TechBits

Notice Printing and Firefox Profiles

I'm sure you all saw the January 31st News item on the ILS Support Home Page about libraries printing their own notices beginning on Monday, February 27th, 2012.  You may have also read Joanna's LINK 2.0 Koha Blog posting about this same topic and read that she had created instructions that outlined how to print your own notices.  In those instructions in step 7b under section 2 says: "Call the Tech Help Desk at 608-242-4710 if you'd like help setting up another profile."  I'd like to use this blog post to explain to you what this really entails and suggest a different solution.

Background for our use of Firefox profiles
When Koha became our ILS we needed an easy way for all of you to print receipts and spine labels.  So the ILS and Tech staff came up with the use of Firefox profiles to make these printing tasks much easier for you.  In order to make this work you first all needed to use the same spine label printer and the same few receipt printers.  Then we developed and installed the Firefox profiles and after that you no longer had to choose where you wanted a receipt printed or a where you wanted a spine label printed.  Firefox just knew and printed it.  This saves you precious seconds and allows you to work more efficiently.  But again this only works because you all are using the same few printers.

Notice printing and Firefox profiles
Profiles work well when there are a limited number of printers involved, but when you try to do the same with a multitude of different printers it becomes a lot more difficult and time-consuming.  Not all libraries have the same laser or ink jet printers, so essentially we would have to design a different Firefox profile for each library for each printer that they want to print notices on.  Woe to the library whose notice printer breaks down because now you can't print notices.  Not good!  So the best solution, albeit a manual one, is to turn off and on the headers and footers each time you print notices.  The online instructions for printing notices has already been updated to reflect this change.

To assist you in this manual process of turning off and on the headers and footers each time, please take a look at the pictures below.

After turning off the headers and footers it will look like this:

After turning the headers and footers back on it will look like this:


I hope I have explained this step of the notice printing so that you have a good understanding of it.  Happy notice printing!

Koha Log In Problem Solution

Have you ever had the problem that when you try to log into Koha you get the big Error Trace message?  I know a few of you have, so I thought it might be worth sharing the secret to getting rid of this problem.

If you have previously logged out of Koha successfully the address bar should be displaying the address that ends in ...library.com/cgi-bin/koha/mainpage.pl?logout.x=1 when you are at the Koha login screen.  If you just closed Firefox and did not log out of Koha then Firefox tries to be nice and take you back to exactly where you were when you closed Firefox.  This helpfulness is what causes you to see the big Error Trace message when you try to log in.  Follow these steps to get logged into Koha:

1. Put your cursor in the address bar at the end of the address
2. Delete everything up to but not including the .com
3. Hit enter
4. You see the message: "Error: Session timed out, please log in again"



5. Enter your login information
6. You should then be able to successfully log into Koha
7. If this doesn't help you log into Koha then give me a call

To prevent this problem from happening again you should always first log out of Koha and then close Firefox.

Firefox Tips and Tricks

I stumbled across a Firefox Tips and Tricks page that I found useful. It has tips for users who are beginning to use Firefox as well as tips for advanced users who might be designing web pages. My favorite tip is about adding a bookmark with a single click. It’s in the Beginners section, “Add Bookmarks with a Single Click”.  For as long as I have been using Firefox I didn’t realize it was that simple to add a bookmark. Click the star in the address bar to add the page you are on as a bookmark, click it again after it turns yellow and you can move it to a new location.

Viewing web pages in alternate browsers

There have been previous TechBits articles that mentioned the IE View extension to Firefox. IE View is handy if you need to compare the view of a page in FF to the same view in IE, and it's essential if you use some site that (even well into the 21st century) still requires its users to have Internet Explorer. If you rely on such a site, you can configure IE View to always launch IE for links to that funky application.

But if you're a web site developer or tester, IE View may not be all that you want. You may also want to compare the view of a web page in Chrome, Opera, and Safari (or even Amaya, Epiphany, Konqueror, Maxthon, Lobo and...). In short, you may want the Open With extension for Firefox.

After you have installed Open With, your View menu should get populated with an "Open With <browser name>" item for each other browser that is detected on your PC. A similar menu item can optionally appear in several other contexts as well. To set up Open With for various contexts, pull down the FF Tools menu and choose Add-ons, then select Extensions and click the Options button for the Open With extension. A new tab will open showing the Open With settings that you can tune for the View menu, context menu, tabs and the tool bar.

What about different versions of the same browser? You want to test FF 3.6 and FF 7, and IE 8 and IE 9, right? Sadly, this is often not possible without multiple PCs. Even in cases where it is possible to have two versions of the same browser on one machine, it tends to get a bit funky to manage those installations. Depending on your OS license and hardware capacity, you may benefit from running "another PC" inside a VirtualBox or another virtualization platform, but that level of complexity is far beyond what I can cover in a short blog posting.

All about CAPTCHAs

photo © 2010 Chris Foley | more info (via: Wylio)

Have you ever wondered about those crazy sets of letters and numbers that some websites prompt you to enter when you fill out a form?

That's a CAPTCHA, and MakeUseOf.com has written a lovely article covering everything you might want to know about CAPTCHAs but were afraid to ask. I learned some fascinating things that I didn't even know I wanted to know!

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/wanted-captchas-afraid-technology-explained/

I am reminded...

photo © 2009 Ken Wilcox | more info (via: Wylio)

Yesterday's post included a link to an article reviewing some of the most popular URL shorteners.  Unfortunately, the site hosting the article was dishing out some nasties this morning as identified today by the antivirus software used on SCLS PCs and also by Google  (neither of these flagged the site yesterday when I was composing my post, and the site appears to be cleaned up again and Google is no longer reporting it as malicious).  

