Koha-US SIG - Web Dev Special Interet Group, 11 Jun 2020

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From YouTube: Web Development Special Interest Group - 6/11/2020

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Chat logs:
00:13:28 Lisette: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=25698
00:15:50 Lisette: https://yeti.esilibrary.com/dev/public/techspecs/curbside.pdf

A

Good morning, everyone welcome to the dev special-interest group.

A

Do we have an agenda for today? Sunny study have things they want to talk about concerns, questions, web development problems.

A

I have a little JavaScript I wrote related to curbside pickup, which I know many libraries are starting to do so. Maybe I'll just show that off real quick, that's okay,.

A

So I just that I used the notes field that is available on the hold screen. I sort of just took that over so libraries can append a bunch of information to their hold slips about.

A

Potential curbside pickup holds so: let's take a look here. I'll place a hold and I get this little screen now, which I have to fill out, and some libraries have added more different or less information than what you see here, things about where they can go pick it up what vehicle they may be arriving in this one's just morning and afternoon, but I've also done it in 15-minute blocks. So people could actually pick those.

A

It actually also does check to make sure that there is an item available before this thing pops up. So if all items are checked out, you can't do this little thing so and then, like I, said this prints to your hold slip, so the staff can see what's going on and where to take that curbside to so. That's that.

A

B

So it was that kind of shirt that yesterday as well I'm wondering if there's any like adjusted strategy for things coming from other libraries. So, like the what you just showed, the patron is saying I plan on picking it up in the afternoon of this certain day. But what about items where they don't know and it's gonna be available for pickup until we tell them.

A

That's available.

B

For pickup yeah.

A

That's a tricky part with that, because III did the simple check to see if it's, if there's anything on loan or not if anything's checked, if there is a item not checked out, but as far as sort of the rest of the possibilities you have to go through to see, if there's, if you can actually get that hold, there's a lot that Koha does right there.

A

So it's hard to try to recreate most parts of that with jQuery, so yeah, it's it's a it's a simple feature that works for some smaller libraries, I, think, bigger and consortiums. It could be not a helpful feature.

B

Yeah I could see it being like it would have worked for us last month when we were doing local holds, but now that we've fired up the courier again yeah not as useful but I like it.

A

I, don't see how it could make it work for sure. A library system like yours, too much too many circles and things going on.

C

Yeah right now we're using like a third party like appointment, booking system that we send out the link in our notices. I did see someone posted on our bugzilla de evergreen added a feature that doesn't like afterwards or is in the process of adding a future, and they were like hey. Maybe Co ha wants to do this to where it would do it like. Let them pick a time after the item is available, I, don't think anyone's like taking it up. Cuz, it's gonna be a lot of work. I think people would really like it.

C

You know yesterday, yeah.

A

Right, you know any of the details of what it does. Does it so once an item is available, it notifies the patron and then they schedule the time or something like I.

C

Think so and I think that the Evergreen one is also still like. They said that they're working on it but don't have it functional. Yet let me see.

C

So that's the bug, which is basically just a link to the Evergreen.

C

Expect it to be available in June.

C

Patrons can select items in the catalog place, holds, arrange a pickup time and notify the library on arrival and there will be I thought. I saw a link to kind of pictures of how it would work, but now I'm not seeing that I might have done some extra googling to find that.

C

C

Yeah now I'm only seeing the I don't know I think I know where I found it.

C

Yeah I found it. It looks like on there. Let's see here's the sponsoring library that just kind of outlines how they're gonna be doing it in Evergreen.

C

So, like librarian captures the whole dial s notify his patrons items, are ready for pickup and prompts to select to pickup time patrons with phone notifications can have set point staff set appointments, Manderly.

C

Patrons, let's pick up timeful drop-down menu on dedicated UI, LinkedIn email and from my account for staff. There's another email sent by.

C

The system confirming time and providing batch code with link for slot check-in when the patron eyes in the car they check-in link on like an email to alert the librarian they've arrived or calls them who arrives them by proxy.

