read-only to all but the editor (or did i interpret the question wrong?)
18:10 thd shaun: You had it right.  I have seen FAQs that are also structured wikis.  Spam has now become a problem for those.
18:11 rach thd - I just don't want to loose the good working that we get done here in a barage of new people/questions etc, so your suggestions seem good to me
18:12 shaun ah - so then they're "questions asked on the fly to annoy people" rather than "frequently asked questions"...
18:12 rach :-)
18:12 shaun would you log both channels?
18:12 kados shaun: :-)
18:13 rach: eating up your bandwidth, etc. ;-)
18:13 rach well luckily irc isn't bandwidth intensive
18:13 so not such a big issue
18:13 thd If only there were 20 customers for you to have such a problem ;)
18:14 rach I guess the difference between having like an "office" where you do work, which is what I think of #koha now
18:14 and a help desk
18:14 shaun how about a permanent topic then, like something seen on the big irc networks: "Koha Lobby: For support, ask away and please be patient for a reply | Please keep on topic"
18:15 rach yep sounds fine - or if no ones here go join the mailing list and ask there :-)
18:15 thd you could experiment with an answerbot.  Do those ever work?
18:15 kados shaun: I'd like to think of koha-lobby of a place where folks can just ask questions about Koha ... not really a 'support desk' ... more of a sales desk
18:15 rach yeah we have one of those
18:15 in #katipo
18:16 thd rach: does it work well?
18:16 rach they are quite good - you need to teach them the answers
18:16 we use it mostly for phone numbers :-)
18:16 and contacts
18:16 kados it's in a directory somewhere around here
18:16 rach so it's good at "who is kados?"
18:16 shaun but surely it would be better to make those FAQs rather than making the answers?
18:17 rach and it would answer "Kados is Josua from liblime contact on blah blah"
18:17 being IRC needs to be a one sentance/line questions
18:17 would be stylish to have the same q & a in both media
18:18 so that whichever you were more comfortable with you could use
18:18 and I would think you'd get more questions from IRC - so you might get them started from there, and then add them to the FAQ
18:19 thd shaun: I guess that my open FAQ application idea is lacking something but where I have them they never look used except perhaps recently with spam from bots.
18:19 shaun how about, for cgi-irc, we have an explanatory page before explaining some rules and the purpose of the channel? we can assume that most newbies will use that method rather than using a local chat client, so that targets the right people in the right way
18:23 i'm very interested to know what goes on in #katipo :-)
18:24 rach we talk about work
18:24 thd I actually failed to get the CGI-IRC application working on Safari, where it had opened by default.  I guess that is Apples problem and mine to allow Apple to have dictated the default browser so poorly.
18:24 shaun i mean... why you need an answerbot
18:24 rach oh because it knows all our phone numbers :-)
18:24 and all our client phone numbers
18:25 and various other stuff - URLs for things etc
18:25 shaun heh, the answerbot knows
18:25 rach ah and it spells things for us
18:25 and does maths
18:25 shaun i want one
18:26 rach we have 3 bots - ib (info bot), tb (time bot), marvin the door bot
18:26 shaun what does marvin do?
18:26 rach invites people in from the lobby
18:27 shaun and tb?
18:27 rach oh and ib keeps track of people
18:27 so you can ask it where someone is, and it brings up when they last spoke, what they said etc
18:27 um tb is a timebot, it logs the channel, so like logbot
18:28 but also if you haven't said anything for a while, it asks you what you've been up to, and you can querry it later to help you fill in your timesheet
18:29 is useful for freelancing - to keep track of your hours
18:32 thd kohabot: where is kados?
18:35 shaun they're both silent, so maybe that's trying to tell us something.....
18:37 thd kohabot has been taking lessons from marvin the door bot
18:38 rach we don't have a kohabot
18:38 we have a logbot
18:38 but that only logs
18:38 shaun logbot: where is kohabot?
18:38 :-)
18:44 or.... rach: where is logbot?
18:54 kados: that's September 1st, right?
18:58 kados shaun: yep ;-)
18:58 shaun: did I say Aug?
18:59 shaun kados: yes
18:59 kados oops ... feel free to correct me on-list ;-)
18:59 I'm a bit spacey today
19:01 I'm so spacey that I killed the ssh daemon on one of my servers in seattle ... locking myself out ;-)
19:01 had to call tech support to have them power cycle the machine ;-)
19:01 shaun ouch, i've done that before
19:01 kados I was trying to kill a stray ssh session
19:02 and read the pids wrong ;-)
19:02 that's when you know it's time to call it a night
19:02 hehe
19:02 it'd be interesting to track how many you get
19:03 to see how many people are actually following the list ;-)
19:04 shaun 11 so far
19:07 wait... 8, if you take away Ben, my gf and my dad..... it'll be more interesting this time tomorrow
19:08 have we ever had a slashdotting before?
