[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] How do other systems handle print notices?

[Galen Charlton]

Hi,

On 01/12/2012 12:12 PM, Jonathan Field wrote:
> I've spent some time looking at this. I used the ESI scripts as a
> excellent starting point. We used generate_circ_notices.pl and then
> adapted the xsl so that it split the files up by org unit and also added
> some conditionals to allow different notice text for adults and juniors.
> Also managed to make it send different notices at different periods for
> different consortia members. It's a lot of xsl but is almost doing the
> job and produces PDF output.
>
> Next step is printed hold notifications. Anyone done anything with them
> as I can't see a way of doing it right now?

Here's one way of doing it, briefly: create an action/trigger event 
definition using the hold.available hook, the HoldIsAvailable validator, 
and the ProcessTemplate reactor, and set up the template to emit XML 
akin to what generate_circ_notices.pl does for overdue notices.  A daily 
cronjob could then gather up generated event output, stitch it into an 
XML file, then use adapted versions of the ESI overdue notice XSL and 
fop to produce PDFs.

One of the nice things about this approach is that you can mix it up to 
suit your inclinations:

- Don't like to process XML?  Set up the A/T template to produce JSON, 
or YAML, or plain old CSV.
- Don't like FOP?  Use your preferred language to generate PDFs.
- Are you so old-school that you'd rather use LaTex?  Go for it!
- Don't want to print your print notices yourself?  Ship the data off to 
a third-party print-and-mail service.

Regards,

Galen
-- 
Galen Charlton
Director of Support and Implementation
Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts
email:  gmc at esilibrary.com
direct: +1 770-709-5581
cell:   +1 404-984-4366
skype:  gmcharlt
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