My other concern about a standalone app would be picking a tool that
won't become obsolete in a few years (XUL, old Dojo) and doesn't require
a ton of work to stay up-to-date (Angular). I have no opinion on JavaFX
specifically, but we are already using Java for Hatch, so maybe there is
precedent?
I personally like the idea of a standalone app if it's easy to manage
and use. I think our staff have found the current offline UI to be
unintuitive and kind of finicky.
Does anyone know offhand how other ILS products deal with offline?
Jeff
On 3/11/22 7:46 AM, Terran McCanna via Evergreen-general wrote:
My initial thoughts on a separate app:
Advantages:
- A lot of staff tend to be confused by the concept of an offline web
app and find it easier to understand an installed program.
- It would get around the need to load pages into cache before using
it for the first time, which staff don't usually understand.
- It could potentially be installed from a flash drive to a computer
that is not connected to the internet.
Disadvantages:
- Staff would need to install it and do upgrades on every machine.
- It would be more difficult to locally customize and it would create
a separate product for the developers to maintain.
Questions:
- How would it handle the workstation name? Would staff need to set it
up at first use? (Note that it would be useful for it to have a
workstation name that indicated that the offline app was used for each
transaction so we could identify offline transactions in reports/logs.)
- Would the staff client still be able to tell if there were pending
offline transactions to upload? (Note that it would be nice to see this
alert once logged into the staff client as well as on the login page.)
- Would this resolve the problem of not being able to download large
patron block lists? (PINES hasn't been able to download block lists at
all since moving to the web client.)
Terran McCanna, PINES Program Manager
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On Fri, Mar 11, 2022 at 10:28 AM Bill Erickson via Evergreen-general
<[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi All,
I'm thinking of turning my attention to porting the Evergreen
Offline interface as we continue our march away from AngularJS.
Unlike other interfaces, where the end goal is pretty
straightforward -- just migrate it to Angular -- I think the Offline
UI would benefit from some discussion.
I've long been a proponent of not requiring external software to use
the browser client. Once an EG server is up, just open your
browser, and you're good to go.
Hatch is obviously external software, but I don't consider it a
requirement to use the client. It smooths over some aspects of the
workflow, but it does not provide functionality that can only be
done with Hatch.
However, I have also heard some comments in IRC to the effect that
having a purely web-based offline interface may be causing some
consternation / complications. I don't recall the context or the
specific concerns, only the seed stuck in my mind.
Because of these conflicting ideas, I thought it best to get some
feedback.
Here I propose two options to consider that I think cover the
extreme ends of the spectrum. There may be middle ground or other
options entirely.
1. Create a progress web app in Angular that performs exactly as the
AngularJS version. There will be slight style variations and some
differences to how the offline code is managed (Angular has a nice
set of tools for progress web apps) as with the other Angular pages,
but it would essentially be a direct port.
2. Create a standalone application that's just an offline
interface. It would be a separate program you run on your PC.
Because I don't like showing up empty handed, I've created a proof
of concept JavaFX app at https://github.com/berick/eg-offline-jfx
<https://github.com/berick/eg-offline-jfx> complete with screen
shots. (I can explain the choice of JavaFX later as needed).
Both have pluses and minuses. Before we get too into the weeds,
though, I'm curious if there is an obvious direction people feel we
should take, specific technology notwithstanding. (Also, by all
means, let's get into the weeds :)
I welcome your questions and feedback!
-b
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