[Evergreen-general] Planning the next EG Offline Interface

[Terran McCanna]

My initial thoughts on a separate app:

Advantages:
 - A lot of staff tend to be confused by the concept of an offline web app
and find it easier to understand an installed program.
 - It would get around the need to load pages into cache before using it
for the first time, which staff don't usually understand.
 - It could potentially be installed from a flash drive to a computer that
is not connected to the internet.

Disadvantages:
 - Staff would need to install it and do upgrades on every machine.
 - It would be more difficult to locally customize and it would create a
separate product for the developers to maintain.

Questions:
 - How would it handle the workstation name? Would staff need to set it up
at first use? (Note that it would be useful for it to have a workstation
name that indicated that the offline app was used for each transaction so
we could identify offline transactions in reports/logs.)
 - Would the staff client still be able to tell if there were pending
offline transactions to upload? (Note that it would be nice to see this
alert once logged into the staff client as well as on the login page.)
 - Would this resolve the problem of not being able to download large
patron block lists? (PINES hasn't been able to download block lists at all
since moving to the web client.)




Terran McCanna, PINES Program Manager
------------------------------

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On Fri, Mar 11, 2022 at 10:28 AM Bill Erickson via Evergreen-general <
evergreen-general at list.evergreen-ils.org> wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I'm thinking of turning my attention to porting the Evergreen Offline
> interface as we continue our march away from AngularJS.  Unlike other
> interfaces, where the end goal is pretty straightforward -- just migrate it
> to Angular -- I think the Offline UI would benefit from some discussion.
>
> I've long been a proponent of not requiring external software to use the
> browser client.  Once an EG server is up, just open your browser, and
> you're good to go.
>
> Hatch is obviously external software, but I don't consider it a
> requirement to use the client.  It smooths over some aspects of the
> workflow, but it does not provide functionality that can only be done with
> Hatch.
>
> However, I have also heard some comments in IRC to the effect that having
> a purely web-based offline interface may be causing some consternation /
> complications.   I don't recall the context or the specific concerns, only
> the seed stuck in my mind.
>
> Because of these conflicting ideas, I thought it best to get some feedback.
>
> Here I propose two options to consider that I think cover the extreme ends
> of the spectrum.  There may be middle ground or other options entirely.
>
> 1. Create a progress web app in Angular that performs exactly as the
> AngularJS version.  There will be slight style variations and some
> differences to how the offline code is managed (Angular has a nice set of
> tools for progress web apps) as with the other Angular pages, but it would
> essentially be a direct port.
>
> 2. Create a standalone application that's just an offline interface.  It
> would be a separate program you run on your PC.  Because I don't like
> showing up empty handed, I've created a proof of concept JavaFX app at
> https://github.com/berick/eg-offline-jfx complete with screen shots.  (I
> can explain the choice of JavaFX later as needed).
>
> Both have pluses and minuses.  Before we get too into the weeds, though,
> I'm curious if there is an obvious direction people feel we should take,
> specific technology notwithstanding.  (Also, by all means, let's get into
> the weeds :)
>
> I welcome your questions and feedback!
>
> -b
>
>
>
>
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