The Library Cards Edition Page

Purpose

This screen is used to create, view, update and delete Library Card records. A Library Card record links the account for one of your application Users to a Library record. It is by no means required to create Library Card records for every user in your application. It is only meant as a help for the user in managing the expiration and eventual renewal of his/her library card(s): if managed by Project Hirtius (and provided the required script is properly installed), reminder emails will be sent to the user starting 15 days before one of his/her cards is due to expire.

Each user can have any number of cards in one or more libraries. Multiple cards for the same library are supported.

Getting There...

The Library Cards management screens are not available straight from the Main Application Menu, but they can be reached from two different locations: the Users Edition Page and Libraries List. To reach the Edition Page of an existing Library Card, you can:

Start from the Libraries List:
- From the Main Application Menu (or indeed almost any other Project Hirtius page), click on the "Manage Sources" () or "Manage Books" () icon in the header.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page. Click on the Libraries link located between the Sources List or Books and Articles List and the page footer. This gets you to the Libraries List.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page. Click on the Library Cards link located between the Libraries List and the page footer. This gets you to the Library Cards List.
- Browse the Library Cards List until you locate the library card that you're looking for.
- Then click on the card ID (first column). This gets you to the Library Cards Edition Page in 'view' mode.
Start from the Users Edition Page (open on the user to whom the card belongs, of course):
- From the Main Application Menu (or indeed almost any other Project Hirtius page), click on the "Manage Users" () icon in the header.
- Browse the Users List until you locate the owner of the library card that you're looking for.
- Mark him/her in the list (radio button in the first column), select Edit Selected User in the drop-down menu in the bottom left corner, then click Submit. This leads you to the Users Edition Page.
- On the Users Edition Page, click on the Library Cards link located in the bottom left corner. This gets you to the Library Cards List.
- Browse the Library Cards List until you locate the library card that you're looking for.
- Then click on the card ID (first column). This gets you to the Library Cards Edition Page in 'view' mode.

To add a new Library Card record:

First reach the Library Cards List as indicated above.
Press [End] to reach the bottom of the list.
Click the Add action link in the bottom-right corner of the list. Depending on whether the Library Cards List was showing all the cards defined in the system or only those of a specific user, the Add form will prompt you for the user ID of the card owner, or assume the owner to be the one shown by the list.

Supported actions

The Library Card Edition Page supports the following actions:

Add: the form to fill in and submit in order to create a new Library Card record.
Insert: creating the new Library Card record in the database (post Add action).
Edit: modifying an existing Library Card record through a form populated based on the current database contents.
Update: storing the modified data in the database, updating the appropriate Library Card record (post Edit action).
View: display the current database contents for the selected Library Card record. No form in this case.
DelCon: first step when requesting the deletion of a record -- issues a prompt for confirmation.
Del: the actual removal of the selected record (as well as all linked metadata records) from the database (post DelCon action).
That action will be recorded: a new entry will be added to the Event Log.

Of these, only Add, Edit, View and DelCon are entry points. They are typically reached from the Library Cards List.

Fields

Here below are the fields that you can expect to find on the Library Card Edition Page. The goal here is not to simply duplicate the database layout information. If this is what interests you, please refer to the Database Layout, the database creation script or the database itself. The purpose is rather to explain what each field is meant for [D], what format it is expected to follow [F] and what are the conditions for its validity (if applicable) [V].

A star (*) after the name of the field denotes a mandatory field (the star is shown in red with the same meaning in the application user interface).

