Koha Newsletter: Volume 1/Issue 12: December 2010

Official Koha Newsletter (ISSN 2153-8328)
Volume 1, Issue 12: December 2010

Table of Contents

 

Koha Developments

RFC Roundup: Searching
by MJ Ray

The following Searching improvement ideas have Requests For Comments listed on the Koha Community Wiki. If you have suggestions you could make about these topics, please add comments to the relevant page by logging in and clicking the “Edit” tab at the top of the page. Alternatively, you could start a discussion on the email list or web forum.

  • Advanced cataloging search RFC
    • This idea would add to the Cataloging search accessible under the “More” menu on the Koha staff side the same advanced search options that you find on the Search > Advanced Search page.
  • Bibliographic searches within acquisitions RFC
    • Upgrading the search within acquisitions to search catalogue, reservoir and Z39.50 sources consistently, without it being a
      choice between them. In a way, this might be like adding “Catalogue” and “Reservoir” to the Z39.50 search sources tickboxes.
  • EAN reading RFC
    • If this happens, scanning a book barcode to result in a correct ISBN search. It looks like this work is currently being done only for
      Solr (see below). Do Zebra users want it too? Are there problems in autodetecting EANs which should be considered?
  • Improvements to Authority Searching
    • Add the ability to search for multiple terms from multiple authorities simultaneously.
  • Improving searches on orders RFC
    • Adding new fields to acquisitions history searches: order date: beginning; end, reception date: beginning; end, library branch,
      vendor, librarian, budget, budget’s authorized value #1, budget’s authorized value #2.
  • Search authorities using keywords from same menu as keyword search RFC
    • Allowing patrons to search authorities using the same drop down list as for keyword searches and showing authorities matches in search results pages as suggested search terms.
  • Storing queries RFC
    • This idea would allow users to save their past searches.
  • Switch to Solr RFC
    • This suggests replacing the small C Zebra indexing server with the larger Java Solr one. It may enable some things to work better,
      at the cost of much memory and adding Java to Koha.

Please, if you have any feedback or encouragement for any of the above, follow the link and add comments, or start a discussion.

SolR developments for Koha
by Claire Hernandez

All this has already been posted on koha-devel list. In order to share with a wider audience our work and our expectancies about a new indexing engine (SolR) for Koha, we thought it would be good to gather all those thoughts here. Thanks to some libraries who are supporting our approach. Read more…

 

Koha Tips & Tricks

Template Editing
by Fridolyn Somers

To edit template files (*.tmpl), we use an HTML editor, from the WTP in Eclipse IDE.

But it’s difficult to follow the template tags which are HTML comments : ““.

In the last version of Eclipse, “Helios”, the syntax coloring of HTML Editor offers for HTML comments a customization of both content and delimiters.

We use this to highlight the comment’s content and have a better view of template tags.

Here’s how it goes:

In Preferences : Web / HTML Files / Editor / Syntax Coloring, choose a background color for “Comment Content”.

An example image:

 

Koha Events

Koha Conference in Kenya
by Bernhard Mugambi

When: 9:00 am – 4:30 pm on December 18, 2010
Where: Gretsa University in Thika
More Info: http://koha-community.org/koha-conference-kenya/

KUDOS Meeting at ALA MW
by David Schuster

When: 6:00 PM- 7:30 PM on Friday January 7th
Where: Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter: PACIFIC ROOM (Room sponsored by Equinox)
More Info: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=130011290393169

 

 

Newsletter edited by Nicole C. Engard, Koha Documentation Manager.

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