Get Scriblio — Pre 2.3 Versions

You’re Scriblio-curious and you have a server you’d like to use for the the WordPress + Scriblio suite. This page explains what you will need and how to get started.

Quick Install

  1. Check the system requirements (note: this is slightly more than WordPress’ own requirements):
  2. Download and install WordPress.
  3. Download and install the bSuite Core and Tags plugins and activate them.
  4. Download the Scriblio plugin, place it in your WordPress’ plugins directory, and activate it.
  5. Download the Scriblio theme, place it in your WordPress’ themes directory, and activate it.
  6. Download the starter content WXR file and import it.
  7. Set up permalinks, choose a commenting policy, import your catalog, and start writing content.
  8. Read more about managing Scriblio.
  9. Join the mailing list.

Subversion Access


http://svn.scriblio.net/ (more information about Subversion)

Current status of the repository:

  • Revision 82: updated 2008-07-14 11:34:06 -0400 (Mon, 14 Jul 2008), by bisson:
    fixed the textthis feature.
    Changed files:
    • U plugin/trunk/scriblio.php
  • Revision 81: updated 2008-07-01 11:04:22 -0400 (Tue, 01 Jul 2008), by bisson:
    cache…nah, no need for cache.
    Changed files:
    • U plugin/trunk/importer.php
  • Revision 80: updated 2008-07-01 10:56:38 -0400 (Tue, 01 Jul 2008), by bisson:
    further small optimizations to the publishing of harvested records
    Changed files:
    • U plugin/trunk/importer.php
  • Revision 79: updated 2008-07-01 08:58:46 -0400 (Tue, 01 Jul 2008), by bisson:
    improvements to the passive record updating and optimization of the bulk publish functions
    Changed files:
    • U plugin/trunk/importer.php
  • Revision 78: updated 2008-06-30 17:31:07 -0400 (Mon, 30 Jun 2008), by bisson:
    fixed another bug
    Changed files:
    • U plugin/trunk/importer.php
  • Revision 77: updated 2008-06-30 17:28:06 -0400 (Mon, 30 Jun 2008), by bisson:
    oopsies
    Changed files:
    • U plugin/trunk/importer.php
  • Revision 76: updated 2008-06-30 17:27:01 -0400 (Mon, 30 Jun 2008), by bisson:
    a sanity check on the insert_post() function to prevent inserting of blank records, and fakejackets now reduced to thumbnail size only
    Changed files:
    • U plugin/trunk/importer.php
  • Revision 75: updated 2008-06-30 17:22:57 -0400 (Mon, 30 Jun 2008), by bisson:
    added a function to check the harvest table for a single sourceid and update the post table with a new record if available
    Changed files:
    • U plugin/trunk/importer.php
  • Revision 74: updated 2008-06-26 01:06:47 -0400 (Thu, 26 Jun 2008), by bisson:
    fixed sphinx support in 251
    Changed files:
    • U plugin/trunk/scriblio.php
  • Revision 73: updated 2008-06-25 16:09:57 -0400 (Wed, 25 Jun 2008), by bisson:
    improvements to date handling in III importer
    Changed files:
    • U plugin/trunk/importer.php
    • U plugin/trunk/importer_iii.php
  • Revision 72: updated 2008-06-25 11:41:36 -0400 (Wed, 25 Jun 2008), by bisson:
    fixes to the default and III importer
    Changed files:
    • U plugin/trunk/importer.php
    • U plugin/trunk/importer_iii.php


27 Responses to “Get Scriblio — Pre 2.3 Versions”

  • 1
    Tomaasz Says:

    where can i download bsuite core and tags?

  • 2
    Casey Says:

    @Tomaasz:

    I broke the download links there, sorry. Thanks for pointing it out, they should be working now.

  • 3
    Virginia Says:

    The server I have WordPress on uses IIS (not Apache). Do I have to add Apache in order to use Scriblio?

  • 4
    Casey Says:

    @Virginia:

    There’s code in Scriblio now that’s written to require Apache on a unix-like OS. If you’re up for it you can try it and send me the patches to make it work on IIS/Windows.