C

Also, one of the things is they have like a batch code, which I know is something kind of similar to what ed was asking about like last month. I think we were talking about it, we're in a meeting where you can could like batch check out all items that are waiting on hold for that patron. Instead of having to check out each of them individually, you could just say, like here's, the stack, there's, eight books, there's eight books waiting on hold check out all the holds.

C

A

That's pretty cool yeah.

C

And we talked about that bug a little bit yesterday at the general meeting interest like hey if you're interested in this.

A

Did you feel like there was much interest.

C

We got like one person or two people who commented in the meeting. Oh yeah, George, Covenant, Church commented and I had commented already. People seem to think like yeah. That's a good idea in the meeting like I saw people nodding along like yeah.

B

Yeah, it looks like a pretty big development.

D

B

Implement some.

B

A

Would be worried that, and by the time it is, it's would not be.

A

C

Although we don't know how long you know, we're gonna need to be doing.

C

Different things so I think we're going to keep doing curbside after.

C

Just as an option, people really like it so we'll probably keep having it available, but.

C

Yeah I think that probably in Evergreen, it looks like they had a sponsor in library, who's willing to just pay for the whole thing right.

A

C

A

So, on the same sort of topic of our sort of weird new normal workflows in libraries, do we have anything else that would be useful web development, wise.

A

Bugs that should be filed or jQuery that could be written to help.

C

I know you place some jQuery in our system to make the whole place hold button instead say check for hold availability right.

A

C

Turns out we're gonna keep on even once things are back open because it turns out a bunch of the school libraries had always wished. It had said that, and until we brought it up, didn't think to bring it up to us and so and I've told a couple. Other libraries I think someone else in a in the system's meeting wanted that code on Tuesday.

A

Were you able to pull it out, yeah.

C

C

And I do wonder we do have one thing that I think I report it to you guys, which I guess was yeah I probably did and that's when we got the button where, if, if they can't place holds because of the transfer, it says place, hold check for hold availability and then at a point, I, don't remember if it's there or when they try actually placing the hold instead of not placing the hole or instead of placing the hold or telling them I can't it just doesn't place the hold and bumps them back to the My Account screen.

A

When they try to place a hold, that requires a transfer and the.

C

Transfers are turned off between a.

A

C

And that branch or on the items branch.

C

Which this is not super helpful we've had a couple patrons who thought they placed olds and called us, even though it said check for hold availability, and they never got confirmation. We have like one patron in particular, who checks his holds very regularly and.

C

Yeah gets mad at us if we put purchase suggestions on hold for him when we come in and also gets mad. If we don't.

C

So he's like oh he's, got something he's complaining about and he he called and was like it didn't place a hold and it didn't tell me: I couldn't place a hold. It was pretty upset about that.

C

Well, that's why we have the check for both availability, but we've also had a couple patrons who thought the hold it place and then we're confused when it didn't never come in for them.

A

So it sounds like maybe something as simple as some extra wording or something can help manage expectations. There yeah.

C

Maybe- and some of that was happening before we figured out that we needed to add the change, the button to say, please hold availability, we've gotten less complaints since then, but yeah, maybe changing the word and would be good there or because I think it happens. When you try to actually go place. The hold like after you can set like the hold date, starting in the future or whatever I think that that's the point at which it does it. So it looks very similar to when you place a hold.

C

Maybe we should change that button where it says place hold to also be check, hold availability.

C

So then, if it doesn't place, we can at least say that the button said check, hold availability, but then that might also confuse patrons like do. I have to press more buttons to make the hold stick. I.

D

Notice in our system, when you're placing a hold there's, there is a little button that says confirm hold, but it's also white could something perhaps be done with the color of the button to call more attention to the fact that you have to hit that confirm. Hold yeah.

A

Definitely you could, we could easily add some some CSS styling to that button and make it stand out much more change, the color of the background or the color of the the text in the foreground. Yeah.

A

That's pretty easy.

A

um Heather, if you submit a ticket I would be glad to to do that, for you yeah.

