Bug 23305 - Add dedicated option to append to item notes in batch item modification
Summary: Add dedicated option to append to item notes in batch item modification
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: Koha
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Tools (show other bugs)
Version: Main
Hardware: All All
: P5 - low enhancement
Assignee: Bugs List
QA Contact: Testopia
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2019-07-11 20:34 UTC by Andrew Fuerste-Henry
Modified: 2024-11-08 15:54 UTC (History)
7 users (show)

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Description Andrew Fuerste-Henry 2019-07-11 20:34:50 UTC
It'd be useful to be able to append new text onto the end of itemnotes and itemnotes_nonpublic when performing a batch item modification, rather than simply overwriting any existing notes.
Comment 1 Martha Fuerst 2019-07-11 21:02:51 UTC
Ditto this! This would be incredibly useful.
Comment 2 Lisette Scheer 2019-07-11 21:23:55 UTC
This would be very helpful! 
Lisette
Comment 3 Carolyn Hughesman 2019-07-12 12:43:43 UTC
I agree!  This would be very useful.
Comment 4 Andrew Fuerste-Henry 2023-05-26 14:25:27 UTC
This is possible since bug 29781. Using capturing groups in a regex substitution, one can basically say "replace the current note with the current note plus these new words."

A very basic example, if one wanted to append the text "Disc cleaned 5-26-23" to all notes on a group of items, one could put "(.*)" in the Regex Pattern and "$1 Disc Cleaned 5-26-23" in the Regex Replacement in the item batch mod interface.
Comment 5 Katrin Fischer 2023-05-29 16:01:30 UTC
(In reply to Andrew Fuerste-Henry from comment #4)
> This is possible since bug 29781. Using capturing groups in a regex
> substitution, one can basically say "replace the current note with the
> current note plus these new words."
> 
> A very basic example, if one wanted to append the text "Disc cleaned
> 5-26-23" to all notes on a group of items, one could put "(.*)" in the Regex
> Pattern and "$1 Disc Cleaned 5-26-23" in the Regex Replacement in the item
> batch mod interface.

This might make a great addition for the manual.
Comment 6 Sarah Cornell 2023-05-30 17:32:11 UTC
I'm glad appending is possible, and I've used it a few times.  But it would be *so* wonderful if there were a checkbox that said "append?" and Koha would simply append if that was checked.  It's a lot to ask my staff to learn even that amount of regex in order to append to notes when batch editing.  

Would a checkbox like that be possible?
Comment 7 Andrew Fuerste-Henry 2023-05-30 17:36:56 UTC
(In reply to Sarah Cornell from comment #6)
> I'm glad appending is possible, and I've used it a few times.  But it would
> be *so* wonderful if there were a checkbox that said "append?" and Koha
> would simply append if that was checked.  It's a lot to ask my staff to
> learn even that amount of regex in order to append to notes when batch
> editing.  
> 
> Would a checkbox like that be possible?

Seems like a reasonable enhancement, yeah! We could reopen this bug as a request for a dedicated tool/checkbox/option or you could file a new one.
Comment 8 Sarah Cornell 2023-05-30 17:39:48 UTC
I've never filed a bug so I propose reopening this one!
Comment 9 Andrew Fuerste-Henry 2023-05-30 18:28:29 UTC
I'm re-opening this bug to suggest a dedicated Append option in the item batch mod tool -- the ability to check a box labeled "append" and have whatever text is entered appended to the respective field rather than overwriting it. It'd probably make sense to include this on all the LONGTEXT fields in the item record.
Comment 10 Brendan Lawlor 2024-11-08 13:53:04 UTC
This is especially important since the regex solution can only append to fields that already have text in them.

If your batch of barcodes has a mix of some items with notes and some without then your batch mod will only append to the notes that already exist. This is probably not what the user is expecting when they are trying to append text to a field.

It creates an extra step if you have to separately batch mod items that don't have a note.