The Koha mobile theme is coming!

by Ed Veal on Oct 19, 2012

As some of you may be aware there will be a mobile OPAC theme coming with the release of Koha 3.10. So what does this mean for you and your OPAC customizations? I am currently testing the pre-release and have reported a few bugs with the hope that they get resolved before the final release.

The first issue is that to have the mobile version you will need to change from the PROG theme to the CCSR theme. Because this is a new theme that has been built from the ground floor for optimization on mobile devices the current CSS and jQuery that you might have in place for customizations will probably not work well. This is however not as big a deal as it sounds. I will be working with those interested in making this switch. There are a few things to consider when making the decision to move to the CCSR theme.

Take a look at the theme on one of our test systems. I am going to set up a couple of OPACs that you may review and see what you think. The customizations on these OPACs will be minimal because the new look is very clean. Also as I mentioned there are still some bugs so things are not ready for prime time, as you would expect a full month or more before the official go live date.

If you are pleased with the basic look and feel of the CCSR theme then we can move forward with looking into what customizations you currently have, and what we can carry over and what will just not work. Once that step is worked through I will set up a demo site for you to review, then when all is acceptable we can set a date for the transition.

With the release of 3.10 and the CCSR theme there are a few new system preference that directly relate to the mobile OPAC. First is the OpacMainUserBlockMobile, this preference will allow you to have specific content appear on the mobile OPAC rather than the much more extensive content that will appear on the desktop version. The next preference is OPACMobileUserCSS, this preference allows you to customize the CCS for the mobile OPAC so you can have color font or other variations driven by the CSS. However, one preference that is not in the release yet is a specific mobile jQuery preference. This is one area that will need some work and review before making the change to the CCSR theme.

I am also including a link to my testing instance. This is a test site so there will be issues as well as things changing on a regular basis. But it should provide a you a nice preview. I will release other sites as I have them ready for viewing. http://opac09.load.bywatersolutions.com

I would also like to take this time to remind everyone that we don’t upgrade to the initial release as a general rule. We prefer to test things and wait for the first set of patches.