[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] mobile OPAC functionality in 2.0

[Dan Scott]

On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 04:03:23PM -0800, Lori Bowen Ayre wrote:
> Hi Tara,
> 

<snip>
 
> So.  After many attempts at fixes and tweaks, the KCLS and Equinox folks are
> looking are completely rewriting the Evergreen OPAC.  

Note that it's not just the KCLS and Equinox folks, although they might
have a contractual relationship. As a project we probably should have
started this effort some time ago - we kicked the idea around a number
of times - however, there were many other fish to fry and not many
friers, and the current OPAC works well enough for most of us (even with
the performance concerns) that it didn't became a high enough priority
(outside of experimental efforts like the plain-HTML social interface).

> This is ultimately
> really good news because all that great new functionality will then be part
> of Evergreen (no "skinning" required). 

Well, "skinning" will always be required, unless libraries want to live
with the default Evergreen logo and text and colours and layout...
Unless by "skinning" you mean something like "stripping all of the
site-specific information from the surface of an interface", which is
the opposite of what the term normally means but actually might be
appropriate in the KCLS case.

I'd still like to see the KCLS skin get published in a repository
somewhere, as (unless the skin itself is exacerbating the performance
problems at KCLS) the design elements that many oohed and aahed over
so many months ago could still be a nice contribution to the project.

> The bad news is that might take a while.

If we tackle it as a high priority, rapid iteration effort, then we
should be able to knock out large blocks of functionality relatively
quickly. If pages and pages of formal specs need to be written first,
signed off on, etc, before any code gets written, then that will take a lot longer.