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IRC log for #evergreen, 2013-12-04

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All times shown according to the server's local time.

Time Nick Message
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09:37 pinesol_green [evergreen|Remington Steed] Fix a broken link in the holds docs - <http://git.evergreen-ils.org/?p=​Evergreen.git;a=commit;h=dbe0bf6>
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11:36 jeff hrm. i've forgotten if hold shelf expiry dates include closed days.
11:36 * jeff looks
11:36 bshum I think it skips them
11:36 bshum jeff: but while you're looking, if you can confirm that for me, that'd be great :)
11:36 jeff heh
11:40 kmlussier I didn't think it included closed days.
11:40 jeff based on my notes and not on code, shelf expiration date will not fall on a closed day.
11:40 bshum That sounds correct.
11:41 jeff confirming. :-)
11:41 bshum I vaugely recall seeing code that calculated that
11:41 jeff i wrote javascript to calculate it for spreadsheet modeling in google docs.
11:41 jeff which is the "notes" i just consulted.
11:43 kmlussier Oh, okay. I wasn't thinking about whether it fell on a closed day, but whether the closed day was was skipped when calculating the the shelf expiration date.
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11:51 jeff at least as far back as 2.2, through master, hold shelf expire times that fall on a closed date will be bumped to 23:59:59 on the next open date for the pickup library.
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12:53 Laura__ Hello
12:54 Laura__ Can the staff client catalog font be changed? We've tried using the global font and sound settings to change to a larger font but it will not change the staff catalog font size. Does anyone know a work around?
12:54 kmlussier Laura__: In 2.5 you will be able to change it. I don't think that code was backported to previous versions. Let me check...
12:55 Laura__ We've got a library that has installed new monitors. With the higher resolution it is making things difficult for the staff to read in the catalog.
12:56 dbs kmlussier: should be in 2.4
12:56 kmlussier Laura__: I understand. It was a big problem for our staff too. But it looks like it was only put into 2.5 https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1084758
12:56 pinesol_green Launchpad bug 1084758 in Evergreen "tpac: no toggle to increase/decrease font size" (affected: 5, heat: 26) [Wishlist,Fix released]
12:56 kmlussier dbs: 2.4?
12:57 Laura__ we're on 2.3.5.
12:57 dbs Mmm, I was thinking Open-ILS/src/templates/opac/parts/css/fonts.tt2 to bump the base size up to 16px or whatever
12:57 dbs but that would affect all clients, not just individual staff client preferences
12:58 mmorgan Laura__: Have you tried decreasing the screen resolution on the workstations? This has helped some of our users.
12:58 jeff dbs: i think you could check ctx for is_staff and make it "just staff", but not "just these staff".
12:59 dbs opac/parts/css/fonts.tt2 is in 2.3 as well, fwiw; you have to imagine that it's not just staff who are having trouble with small fonts on high resolution screens
12:59 jeff (well, you might be able to go that far, but that might be a bit much)
12:59 Laura__ I don't know what the current resolution is. They are working with 24" monitors.
12:59 dbs jeff++
12:59 dbs changing resolutions on modern monitors (LCD / LED) often causes more problems, because the pixel approximations make things fuzzy
13:00 dbs kmlussier++ # for the 2.5 bug link
13:00 kmlussier I like the suggestion from dbs to increase the font size globally. Because the tpac font size really can use a boost for all users.
13:03 Laura__ Would that change be at the server level? When you are talking about the folders with the font. We're part of a consortium of many libraries.
13:05 dbs Laura__: yes, server level, but it can be changed per skin, if desired
13:07 Dyrcona Welcome to the future: Everything is a cell phone.
13:07 Laura__ Thanks for the suggestions. :)
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14:30 Dyrcona RoganH++
14:32 RoganH Dyrcona: thanks
14:32 Dyrcona Thank you!
14:32 Dyrcona rangi and I were discussing that email last night and wondering what if, anything, either of us should reply.
14:33 RoganH Well, my thoughts are only my own.  Anyone is welcome to chime in.
14:33 RoganH I hesitated to mention the Koha aspect since I'm not really part of that community but it rankled me enough I decided to anyway.
