Re: [Koha-devel] Re: A Win32 circulation client (beginning stages)

[Chris Cormack]

On Sun, Jan 19, 2003 at 03:07:59AM -0500, Ambrose Li said:
> Hi,
> 
> [It seems that you are not cc'ing to the list.]
> 
> >
> > But then, a lot seems to be broken (using the web-based demo
> > is kind of tragic, my local copy still gives JavaScript errors
> > in the catalogue editing section).
> 
> Could you file a bug report in bugs.koha.org about these
> JavaScript errors?
> 
Broken may be a little harsh, bearing in mind koha has been running the HLT
library for 3 years now. And they still use the curses based client
occasionally.
It certainly has issues, mainly that the cdk library coredumps under load.
It also hasnt had much love in the last 2 years. It shouldnt be very hard at
all to write another curses/text based interface. All the logic needed is in
C4::Circulation::Circ2. The scripts just have to handle the interface and
program flow.

The demo page is my fault, ive been using it to test new versions. I need to
clean it out and do a clean install of 1.2.3rc26. This might get done this
holiday weekend.

> > My biggest issue right now: authenticating users... how does
> > Koha do it?  I can't quite seem to figure it out just by
> > looking at the code.
> 
> I believe the logic is mostly in the C4::Auth module; of course
> the scripts need to be written a certain way in order for
> authentication to work. I believe the user names and passwords
> are in a MySQL table, and at the "browser" level the user sees
> it as a cookie-based authentication.
> 
2 ways.
If http based authentication is being used, as is used at HLT for the
librarian interface (specifically Apache::AuthDBI) the C4::Auth will not
prompt the user to login again. Otherwise it uses a cookie based
authentication. Cookies came about because of the need for users to be able
to logout of the OPAC.

Hope this helps

Chris