Circ, Hold Matrix Weights interface especially difficult to use

[Lebbeous Fogle-Weekley]

Evergreen 2.1+

The Circ Matrix Weights interface and the Hold Matrix Weights interface are just typical AutoGrids atop a table, but the tables in question are pretty special.

There are lots of not null, no default columns to these tables, and the interfaces offer no default value either. Thomas Berezansky points out that even zeros are meaningful here, and may not make sensible defaults, so these interfaces could really use at the very least some explanatory text to guide the user.

I also found it confusing that lots of the columns on these tables share names with commonly found columns elsewhere in Evergreen, but where the columns elsewhere are well known as org_unit IDs, strings, or booleans, they're all floats on this table. That makes sense once you really appreciate what the Circ/Hold Matrix Weights tables are for, but it's kind of a stumper until then.

Solutions wanted.

[Jane Sandberg (sandbergja)]

A note that Lebbeous' comments still hold true for the Angular version of this interface.

[Mike Risher (mrisher)]

I think this could be made clear by adding some text to explain the interface and its fields. I'm happy to add text if some can be provided.

[Andrea Neiman (aneiman)]

Hi Mike, I'm not able to find any existing documentation on this - so truly any docs you would write would be an improvement! If you want to put them in adoc, here's a style guide used by DIG:

https://wiki.evergreen-ils.org/doku.php?id=evergreen-docs:dig_style_guide

[Susan Morrison (smorrison425)]

+1 to Andrea. In trying to figure out the endless fun of certain circulation policies, we could not find any documentation on Circ/Hold Matrix Weights or the Weights Association interface. Anything would be helpful!

[Terran McCanna (tmccanna)]

Some description of the process may be able to be extrapolated from the in-line notes here:

https://git.evergreen-ils.org/?p=evergreen/pines.git;a=blob;f=Open-ILS/src/sql/Pg/100.circ_matrix.sql;h=1badabe07c99e8eedb2d3a7ca331f885ed52be58;hb=refs/heads/rel_3_10_0#l161

[Jennifer Pringle (jpringle-u)]

There might be some documentation on this in The Book of Evergreen (if anyone is able to locate it, I could not).

[Garry Collum (gcollum)]

Pertaining to circulation, I found this old page in the wiki https://wiki.evergreen-ils.org/doku.php?id=evergreen-admin:customization:indb-circ

The Matchpoint Lookup section gives some information about weights.