Object ID*	D	Sequential ID, automatically assigned by the DB during record creation. Displayed read-only once available.
User*	D	The user that this card belongs to (select from list). Only users with administration privileges will be prompted for this, as only the Administrator can create new cards for any random user profile. Lambda users can only create Card records for themselves, and this field will be shown read-only. You will only be prompted for this during Card record creation. Once created, the card cannot be assigned to another user. In edition mode, this field will be shown read-only.
User*	F	Drop-down select control.
Library*	D	The library that issued the card (select from list). You will only be prompted for this during Card record creation. Once created, the card cannot be assigned to another library. In edition mode, this field will be shown read-only.
Library*	F	Drop-down select control.
Card reference*	D	The unique ID of the card, as issued by the Library. May be reprensented as a bar code.
Card reference*	F	Free text.
Validity start	D	(Only shown in "Add" mode). Start of the initial validity period for this card. This field is in fact part of the Validity period / Renewal record, not the Card record.
Validity start	F	ISO format: year in 4 digits, then month in 2 digits (padded with zero if needed), then day in 2 digits (padded with zero as needed). The date parts can be separated with either '-' (hyphen), '/' (forward slash), or '.' (dot). Defaults to today's date in "Add" mode. Example: "2012-10-31", "2012/10/31" or "2012.10.31".
Validity end	D	(Only shown in "Add" mode). End of the initial validity period for this card. This field is in fact part of the Validity period / Renewal record, not the Card record. You must specify an end-date for the validity period. Put it hundreds of years in the future if the card doesn't expire (but then, there is little point in tracking it in Project Hirtius to start with).
Validity end	F	ISO format: year in 4 digits, then month in 2 digits (padded with zero if needed), then day in 2 digits (padded with zero as needed). The date parts can be separated with either '-' (hyphen), '/' (forward slash), or '.' (dot). Example: "2012-10-31", "2012/10/31" or "2012.10.31".
Fee	D	(Only shown in "Add" mode). Cost of the initial subscription or of the subsequent renewals. This field is in fact part of the Validity period / Renewal record, not the Card record. Use this field to track how much your patronage is worth to the Library, or how much these charges evolved over time. Entirely optional.
	F	Decimal number.
	V	Contents is expected to be numeric. For decimal values, either dot ('.') or comma (',') are accepted as decimal separator. The value should be positive or null.
Currency	D	(Only shown in "Add" mode). Currency for the fee. This field is in fact part of the Validity period / Renewal record, not the Card record. For information only -- no further processing is done on this field. You can use either the currency symbol (e.g. €) or the three-letter acronym (e.g. "EUR"). If a fee value is specified and that value is not null, then a currency should be specified.
Currency	F	Free text.
Warn about expiration	D	If checked, and provided the required infrastructure is in place on the server (see Helper Scripts), the user will be warned via email starting 15 days before this card expires.
Warn about expiration	F	Checkbox.
Comment	D	Any comment you might have on the card itself, such as any extra information the library may have stored on it.
Comment	F	Free text. HTML markup allowed.

Controls

In View mode

Validity periods / Renewals link(s): The Validity periods / Renewals section offers direct links to all Validity periods / Renewals records attached to the current Card. These links will open the Library Card Renewal Edition Page in 'view' mode.
Switch to edit mode link: Located at the bottom of the page, just above the footer. Click on this link to edit the current object (switches the view from a R/O rendering of the contents to an HTML form that allows you to modify that contents and submit it afterward).

In Edit mode

Submit button: (Also in "Add" mode). Commits the locally modified HTML form fields contents to the database that stores Project Hirtius data. Use it to save your latest modifications. It is of course perfectly legitimate to click Submit any number of times during a long edition session to avoid loosing unsaved data. When doing so, use the Edit this library card some more... link on the update result screen (see below) to return to the current library card record and edit it further.
Reset button: (Also in "Add" mode). Cancels any un-committed change, and returns all HTML form fields to their initial value (i.e. the one they had when the page was last loaded in the browser). Use this button to revert any erroneous edit you might have done (Beware: this only works on local changes that have not been saved to the database yet, i.e. for which you've not clicked on Submit yet).
Switch to view mode link: Located at the bottom of the page, just above the footer. Click on this link to view the current object (switches from the current HTML form that allows you to modify the object contents and submit it afterward to a R/O rendering of that contents).

The Validity periods / Renewals list

For each Validity periods / Renewals in the list, the first and last columns of its row contain links that correspond to actions to be performed on the Validity periods / Renewals object.

Renewal ID: the Renewal ID (left-most column) is a link that opens the Library Card Renewal Edition Page in view mode for the selected Renewal.
Edit: opens the Library Card Renewal Edition Page in edit mode for the selected Renewal.
Del: opens the Library Card Renewal Edition Page in delete confirmation mode for the selected Renewal. You can then confirm to proceed with the deletion or cancel it and return to the list.

In addition to this, a global action is available on the last row (bottom right corner) of the list:

Add: opens the Library Card Renewal Edition Page in add mode (displays a blank HTML form to be filled in order to create a new Renewal record).

In Insert or Update result mode

This result page appears once you have clicked the Submit button on the Add or Edit page. It will offer the following links:

View this card link: Opens the Library Cards Edition Page in 'view' mode on the current card.
Edit this card some more... link: Returns you to the current Library Card record in edit mode. Use this link to further edit the card in question. This link is also present just after you added a new card.
Edit validity period/renewal link: (Only post-Add action). Opens the Library Card Renewal Edition Page on the initial validity period created during card creation for further edition.
Add a new card link: Opens the form that allows you to create a new Library Card record. Usefull when creating multiple records in sequence.
Back to cards list link: Returns you to the Library Cards List.