14:36 Dyrcona I won't speak for rangi, but I think that rankled him quite a bit.
14:36 RoganH Obviously I can't speak for him either but in his position I think it would me.
14:36 Dyrcona http://kohadevreactions.tu​mblr.com/image/68930259566
14:37 kmlussier Heh
14:37 RoganH lol
14:38 RoganH that's good
14:38 dbs there was so much to reply to that it seemed crazy to try. RoganH++ for being crazy
14:39 dbs My takeaway is that there _are_ people who take PR verbiage at face value.
14:40 RoganH dbs: it's a strange, strange world
14:45 Dyrcona http://www.ptfs.com/ptfs-awarded-pri​me-contract-for-the-u-s-federal-gove​rnment-ils-next-program3?journal=68
14:45 Dyrcona I don't know what's on Marshall Breeding's site, but I imagine he took whatever he said from the above.
14:46 gsams I'm going to pull out an older system here that is migrating away soon, but they still need access for about 5-6 more days
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14:46 gsams They are running 2.0.9, they went stand alone after a long story and have little to no support
14:47 gsams I've looked at their system along with another and we've narrowed it down to a power outage
14:47 gsams Evergreen will not start up properly, scripts/settings-tester.pl shows no errors
14:47 gsams it appears that the routers start, but the Perl processes do not
14:48 Dyrcona lock files?
14:48 gsams I can't say that I checked it, and I'd probably be an idiot for assuming that the other did
14:48 gsams so I think I'll check that
14:48 Dyrcona gsams: Look in /openils/var/lock and delete any files you find.
14:50 gsams Dyrcona: As soon as I get a chance I will do that, thanks a lot
14:50 gsams Dyrcona++
14:50 bshum RoganH++
14:51 RoganH bshum: thanks
14:52 paxed koha what?
14:53 Dyrcona heh
14:53 paxed dish!
14:53 Dyrcona No, I think it means "gift." :)
14:54 bshum Dyrcona++
14:54 bshum Ha!
14:54 paxed gift in swedish means "poison"
14:54 paxed :P
14:54 * Dyrcona is not making fun of Koha.
15:10 gsams Dyrcona: No files present in that directory
15:10 Dyrcona gsams: Anything in the opensrf subdirectory?
15:10 bshum gsams: Anything in the logs?
15:11 bshum Heh
15:11 gsams Dyrcona: nothing in opensrf either
15:11 * bshum lets Dyrcona take it
15:12 gsams bshum: any particular log I should look at specifically, when I looked through it I thought it was a DB connection issue, but that turned out to be a red herring
15:13 bshum gsams: That was my gut reaction to be some sort of DB connection issue like a bad password.
15:13 bshum Since that would scream into the logs plenty, but show as "running"
15:14 gsams bshum: I thought that was it, becuase when I ran the settings tester it through an error on postgres user
15:14 Dyrcona gsams: I don't really know. I never really ran 2.0, just released a couple of the tarballs.
15:15 bshum I try to forget we ever ran 2.0 as long as we did :(
15:15 gsams bshum: ditto
15:19 gsams Yeah the logs show no indication as to why Perl isn't running properly
15:19 dbs osrf_ctl started with or without --localhost ?
15:19 Dyrcona dbs++
15:19 bshum Or it could be the opensrf.xml is configured funky
15:20 bshum And localhost isn't defined in there
15:20 Dyrcona yeah, see how opensrf.xml is configured.
15:33 jeff i wonder how often patrons intentionally vary notification options on holds.
15:34 rangi` RoganH++
15:35 jeff from a user perspective, i think that there's room for improvement.
15:35 * csharp just got around to reading the "next gen" email :-/
15:36 csharp marketing_speak--
15:36 * jeff muses
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15:37 jeff currently, the default notification prefs are consulted at hold request time, and if your phone number or similar changes, each outstanding hold would need to be individually updated.
15:37 jeff likewise if someone decides they no longer wish to receive phone calls about holds.
15:38 jeff i suspect that even with patrons that vary their notification method per hold, it's an unusual thing.