  • 5
    Glenn Says:

    All the installation pieces worked fine. Now my main bit of ignorance. “Import your catalog”. How do I do that from a standard integrated library system (Innovative Interfaces)? Is there a scalability limit?

    Thanks in advance

  • 6
    Casey Says:

    @Glenn:

    Great! We use III as the ILS at my library, so I’ve written an importer for it. Here are the _very_ abbreviated instructions:

    In the admin panel, go to the Options > Scriblio tab and click on the Import link for the III Web Importer (in a section labeled Harvest near the bottom of the screen).

    The four form fields aren’t labeled (yet), but they do have example inputs. In order, they’re (1) the hostname of your III system, (2) the starting bib number to import (or only bibn if you’re doing just one), (3) the ending bibn, and (4) a prefix to help identify the source of these records from inside Scriblio.

    Pick a range and click Go. The records don’t go immediately into Scrib, but into a “harvest table” (importing the catalog to the live DB can really kill performance). So once that’s done, click the Import Harvested Data link in the Commands section. You’ll see some feedback about the process and you’ll then be able to view and search those records. (Note: the import harvest code loads records one-by-one and is ripe for some optimization.)

    About that prefix: Scrib can have any number of different catalogs loaded (currently limited only by the need for a alphanumeric prefix, so you can have up to 1,296 datasources/catalogs/etc). But to show current availability, prevent duplicates, and other things, Scrib needs to be able to identify the specific record in the specific system that it came from. The specifics of this will evolve, I’m sure, but for now Scrib tracks the “source_id” of each record, which for a III system is the bibn with that two-letter prefix attached to it.

    Example: you’ve got two III systems you’re importing records from, plus the contents of your A to Z list (I don’t have an importer for that written, but it seems useful). There’s nothing to prevent the numbering systems in those three sources from overlapping, and it might be likely on the III systems. So, when importing the records you assign “bb” to the first III system, “gb” to the second, and “az” to the a to z list.

  • 7
    Jason Fowler Says:

    Casey,

    Great looking work. There appears to be a problem with the starter content, though. Although all of it gets imported into the database, only the Harry Potter series shows up, and it seems to spit out code on the last book.

    Thanks for all you’ve done with this,

    Jason

  • 8
    Lamson Library » Converting Old WPopac Says:

    [...] WPopac is now called Scriblio, you can learn more about Scriblio and how it got started. We welcome everybody to search, browse, link-to, and discuss this site and the software that runs it, but most importantly we also welcome you to use it in our own library. [...]

  • 9
    » Launch! Says:

    [...] perfect, but it’s a library catalog we can fix. Tell me what’s wrong, or better yet, download the software, join the list, and let’s work on it together so we can all have a better [...]

  • 10
    Casey Says:

    @Jason Fowler:

    You pinpointed another hole in the documentation.

    Catalog records in Scriblio are in the posts table as post_type = “scrib” and are excluded from most normal WP operations. They don’t appear on the front page (a small bit of hacking would fix that, if you wanted), but they do appear in three special contexts: search, browse, and when viewing a single record.

    Search is easy, just search. Same thing with viewing a single record, though you’ve gotta find the record first. Browse is a little more complex.

    Scriblio lets you browse a list of recently cataloged items with all the facets, but it needs to have a place to, well, plug in. In all my implementations so far I’ve set it so that you can go to site_root/browse/ to get that list, but you can put it anywhere. Here’s how:

    Create a Page, any page. You can call it anything, but the “page slug” is what will form the base URL to the browse list. Now go to the Options > Scriblio tab and chose that page as the “Browse base” and click the update button.

    Now, any time you view that page you’ll actually be browsing your catalog.

    RE the junk-looking data: tags are stored in the post content. They probably should be removed from the display, but that’s not happening. Thing is, we’ll need to rework a lot of Scrib to support WP2.3 (because of the addition of native tag support), so I’m hoping to solve the problem that way.

  • 11
    Jason Fowler Says:

    Casey,

    Thanks for that explanation. That did the trick.

    -jf

  • 12
    Lichen Says:

    Note, though, that the update button in the Scriblio tab doesn’t appear if you’re using Firefox. That one got me for awhile; switched to Safari and Joy.

