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Full Screen Status Bar and single image of multiple books

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 10:12 am
by michele654
Hi,

I'm using BookPedia for a church lending library. In the regular mode I see the status bar, but it would be nice in full screen mode when members are browsing through the library to be able to see the status of a book, specifically the borrowed status.

Also, when I have multiple copies of a book, it shows multiple times. It would be nice if the status bar would say "x copies" or "x copies available" to indicate that there are 3 total but 2 are checked out so only one is available.

Thanks!

-Michele

Re: Full Screen Status Bar and single image of multiple books

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:23 am
by Conor
Thank you for the feedback. You could at least display this information in the details for the book (the full screen details that comes up when pressing enter twice). In the preference window under the fields tab you can select the fields that you would like to be shown there by changing the pop-up to "full screen details" and maybe displaying the "borrowed on" date so as not to display the borrower's name. If the date is set it would mean the book is borrowed. You could also drag it towards the top so it's the first item on the list if a book is borrowed. The number of copies available and the number of copies borrowed could be handled with a custom field and also displayed in the full screen details, but would need to be updated by hand each time another copy is borrowed the "number of copies borrowed" custom field would need to be changed. The good news is that the arrows keys can also be used to browse the books in the details mode of full screen. With you current setup just by displaying the borrowed on date, a user could use the arrow keys to look for a copy that might not be borrowed, if the first choose entry happens to have a borrowed on date (I assume a library sorted by title where copies would be next to each other).

Re: Full Screen Status Bar and single image of multiple books

Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 10:35 am
by michele654
Thanks for the info. We had already figured out adding the Borrowed On date to the full screen details view. (We did wonder why the due date was not an available field for that view.) I see how using the arrow keys to scroll through the details view shows me of the three copies, one is borrowed and two are available. That's at least useful for us running the library kiosk, although patrons won't know to do that.

It really is a great program!

-Michele

Re: Full Screen Status Bar and single image of multiple books

Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 1:49 pm
by Conor
I also noticed the due date field missing from the full screen when testing out the above suggestion. It's now a possibility to select the due date for the full screen as well as in the add/edit window in the beta version. I totally agree that kiosk users would not be aware to go to the next copy to find out if the book is available or even notice the borrowed on or due date in the details. I keep all feedback in mind while working, so thank you for being so specific on how you you would like to use Bookpedia. Here is a version where I was testing out the banners in full screen mode based on your feedback. This is the kind of thing that requires more testing and I can't promise it will make it into a future version, but you might find it useful.