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15:39 jeff so might be an improvement to have "notify me in the usual way" vs "notify in an unusual way" at hold placement time...
15:39 csharp "for these three holds, call me at *this* number - for these other four, email me at the following four separate email addresses"
15:40 jeff we don't offer different e-mail addresses, and i'm okay with sticking with that.
15:40 csharp "then leave a red flag in the flower pot at the rear of the library"
15:40 jeff i'd actually be happy to have an org setting removing the freeform phone entry options.
15:41 jeff Special Instructions: "Please include a Goonies' bookmark in my hold item"
15:41 csharp heh
15:42 csharp jeff: I'd support that setting
15:42 senator i'd support goonies bookmarks
15:42 csharp I don't know how much it affects our patrons - I do remember several tickets about "wrong" numbers entered for hold requests
15:42 jeff having to explain to staff/patrons that they may need to edit all outstanding holds if a patron's phone number changes, or if a patron wishes to change their "default" notification options and have it take effect for their current holds just doesn't pass my ridiculousness test.
15:43 csharp jeff: I agree with that
15:43 jeff if i feel absurd / ridiculous trying to explain it to staff or a patron, I tend to try to see what I can do to make it better.
15:43 csharp the word "default" is usually a conversation killer with non-technical people ;-)
15:44 mmorgan jeff: but if their email address changes, they don't need to do anything. Because THAT gets pulled at notification. Adds to the confusion.
15:44 jeff mmorgan: yep.
15:45 csharp I suppose one of the original PINES feature requests was per-hold notification settings
15:45 csharp but I've never heard anyone really talk about it
15:45 jeff possible.
15:46 gsams apparently the .pid files didn't get cleaned up.  I ran through the "checking for errors" troubleshooting guide on the dokuwiki and got everything back up and running properly
15:46 jeff gsams: hooray!
15:46 jeff gsams++
15:46 gsams Dyrcona++
15:46 gsams bshum++
15:46 mmorgan I think the per hold notification is a great feature, but maybe just needs some refinement.
15:46 gsams jeff++
15:46 gsams dbs++
15:47 mmorgan Like maybe instead of presenting all the hold notification fields with each hold, a way to call them only when the patron needs to change them?
15:47 mmorgan and consistency in the way the notification methods are stored would be good.
15:49 csharp gsams: it could be that the version of opensrf they're running doesn't automatically clean up its pids
15:49 tsbere mmorgan: aside from "we don't pull the email address into the hold itself" what are you thinking for storage?
15:49 csharp that was added.... sometime between 1.6 and 2.1
15:52 mmorgan tsbere: Not sure I have a good answer for that yet :-(
15:53 jeff huh. i just found a hold from yesterday by looking at the last half dozen holds on the patron from question and recognizing the hold id.
15:53 jeff that's... weird, right?
15:53 jeff :P
15:53 csharp kohadevreactions++
15:54 tsbere jeff: Not really all that weird. I have done that with copy ids, barcodes, patron ids, hold ids, and even notification ids
15:54 rangi that ncip one is so how i feel everytime i work on that more :)
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15:54 csharp rangi++
16:00 jeff tsbere: for storage, i think i was thinking a boolean on action.hold_request for "special notification options", default to false.
16:01 jeff the individual fields might then be maintained by a trigger, or become normally unused and filled by a view or otherwise at runtime.
16:02 tsbere jeff: My only "plans" for some of the issues were adding a checkbox (or checkboxes) when changing your defaults in TPAC. "Apply these new options to all of my holds"
16:03 tsbere Which I think might work better than a "flag the hold that it should be using your defaults" routine, especially when considering all the other stuff that interacts with the things
16:04 * tsbere figured that teaching tpac to update all of a given user's holds would be trivial by comparison to most other things he could think of
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16:07 jeff i had considered giving an option for different notification groups / profiles, but that might be overkill.
16:08 mmorgan jeff: I was just actually pondering that ...
16:09 mmorgan Were you thinking a patron could set up notification profiles like "email me", "send me a text", etc?
16:10 jeff more like "normal" and "notify me via every means possible" or something.