19:11 kados once I think
19:11 back with the 1.x series
19:21 rach shaun - logbot is on the channel - you can see it in the list
19:21 shaun :-)
19:25 kados it lives in chris's screen session most likely ;-)
19:38 shaun i'm off, i've been waiting for this sleep for 20 hours.... oh yeah
19:38 night all
19:44 kados hehe
20:08 thd kados: ping
20:17 logbot: goodnight
03:02 osmoze hello world !)
03:03 paul Hello le 82
03:03 osmoze ^^
03:46 indradg shaun, hi.... slept well? :)
03:47 the ungodly hours of Koha meets mess it up for me everytime ;)
03:48 shaun indradg: nope, next door are drilling something
03:48 indradg argh!
03:50 shaun sometimes my family ponder over why i can use all my time on open source, but get really annoyed when woken up...
04:22 hdl hi indradg.
04:22 how are you ?
04:23 I have been told that you designed koha Live-CD.
04:23 Which passwords did you use for root and kohaadmin ?
06:50 osmoze paul ?
06:51 paul yep
06:52 osmoze hum...j ai un petit probleme avec css lors de l affichage detailler MARC dans le items
06:52 les tableau sont fous ^^
06:52 j ai regarder sur tes opacs, et pareils
06:53 et je n arrive pas a trouver :(
06:54 en fait dans la feuille, si dans div.tabbloc je commente le position, alors ca marche ( en bas de page mais ca marche
06:54 )
06:55 paul et c'est quoi la question ?
06:56 osmoze et bien comment faire pour pouvoir le mettre a niveau mais ayant un tableau juste ^^
06:57 il y a que absolute pour position qui met le tableau a la bonne place mais apres les donnees sont decalés
06:57 et appremment sur tous les opac :(
06:57 paul (pas bien compris la question...)
06:57 (une URL peut être puorrait m'aider ?)
06:57 osmoze vi
06:57 je prepare l erreur :)
09:49 paul hi owen, you're 1st of is joshua hidden ?
09:49 owen I'm sure kados is lurking out there somewhere
10:00 paul hi joshua.
10:00 seems that new DB structure works quite good when MARC=ON
10:01 add / modif of bilbio & items
10:01 remains : deleting & MARC=OFF
10:01 for instance, i'm trying to run zebra ;-)
10:09 thd paul: what are you doing with MARCXML?
10:09 paul hi thd
10:09 thd hello paul
10:09 paul i store the MARC record in both iso2709 & XML form in koha DB
10:09 it's useful when debugging.
10:10 not sure it will remain when koha 3.0 reaches the door ;-)
10:10 but it's mandatory if you want to play with head for instance...
10:10 kados paul: great!
10:10 paul: you've been very busy ;-)
10:11 paul not so much. I really know perfectly Biblio.pm as i'm the author & i had an exact idea of where I wanted to go.
10:11 thd paul: which will be the form used in 3.0?
10:11 paul what is the best imho, is that Biblio.pm should be strenghned with new DB structure
10:12 thd : it's exactly the same in fact.
10:12 MARCXML transforms an iso2709 record into XML, and XML2marc does the opposite.
10:12 I think we will continue to work with MARC, but not 100% sure.
10:13 (I mean here only for INTERNAL storing. We can import XML as well as iso2709 with ed summer great tools !)
10:13 (same for export)
10:14 thd paul: what is the advantage for using XML over MARC::Record, as you already well familiar with MARC::Record?
10:14 paul while developping Koha, none for the code, BIG for debugging.
10:15 as iso2709 is almost unreadable (almost like binray)
10:15 so, it's useful to have both forms to be able to use the one you need depending on what you want to do !
10:17 kados paul: I was thinking that we could move the koha table to XML ...
10:17 paul: so that non-marc libraries could still use Zebra
10:17 paul: without having to deal with marc
10:17 thd paul: Do you not have the same benefit if you compare a code problem to the original MARC record in text form as you do with the record in XML?
10:18 paul thd : yes
10:19 kados : why not, but we still would have the problem of defining the structure of the datas. and imho, we would arrive almost where we already are after a long trip ;-)
10:19 kados :-)
10:19 but ... it would add greater flexibility for the fields if we could do XML
10:19 for instance, we could do free-text queries
10:20 and Koha would be better than any other ILS out there ;-)
10:22 thd kados: Do you mean free text queries on the koha tables?
10:23 or rather information now held in the Koha tables?
10:25 kados thd: I mean free text queries on full-text XML records
10:25 thd: if a library had them
10:31 thd kados: do you mean queries on XML records that did not originate from MARC?
