[OPEN-ILS-DEV] Firefox Remote XUL and future of StaffClient.

[Mike Rylander]

On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 1:07 PM, Lazar, Alexey Vladimirovich
<alexey.lazar at mnsu.edu> wrote:
>
> On 2013-08-29, at 08:01 , Jason Stephenson <jstephenson at mvlc.org> wrote:
>
>> I am going to be brutally honest, because that is my role in the
>> community. I don't think it is going anywhere until someone says,
>> "Here's $50 000. Do it."
>
> Are you talking about what it would cost to develop and maintain a modern high-quality web-based interface to replace all the functionality currently done in the staff client based on XUL? If so, I think your estimate is probably somewhat conservative. Your honesty is not brutal enough! ;)
>
> Lacking sponsors who are willing to pay now to solve a somewhat hypothetical future problem, another way to approach this issue would be to first get some general agreement that we would like to have something different from a XUL-based client at some point in the future, say 5 years, and start working in that direction. Absent a large upfront investment, but with a common vision, we could still get there in about the same amount of time. The existing client and whatever may be developed to replace it would still have to coexist for a long time for a phased transition to occur. I think the community has some experience with this type of a transition from JSPAC to TTPAC.
>

Actually, the TPAC example is more similar to Jason's statement than
to the "community coming together" ideal.  Equinox built the first
revision TPAC (which accounts for at least 75% of the current
implementation) for one entity, under contract, with the explicit
understanding that it should be possible without too much effort to
generalize it for general Evergreen adoption.  The remaining 20%-25%
was a broad community effort (of which was a significant amount of
"free" Equinox work -- I'll toot our horn any day on this) after we
showed the community how it would be a big change for the better.

I'm not saying that a non-XUL staff interface must be built that way
-- quite to the contrary, I think it would be better in the long run
if the plans were defined and executed (to the degree possible) as a
pure Evergreen community effort -- but I do think we should be clear
and honest about what lessons we, as a community, can claim we've
learned over the years.

To the point of a non-XUL staff interface specifically, though, let's
suppose that we want such a thing (I do!).  There are basically three
Hard(TM) parts:

 1) offline mode (HTML5 storage probably fits the bill here)
 2) printing (browsers are not good at it; xulrunner actually gives us
LOTS more control than HTML-only)
 3) workstation registration (tying a physical instance to an
identifier ... maybe a plugin/extension?)

Aside from those, we need to look at how much of the existing code we
can leverage.  If we were to move to a modern Dojo, we could salvage
(guessing here) probably 50% of the existing staff client interfaces,
by count.  It's too bad that Joe Lewis' hard work was abandoned, but
I'd recommend picking that back up as step one, regardless ... but
it's a big project by itself.

Beyond that, things get very murky in my crystal ball, so that's where
I'll stop on discussing the future for the moment.  Let's make sure we
continue this discussion, though, because we're definitely on the same
page WRT the ideal situation of a community and consensus based effort
to define and create the future.

--miker

>>
>>
>> On 08/28/2013 04:09 PM, Job Diógenes Ribeiro Borges wrote:
>>> I would like to know, if its possible to run StaffClient,
>>> direct from mozilla, using mozilla remote Xul execution?
>>>
>>>
>>> I Read some discussion here abou WebBase staff client:
>>> "[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Staff client software vs. web-based interface
>>> <http://libmail.georgialibraries.org/pipermail/open-ils-general/2012-September/007459.html>
>>> /Lazar, Alexey Vladimirovich  / "
>>>
>>> Although the currently client works in XUL,
>>> Mozilla does not have good plans for XUL.
>>> XUL documentations is scarce, and new technologies
>>> can replace XUL with advantages.
>>>
>>> Here some people talk about technologies to use in a WebBase StaffClient:
>>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreeen/+bug/1117658
>>> <https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1117658>
>>>
>>> I would like to know, if these discussion are going further, and
>>> if have some group working in this?
>>> What about Staff to work in tablets ?
>>>
>>> I any case I'm prompt to help in the discussion,
>>> make tests, search for FrameWorks, look
>>> for modern web Interface, etc.
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Job DIogenes
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---- // ---- // ---- // -----
>>> Antes de imprimir, pense em sua responsabilidade e compromisso com o
>>> MEIO AMBIENTE
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jason Stephenson
>> Assistant Director for Technology Services
>> Merrimack Valley Library Consortium
>
> Aleksey Lazar
> IS Developer and Integrator - PALS
> http://www.mnpals.org/
>



-- 
Mike Rylander
 | Director of Research and Development
 | Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
 | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
 | email:  miker at esilibrary.com
 | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com