16:11 tsbere I was thinking maybe more like "email me" and "email my secretary that picks my 'work' holds up for me" (though that would require multiple emails to be available for holds)
16:11 jeff because i can see patrons who place lots of holds being interested in hearing via text that that one thing they want/need is in, vs the other dozen things they requested that they pick up on their normal weekly trip in.
16:12 tsbere jeff: If done correctly you could even tie pickup location in. "Notify me by text so I can pick it up at the branch near work on my way home, or by email so I can stop by on Saturday at the branch near my house"
16:13 jeff yeah. i don't want to get carried away, though.
16:13 jeff teaching tpac and the patron editor to offer to update existing holds might be a good start.
16:14 jeff and maybe making the placement UI summarize the defaults but not in an editable form by default.
16:14 tsbere not sure I want to put that in the patron editor
16:14 jeff "We'll notify you at X email and Y phone" with a link/button to specify otherwise.
16:15 tsbere I wouldn't put it past library staff to get in the habit of *always* checking the box when editing a patron, without regard to whether the patron wants them updated...
16:15 jeff arguably the patron editor is where the phone number will change most often.
16:15 jeff tsbere: could make it implicit -- if there are any outstanding holds that had the old phone number, change it to the new.
16:16 tsbere jeff: I had considered something like that. Gets more complicated when the phone number in question is still on the account, though...
16:16 jeff which then loops me right back around to not populating the fields by default when they don't differ. :-)
16:17 tsbere jeff: Perhaps add bools for phone and sms notification on/off, and if the non-bool fields are null teach things to load the patron's defaults when those fields are true?
16:17 tsbere (instead of a blanket "use or don't use defaults" flag)
16:18 jeff right. that would be the option that doesn't involve a trigger to maintain the fields, but would mean a little more work in the way of a view or similar.
16:18 jeff tsbere: moving away from a blanket "use or don't use the defaults" means that you'd almost need a tri-state...
16:18 jeff er, scratch that.
16:20 jeff would you expose the bool per field to the user, in that they could override one but leave the rest at default?
16:20 jeff first i'm interested in finding more examples of users who make use of this.
16:22 tsbere jeff: I figure the bool would, to the user, be represented by the checkboxes we already show them. Just add a note in the catalog saying "If you don't provide an alternate number we use your default notification number, or if that isn't set your daytime phone number" and remove the "populate the phone numbers" code from the place hold screen.
16:22 jeff hrm. random other holds-related question... should a hold with cancel cause "Untargeted expiration" also have an expire_time?
16:23 jeff tsbere: strikes me at initial glance as too complex -- also, i see benefit in displaying the numbers at confirmation / request time.
16:24 mmorgan I agree re: the complexity. I'd like things to look simpler to the user.
16:24 tsbere jeff: So include what said default *is* in said notification. As for the cancel stuff, I think that some options cause non-expiring holds to be canceled due to no holdable copies as well, and staff can probably choose that if they cancel things manually should they not be lazy about picking options...
16:25 jeff i dislike that hold requests can be uncancelled. better imo for it to create a new hold.
16:26 jeff can't do stats on holds (for example, abandoned holds) when some have been uncancelled
16:40 jeff taken to extremes, i suppose that would mean creating a new hold whenever a hold's pickup library was changed after capture, or retargeted, etc...
16:43 mmorgan jeff: what sort of statistical issues would there be with changing pickup libraries and retargeting?
16:44 jeff fewer than with uncancelling, but some.
16:45 jeff if you were looking at time from request to capture, capture time is reset when you force retarget.
16:45 jeff i think you can retarget an available hold also
16:45 jeff anyway, i'm not too interested in taking that to extremes. :-)
16:46 jeff but i do suspect that a non-trivial number of uncancelled holds are uncancelled after expiring on the shelf, and that of course makes reporting on shelf expired holds potentially inaccurate.
16:46 mmorgan jeff: Oh good :) Looks liek I'll need to look closer at uncancelled holds, though!
16:47 jeff only you can't, because they aren't called out as such. ;-)
16:47 mmorgan Is there no easy way to identify them?
16:49 mmorgan Do staff members uncancel them? To give patrons more time? I guess I'm not sure of the circumstances where you'd do that.