10:32 kados thd: yes
10:34 thd kados: Can Zebra store and query arbitrary XML records on a fielded basis?
10:34 kados thd: yep
10:35 paul YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS....
10:35 kados what's up paul ... solve the universal question? ;-)
10:35 paul I made my 1st succesfull koha => zebra => search !!!
10:35 kados great!
10:35 that's very exciting
10:35 whoohoo!
10:36 thd horaay.
10:36 paul quite strange to HAVE to run zebraidx IN the directory where your zebra.cfg is...
10:36 kados hehe ... yea I thought so too
10:36 of course you can specify where the config is with '-c' I think (don't quote me though ;-))
10:37 paul don't seems to work if you are in a different directory.
10:37 i tried but without success...
10:40 thd well, can Zebra be used to query an arbitrary XML format where 'title' is in one record, 245 etc. used in another, something else used in another in one Zebra database for the same query?
10:41 kados thd: I've got an NCIP meeting to attend
10:42 thd: if you want some more info about zebra check out indexdata.dk/zebra
10:42 thd: we can chat later tonight about it if you like
10:42 thd kados: when tonight?
10:42 paul stupid sourceforge...
10:42 kados paul: yes! for me too!
10:42 paul A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
10:42 recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:
10:42    550-SPAM: This message appears to be spam (5.3 points).
10:42 it was just my commit !!!
10:43 kados paul: grrr!
10:43 that's absurd!
10:43 paul you got it too ?
10:43 kados no
10:43 not that
10:43 paul why 'yes for me too' ?
10:43 you mean you played successfully with head ?
10:43 kados it's been very very slow and down quite a bit over the last few days
10:43 no ... I tried committing some things yesterday
10:44 and couldn't get them through
10:44 paul: I must go now ... maybe we can chat tomorrow about your schedule so I know when to get ahold of you if I need to
10:45 thd kados: when does testing Savannah start?
10:45 paul ok, will be here
10:45 thd kados: when will you be available tonight?
10:50 paul: As, many things need to be changed for 3.0, do you have any thought about supporting the possible eventual use of UNIMARC and MARC21 in the same Koha installation?
10:51 paul no, it's not a priority for me.
10:51 thd paul: I did not mean it as a priority.
10:54 paul: I meant to ask if you would think about how support for that might be built eventually by using an extra variable.
10:55 paul: not to build it now or for 3.0 but to think about the possibility for distant version X.X.
11:01 paul: Do you think that the thought is merely crazy, and therefore, unworthy of even thinking about an eventual possibility.
11:01 ?
11:02 paul the question I immediatly see is : can I do this. than answer is no
11:02 (at least for instance)
11:02 I have no opinion otherwise.
11:05 thd paul: what I mean in the simplest respect for a more flexible installation is a variable that controls whether Koha is using MARC 21, UNIMARC, some other MARC, non-MARC, whatever.
11:07 paul: There is such a variable now but it does not rebuild the DB to use another format.  It would be nice if rebuilding the DB to use another format were not necessary in the way that one can change templates or CSS.  I know the issue different from templates or CSS.
11:09 s/different/is different/
11:12 paul: If Koha could change MARC formats with a mere variable, then it would be much easier to eventually support my fantasy of multi-format Koha in some distant never never land :)
11:16 paul: In that never never land, the a particular record flavour is preferred but not completely required.  Copy cataloguing French books would be easier in the MARC 21 world and copy cataloguing English books would be easier in the UNIMARC world.
11:18 paul: I will stop wasting your attention now. :)
11:18 paul anyway, it's 6PM here, so i'm on my desktop for a few minuts only :-D
11:19 thd paul: I just hate systems that are incompatible by design.  The various MARCs for example. :)
11:20 paul & i think i'll never understand why UNIMARC & MARC21 are so incompatibles !
11:20 probably a frenchie that said "hey, guy, look, I made something myself, better than those stupid americans"
11:21 thd paul: It is mostly better for many aspects, in my opinion.
11:21 paul which one ? unimarc or marc21 ?
11:21 thd paul: UNIMARC
11:22 paul I know french librarians that thinks marc21 is better than unimarc for many aspects !!!
11:22 thd paul: It had the advantage of being designed later.
11:22 paul (but dunno which)
11:23 thd paul: MARC 21 is more complete for some information.
11:25 paul: UNIMARC provides $3 for fields that MARC leaves a system to figure out how best to implement.  That is a difficulty for authorities.
11:29 paul: There are business interests prefer incompatibilities.  Incompatibilities are a problem for a competitor so you can have your own closed market.
11:32 paul: The commercial companies that built the subway system in New York City each used a different track width to ensure that they would never be combined.  They were combined anyways.  The combined system merely became more expensive to operate than it would have been if they had used only one track width originally.

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