For users of Emilda-1.1.0-RC1
Emilda-1.1.0-RC1 is designed for use with a specific setup of printers and
the Emilda CD-distro operating system on the library client computer. The
printers are used for creating barcode stickers for the books and printing
receipts at borrow and return while the Emilda CD distro simply recognizes
some urls as input for these printers. Emilda also recognizes the
librarian by the user agent of the browser on the CD, enabling functions
like book adding and circulation that are unavailable for remote users.
What this means in practice is that once you have Emilda installed (and
have JavaScript enabled), you will run into text-only popup pages that are
intended for the printers. Functions where this occurs are book adding and
borrow/return, which of course are quite essential for a library
management system =) The book add function will probably be difficult to
use, as you won't see the id:s of the books you add. The id, of course,
has to be attached to the book (a sticker or in writing) in order to track
the book and have it in circulation.
You might also find that some functions are unavailable, or the links or
icons to them might be hidden so that you don't even know they exist. This
is due to the User Agent check that is supposed to prevent users from
managing books without being in the library.
While these issues are not actually malfunctions, they will appear as such
when using Emilda on a system not equipped with the proper harware and CD
distro. Hence we have labelled the above issues as 'block' level bugs that
will be fixed before the next stable release. We won't be able to supply
you with the Emilda distro yet, instead we will make the system work
properly without printers. In the future - when the Emilda distro is ready
and released - we can add support for more than one printer model and
consequently make Emilda more attractive for libraries with high traffic
of books.
Emilda is most efficient when all books and users are equipped with
barcodes, but entering id:s manually works just as well. However, if you
are considering Emilda for a large scale library in frequent use we
suggest you contact us for more information on barcode- and receipt
printers, barcode scanners and the possibility of using them with the
current version of Emilda. This information will also be available on our
webpages shortly.
I hope this answered some questions yet to be posted =)
Sincerely,
--
Erik Berglund
Partner, Marketing
Oy Realnode Ab
berglund [at] realnode.com
www.realnode.com
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