Other than being very embarrassed about linking to a site that was clearly having some issues this morning, I am also reminded of some things by this:

1. USE ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
2. Sometimes even links where you know where you're going may be harmful
3. Always be cautious when navigating the internet
4. Consider other actions/products that may help to identify harmful websites:
   • add-ons for Firefox like "Web of Trust"
   • IE's "Phishing Filter" (IE 7) or "SmartScreen Filter" (IE 8)

All about browser tabs

Ben @ SKC notes, "My staff loves the fact that you can open new tabs in Koha to check item statuses, look into patron records, etc." and pointed out this great "How to Browse the Web Using Tabs" tutorial from Lifehacker for users who are new to working with tabs.  If you're unfamiliar with browser tabs or are interested in a little bit of basic background, take a look!

Once you're comfortable with tabs, you may be interested in these other TechBits posts:

• 5 Quick Tips for New Firefox Users
• Fun with Firefox Tabs
• Drag and Drop Your Firefox Tabs
• Open a New Tab in Firefox or IE with a Single Click

Special Note for Koha users
Just be careful if you open multiple tabs with patron info in Koha...
From the Koha ILS FAQ: "Search to Hold" results in hold for wrong patron

Patron X requested a search-to-hold from his checkout screen. However, when the search was executed, the "Hold for [Patron name]" button displayed another patron's data. The other patron, Patron Y, was active in the second tab on the browser, and his data was pulled to populate the hold information.

If library staff wish to have more than one tab open in Circulation, it is highly recommended that the screen be cleared between transactions, particularly if the staff person is toggling back and forth between tabs with patron records active in both tabs.

Koha Personas for Firefox

Here are a couple of customized personas (Skins) for Firefox that you can use to help differentiate between Koha Receipts, Koha Labels and regular Firefox profiles.

To use the Koha Receipts persona:
1. Launch the Koha Receipts profile using the desktop shortcut.
2. Browse to https://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/399833
3. Click Wear this Persona.

To use the Koha Labels persona:
1. Launch the Koha Labels profile using the desktop shortcut.
2. Browse to https://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/399851
3. Click Wear this Persona.

See Andrews Techbits post for more detailed information on Firefox Personas.

Eliminate Firefox and Koha Confusion

If you have the Koha Receipts or Koha Labels Firefox profile set up on your PC, you may have trouble distinguishing which instance of Firefox you are viewing.  It's important not to be confused so that you don't accidentally send a full page printout to the receipt printer or spine label printer.  One way to distinguish one profile from another is to change the Firefox persona, or skin, of one of the profiles.  Another option is to change the text in the Firefox title bar.

Changing the Firefox Persona (for versions 3.6.x.x.)

1. Launch the Koha Receipts or Koha Labels profile using the corresponding desktop shortcut
2. Browse to http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/gallery/All/Popular
3. Choose a persona.  You can preview them by hovering your mouse cursor over each option.  In my opinion, the personas in the Solid category are the most simplistic.
4. If you like a persona, click Wear it

Once you have some personas downloaded, you can change them at any time within the browser.

1. Click Tools
2. Click Add-ons
3. Click Themes
4. Click one of the choices
5. Click Use Theme

See Using Themes with Firefox for more information about using personas in older versions of Firefox.

Changing the Text in the Firefox Title Bar

1. Launch the Koha Receipts or Koha Labels profile using the corresponding desktop shorcut
2. Browse to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mr-tech-toolkit/
3. Click Add to Firefox
4. Click Install
5. After the install, click Restart Firefox
6. If the add-ons window appears, just close it
7. Click Tools
8. Click MR Tech Toolkit Options
9. Click General
10. Click Window Title Options
11. Check the box next to Use custom window title below
12. Next to Custom title template, delete everything in the box and enter the text you'd like to appear in the title bar.  Suggestion: Koha Receipt Printing Support Only
13. Click OK
14. Now the title bar should include the text you chose in step 11

Thanks Pat and Greg for the suggestions.

Genus: Vulpes

Outside my office window are some corn fields, and between the window and the fields is a drainage ditch that usually has at least some standing water in it. The area is no wildlife preserve, but the water and corn do attract a lot of wild things. We've seen deer, frogs, woodchuck, muskrat, ducks, geese, hawks, and maybe a dozen species of smaller birds. Lately, we've seen a Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) making his or her rounds on a fairly regular basis. 

The fox started showing up right around the time that Mozilla Firefox 4 entered public beta testing. If you think that's just coincidence then you're probably not as excited as I am that Firefox 4 is now in general release. What's to be excited about? Well, in addition to being faster, simpler to use and more secure than ever, the new Firefox is evolving toward new Web technologies that are ultimately going to change just about everything on the Internet.

The big changes start with support for HTML5, which will build on and ultimately replace HTML4 as the language for designing a Web page. HTML5 adds features that make it easier for Web site designers to create interactive applications, to embed video clips (without requiring proprietary add-ons like Flash Player or Silverlight), and much more. Another big feature is support for WebGL graphics, allowing 3D images to be rendered in real time within the browser window (also using open standards rather than proprietary plugins).

HTML5 is not yet an official international standard. However, by the time it is, many Web sites will already be taking advantage of HTML5 markup to provide new features and services. You'll need a new browser to take advantage of their offerings.

However, there is a downside (isn't there always?). Namely, some testers have already identified minor problems that Firefox 4 has when mixed with the current Koha staff interface. We can't really embrace those problems when our Koha migration is imminent, so it may be awhile before SCLS is able to widely deploy FF4 for your use in the library.

We will let you know when mass deployment of FF4 seems more timely for the SCLS Network. Meanwhile, you can read more about FF features on the Mozilla web site. If you do already have a machine with FF4, you can play with some of the new features too.