16:49 jeff an uncancelled hold shows no sign at the database layer that it was ever cancelled or uncancelled. you can consult logs or you can enable auditing on action.hold_request, but i think that's it.
16:50 jeff staff uncancel holds, and i believe it's most often done when a patron has forgotten to pick something up, but wants another chance at getting the item.
16:51 jeff configurably, you can either have uncancelled holds get a new request date, or retain their old request date. this means that the patron can essentially be "first in line" to get the item again.
16:51 jeff in some rare cases it's used when a hold was cancelled by mistake, etc.
16:52 mmorgan Hmm. I think staff at our libraries are more likely to put off clearing the holdshelf, so may not happen a lot.
16:52 jeff if you had a configuration where the request time was reset on uncancellation, then you could have a clue if the request_time was out of order vs the hold id before and after it -- assuming nothing like a migration.
16:54 mmorgan seems like there ought to be a permission associated with uncancelling, but I don't see one.
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17:02 hbrennan Since it's the end of the day everywhere else, and appears quiet in here, I'll take a minute to shout: I'm attending the conference! Woohoo! Just got approval yesterday.
17:02 kmlussier hbrennan++
17:03 kmlussier I'm very happy you can make the trip. I know it's a long distance.
17:04 hbrennan It will be fun. Surprisingly, it will be less travel time than Alaska to Vancouver (which was three flights)
17:04 kmlussier Indeed, that is surprising.
17:04 hbrennan I'm very excited to see everyone, and actually have knowledge to share. In April we had only been live with Evergreen for two weeks!
17:05 kmlussier Are you staying for any extra time to see the city?
17:05 hbrennan Yes, a little before and after (My sister is tackling her PhD at BU)
17:05 hbrennan and a side trip to NY to see family there
17:05 hbrennan It will be very eventful!
17:06 * kmlussier is an alum of BU.
17:06 kmlussier Dyrcona is too
17:07 hbrennan Awesome! I plan on taking her out with me on the dinner adventures whenever possible
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17:13 * kmlussier always thinks of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when goooood arrives in this room.
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19:33 * csharp thinks of Dr. eeevil
19:34 csharp of course, in that case, the nick would be "riiggght"
19:34 hbrennan * hbrennan loves the 2 hour lapse in this conversation
19:35 csharp hbrennan: happens a lot on IRC ;-)
19:35 hbrennan haha, I obviously don't know how to format a thought
19:35 hbrennan without having my name there
19:36 hbrennan I also don't understand how to talk to pinesol so I'm okay with it
19:37 csharp @help
19:37 pinesol_green csharp: (help [<plugin>] [<command>]) -- This command gives a useful description of what <command> does. <plugin> is only necessary if the command is in more than one plugin.
19:37 csharp @list
19:37 pinesol_green csharp: Admin, Assorted2, Blame, Bugtracker, Channel, ChannelLogger, Config, Dunno, Encyclopedia, Games, Git, Herald, Insult, Karma, Later, LoveHate, MARC, Math, MeetBot, Misc, Note, Owner, Praise, Quote, RSS, Reply, Seen, Status, Time, Todo, Twitter, User, Weather, and Xkcd
19:38 csharp hbrennan: you just do "/me loves the 2 hour lapse in this conversation"
19:40 hbrennan ohhh
19:40 hbrennan thanks! Always wondered about that
19:40 hbrennan I want to be cool too
19:40 csharp hbrennan++
19:41 csharp ^^that increments your karma with the channel bot
19:41 csharp @karma hbrennan
19:41 pinesol_green csharp: Karma for "hbrennan" has been increased 6 times and decreased 0 times for a total karma of 6.
19:41 hbrennan ha, I think this is my biggest karma day
19:41 hbrennan I got one for saying I was attending the conference too
19:41 hbrennan I have 6?! Sweet
19:41 csharp :-D
19:48 hbrennan so with pinesol, you just tell it to blame something, and it randomly picks something? I always find it so whitty
19:49 * hbrennan is taking advantage of the slow chat day to get really important questions answered
19:49 hbrennan ha, it worked
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