  • 13
    Glenn Says:

    Hi Casey,

    Just go around to trying your III import instructions. Unfortunately after going through the steps and entering a single bib number we know exists in our catalog after I click Go nothing shows up and when I click Import Harvested Data it says there is no data to import. Any ideas on what might be wrong?

    Thanks in advance.

  • 14
    Casey Says:

    @Glenn:

    You might want to confirm that any errors will be displayed on screen (good during development, bad in production). Check display_errors and error_reporting in your php.ini.

    I mention errors because the III importer uses a function that isn’t compiled into PHP by default: mb_convert_encoding. I recently tried my first import on the Lamson catalog since the go live and discovered the production server doesn’t have that function (or any of the multibyte string functions). I’m fearing that will be a common error, but the choice is to either install the function or remove it (and deal with non-UTF8 encoded characters).

    Another thing to do is uncomment some of the echos and print_rs in III.php to see the progress of things. The importers are the least developed part of the code, and while they work for me, there are probably a lot of ways they can fail.

  • 15
    Mark Smithivas Says:

    Are there any plans for a hosted version in the near future? This sounds interesting, but we don’t have the resources to install and maintain on a local server.

  • 16
    Casey Says:

    @Mark Smithivas:

    It’s an obvious direction to go, and we’re seeking a grant to support that work. Let’s cross our fingers.

  • 17
    Remaining Relevant » Blog Archive » Good eggs Says:

    [...] found me hunched over my computer finishing updating the Tamworth Library site to the latest Scriblio release. I did run into one hiccup with the search function. It startled me, since searching ease is the [...]

  • 18
    Eric Lease Morgan Says:

    When I try to activate the plug-ins WorPress returns with an error “Plugin could not be activated because it triggered a fatal error.” What do I do? Where can I see a log describing the error in more detail. –ELM

  • 19
    Scriblio » Getting Going Says:

    [...] Get Scriblio Home » Getting Going [...]

  • 20
    Casey Says:

    @ Eric Lease Morgan:

    That’s a big problem with Scriblio and 2.3 (though it may be a problem with the most recent dot release too). If things go well I’ll have a 2.3 compatible version I can post to the repository this weekend.

    On the other hand, there are some other issues that can cause problems. Check your PHP version (requires 5.x+).

  • 21
    Di ritorno da Innsbruck… e alcune novità « The Geek Librarian Says:

    [...] grazie a Shaitan, che mi aggiorna sull’evoluzione di Scriblio, l’OPAC per biblioteche interamente basato sulla piattaforma WordPress (quella che uso [...]

  • 22
    Remaining Relevant » Blog Archive » Sweet sweet victory Says:

    [...] again with the Scriblio plugin. I recommend getting the files from the svn depository, either by installing Subversion or by [...]

  • 23
    Scriblio » Sweet victory Says:

    [...] Get Scriblio Home » Sweet victory [...]

  • 24
    Andor Says:

    Hi there, my local system is Apach 2.23, PHP 5.2.0, MySQL 5.0.27,but when I active the Scriblio plugin, it came a database error said ” [You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'GROUP BY tag_type' at line 1]
    SELECT tag_type FROM GROUP BY tag_type”
    what about this, guy?
    thanks, Andor

  • 25
    torrence Says:

    Hi.
    I’m getting the same error as Andor:
    WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'GROUP BY tag_type' at line 1]
    SELECT tag_type FROM GROUP BY tag_type

    any suggestions? Should I try to clear my database or something? Could it be related to mod_rewrite?

    Thanks!

  • 26
    Casey Says:

    @Andor and torrence:

    It looks like the table name is missing from the SQL statement, and that’s likely because the bSuite Tags plugin isn’t loaded (for those looking at the code, the table name is coming from $btaggy->meta_table , where $btaggy is the bSuite Tags object). At least, that’s what it should be, though some of the public revisions had some errors.

    Lichen’s post on the installation might help, though I should also say the WordPress 2.3 version will do away with all of that and because of the number of changes, it might be easier to wait a few more days than to try and complete the installation of the old code and then upgrade.

  • 27
    Scriblio » WordPress 2.3 Compatible! Says:

    [...] Get Scriblio Home » WordPress 2.3 Compatible! [...]