Hi folks, I've been doing development work on some of the staff client interfaces in trunk and want to garner some feedback. All of these screenshots are of the client in a 1024x768 sized desktop.
There are a few specific things on my mind in case you want to skim through my email: * Holds Pull Lists * Patron Summary Sidebar * Checkout due date entry * Billing Interface The first thing on my mind are the hold pull lists. We have 3 interfaces, one in the main Circulation menu, and 2 others that are buried elsewhere. If there are no objections, I'd like to standardize on one and deprecate (and eventually remove) the other two. Here are some screenshots: http://evergreen-ils.org/~phasefx/screenshots2/pull_list1.png http://evergreen-ils.org/~phasefx/screenshots2/pull_list2.png http://evergreen-ils.org/~phasefx/screenshots2/pull_list3.png My preference would be to go with pull_list2, since this is actually the same interface that is used for other holds displays in the staff client (Patron->Holds, Record Summary->View Holds, Circulation->Browse Hold Shelf, etc.), and it already has a lot of actions available that can act upon the holds. I'd also want to add true paging functionality to it so we could step forwards and backwards through pages of results. Thoughts? If anyone is still using pull_list3, I think we could re-implement it in a simpler and more maintainable way as a printing option for pull_list2 using a server side template. The second thing on my mind is the patron summary sidebar. In trunk, I'm maintaining two versions of it, controllable by an org unit setting. Here is the default vertical version, making things a little cramped at 1024x768 resolution: http://evergreen-ils.org/~phasefx/screenshots2/vertical_patron_summary.png And here is the horizontal version, giving us more effective screen real estate for the sub-interfaces, but displaying less information itself than the original summary: http://evergreen-ils.org/~phasefx/screenshots2/horizontal_patron_summary.png http://evergreen-ils.org/~phasefx/screenshots2/horizontal_patron_summary2.png I'm wanting to know how folks feel about the horizontal summary, how we can improve it, and whether we can get away with deprecating and eventually removing the vertical summary. One other thing happening trunk regarding the summary sidebar is that it disappears automatically when you switch to a different sub-interface (the assumption being that you've verified who the patron is by that point and now you'd rather have more screen real estate), and it can be toggled back on through a menu option or pulled back open with the mouse. There are smaller changes you may be noticing here was well, such as the colored border around the patron's name (usability issue Joe pointed out), and the information beneath the sub-interface navigation buttons. And of course, the checkout interface: http://evergreen-ils.org/~phasefx/screenshots2/checkout_duedate.png We now have a calendar widget, and the ability to enter a specific due-time for circulations of less than a day in duration (though this needs more testing). Would anyone miss and still want a drop down menu for Today + 3 Days, etc.? The new date picker lets you tab through the fields and use the arrow keys to set the date and time, in addition to offering the calendar. Finally, there is a new billing interface, which is mostly a mock-up at the moment, and likely to change a bit: http://evergreen-ils.org/~phasefx/screenshots2/billing_interface.png The thought here is to make better use of screen real estate, and to make the important things more obvious. Options like Full Details and Void All Billings exist under the Actions for Selected Rows menu. I also plan to allow direct editing of the Payment Pending column for specific transactions, though I'm not sure whether to recalculate the main Payment Received field based on such edits, or allow them to disagree and just disable the Apply Payment button and make things red in color until the numbers add up. What do you think? -- Jason Etheridge | VP, Tactical Development | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Evergreen Experts | phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457) | email: [email protected] | web: http://www.esilibrary.com
