[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Questions from a student

[Jason Etheridge]

Hi Linda,

I believe Don hit most of these on the head.  Thanks Don!  I can
elaborate on some of the topics.

On 6/11/06, Linda R <lindamarcella at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I tried your OPAC demo, which seems to work well, but
> did not download your staff client.  The staff client
> seems not to be a web application, i.e., it does not
> run in the browser.  Just curious, why did you choose
> this design instead of a web application?

On 6/12/06, Don McMorris <don.mcmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> The staff client (in online mode) does have a lot of its components on
> the Internet.  It uses XUL, which can even be set up as a mozilla or
> firefox plugin.  I believe the main reasons for the choice of a
> standalone client (vs. a web site interface like other open-source ILS
> configurations) are speed (faster), security (potentially higher), and
> offline processing (if a site loses their connectivity, they can go
> into "Offline" mode with the click of a button.  When connectivity
> comes back they can go back "Online" and upload offline transactions
> with the click of another button).

Early prototypes of the staff client were indeed implemented as
Firefox/Mozilla extensions, but I'm focusing on XULRunner at the
moment and the extensions will come again later.

Offline mode (whether the program is started offline or goes offline)
and file system access, and having these be cross-platform, were big
considerations.

But also, with the Mozilla framework we get all the benefits/toys of
traditional (and newer) web development, such as CSS, DTD's, DOM,
XMLHttpRequest, etc.  Yet we get fewer cross-platform headaches and
some other toys like XUL, XBL, and XPCOM.

Firefox itself is implemented with these things.

But outside of PINES, I'd like to see alternate staff clients that
make use of the Open-ILS API (whether they use Jabber or HTTP).  I
want to see a vanilla web interface and a terminal interface for
telnet/ssh.

On 6/11/06, Linda R <lindamarcella at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Does Evergreen implement MARC compliance and the
> Z39.50 protocol?

On 6/12/06, Don McMorris <don.mcmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> One of the main development criteria from the start of the Open-ILS
> project is MARC compliance.  So yes, Evergreen is MARC compliant (if
> not fully, at least mostly).  Currently, Evergreen has a Z39.50 client
> capability to connect with OCLC.  I'm not sure if Z39.50 to the
> Library of Congress is complete yet or not, or if the ability to add
> custom Z39.50 targets is working.  As for Z39.50 server functionality,
> I don't think this is a high priority, and probably isn't done/working
> yet (although it is planned at least).  A person from Pines should
> elaborate on this later in the week.

Don, with the newer Z39.50 client, you can set up various servers and
their available search fields in the openils.xml config file.  Since
PINES will only be using OCLC, we left a simple LoC example in there
and never fleshed it out.

Linda, thanks for your interest!

-- 
Jason Etheridge
GPLS -- PINES Development
http://open-ils.org/