D

I'll I'll take a look at the design and get a ticket in, because I think that when we finally do open up again to have research appointments, our users are pretty. Actually our users use the cart function more, but we're trying to sell everybody on the hold functions to so calling more attention to the hold buttons I think would help so yeah. Thank you.

D

A

Anything else, curbside, related or or even just generally web development related I know. In our our very first meeting we talked about several different bugs I wrote down. Some of those I haven't got a time to look at many, but Lisa I did supply a patch four to five one: zero zero to.

A

Be able to add content to the top of the self registration form.

C

Great I will try to sign that off today. I, don't know how I missed that it was put in need sign-off, so oh yeah I'll try to get to that today in between meetings. Thank you.

B

C

Remember us, this is one of the bugs we talked about or if there's even a bug number, but a very similar bug that does pretty much the same thing, but for the purchase, suggestions form would be nice. Okay,.

A

That that sounds like an easy copy of what I already did so yeah.

C

Cuz, what we're talking about doing right now, we haven't actually turned it on yet, but I have a bunch of jQuery in our Oh pack. That based on which library you're logged in at will change some of the text at the top of the page. But it adds a lot of jQuery to be able to do it for each because each library that wants to actually use the person purchase existence. The way I have it set up has to have at least a couple lines of code to make. It show up.

A

With the self registration one I put it in the news feature: what's nice about that, is you get to? You can identify your library and yeah. This is a content for each branch, yeah.

C

And that'll be exactly what we want for the purchase suggestions for them too. So.

A

I'll uh I'll search around a little bit to see if there is a bug now, if we can find one, it sounds like a pretty easy one to get out there. Yeah.

C

I'd be surprised if I hadn't, just because I've put in a bunch of purchase suggestions, but it doesn't look like I have so, but maybe there's already one out there.

E

We upgraded last night and Lucas. You had done some jQuery for us a long time ago, where it would show when you're logged in it would show only the patrons first name rather than the holding on.

A

The on the OPAC routes at the top bar there, okay.

E

Right right now, that's not working but I. Don't know if there's a bug yet, but it seems like it would be a nice system preference to be able to say you know, show the patrons full name or just show the patron first name. It takes a lot of RAM to show my particular name, because it's very long and so most sites. It seems like you just generally see you know your first name in your login. You don't see your entire name out so.

A

Yeah, okay can file that bug. That sounds like something not too hard.

A

Also, if your jQuery is broken, feel free to submit a ticket, I think might have been some small structural changes to the HTML up there so could have broke that.

E

Know somebody recently I think on the partners. Listserv brought up like having the ability to use a an address, lookup service, so you would be getting the postal address and all the correct information right.

A

E

I'm sure that would be a very big undertaking, but that would be a very nice functionality. Yeah.

A

I, don't know if you've also heard Kyle is working on a plug-in right now to be able to take the back of your driver's license, which all of them have a small bar code that has all the information front of the driver's license and scanning that and populating those fields. With that information.

E

A

To do sort of address verification.

E

That would be great on our staff side.

E

One thing we do, though, is when we're open in a normal situation, all of our patrons go to a computer and use the self registration form and fill out their own data, and then they come over to the desk and we complete their patron category, and you know some other stuff and give them additional information, and right now, I've got some jQuery in there that I got from Monterey public and it's formats everything the way we want, so that you know it's always got a capital for the first letter of your name, and you know it takes just two letters for the state and things like that and that works for us, but it would be nice if it wasn't this huge long block of code that usually when I upgrade it summer goes fun with it now to figure out.

E

What's the problem.

A

Right and although it can break from upgrade to upgrade the using jQuery to sort of control, what goes into your forms there is it works pretty? Well, you can stop it from putting in like alphabetical characters. If it's a fun, you can even get it to. You know, make the phone number break up the way you want. If you want.

D

This yeah there's.

A

Three numbers stuff like that.

A

Does anybody else have thoughts, or should we stop the recording now I.

A

Guess that's a no I'll take that as an alcohol stop it.