[Mifos-developer] Mifos Light demo notes

[Adam Monsen]

Thanks again to the logica folks for demoing Mifos Light for the Mifos team! Here are some questions and notes compiled during the presentation.


tech questions
export means "from Mifos Full to Mifos Light", right?
saw URL: http://localhost:8080/mifos/pages/application/exportimport/jsp/testExport.jsp
is this going directly to a JSP page?
or is a new servlet in Mifos Full?
could the XML files (personnel and collection) be combined into a single export?
is the import also multiple files? if so, could it be made into one?
do the XML files contain dates?
can you provide example files?
how is data stored in Mifos Light?
what is used for "system storage"?
users/roles are synchronized from PERSONNEL table in Mifos Full?
also see if additional permissions have been added for Mifos light in Mifos v1.1
Emily, can you clarify?
Mifos Light can generate collection sheet PDFs offline
this reimplements logic in Mifos Full
what generates the collection sheet report?
BIRT
collection sheet entry
is Receipt ID required in "Bulk Entry"?
(shouldn't be--most folks don't use receipts)
"Bulk Entry" should be renamed to "Collection Sheet Entry"
enter data for one group only at a time
is Mifos Light translatable/localizable?
what data is exported-- all data in the database?  changed data?
Bart: only new/changed data
necessary for code review
Source code
running app - executable or installer
instructions on how to set up developer environment (netbeans)

[Krishnan M]

Aww! Since the day that Bart De Rijk first shared the specs for Mifos Light on the list, i was hoping to get a quick preview, and would have liked to be there. Is it likely you'll do it again soon? Please do, i am hoping i can participate via webex, etc.  I'll behave myself very well, i promise! best regards, krishnan --- On Fri, 10/7/09, Adam Monsen <amo...@grameenfoundation.org> wrote:

From: Adam Monsen <amo...@grameenfoundation.org> Subject: [Mifos-developer] Mifos Light demo notes To: "Mifos Developer Discussions" <mifos-d...@lists.sourceforge.net> Cc: O...@yahoo.com, "Rijk, Bart de" <bart.d...@logica.com>, "Stefan van" <stefan....@logica.com> Date: Friday, 10 July, 2009, 9:50 PM

Thanks again to the logica folks for demoing Mifos Light for the Mifos team! Here are some questions and notes compiled during the presentation. tech questions export means "from Mifos Full to Mifos Light", right?

saw URL: http://localhost:8080/mifos/pages/application/exportimport/jsp/testExport..jsp

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[Rijk, Bart de]

Hi Adam many thanks for the notes. Stefan will try and answer the tech questions.
Krishan: I'll be happy to give another demo to the community when there is a broader interest. Currently I m on holiday; as from august 6th I'll see for reactions and make arrangements.
Regards
Bart

----- Oorspronkelijk bericht -----
Van: Adam Monsen <amo...@grameenfoundation.org>
Verzonden: vrijdag 10 juli 2009 23:50
Aan: Mifos Developer Discussions <mifos-d...@lists.sourceforge.net>
CC: Rijk, Bart de <bart.d...@logica.com>; Oss; Stefan van <stefan....@logica.com>; Chiman Sachdeva <chiman....@logica.com>
Onderwerp: Mifos Light demo notes

Thanks again to the logica folks for demoing Mifos Light for the Mifos
team! Here are some questions and notes compiled during the
presentation.

tech questions
export means "from Mifos Full to Mifos Light", right?
saw URL:

http://localhost:8080/mifos/pages/application/exportimport/jsp/testExport.jsp

[Het originele bericht is niet volledig opgenomen]
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[Oss, Stefan van]

Hi Adam,

 

Congratulations on the (early) 1.3 release, well done!

 

I was a bit tied up at the office last couple of weeks. So here are my answers on the questions. Please take the time to take a look at the zip file with the source code and documentation, that I send to Emily before the Mifos Light Demo.

 

Cheers, Stefan

Please help Logica to respect the environment by not printing this email / Pour contribuer comme Logica au respect de l'environnement, merci de ne pas imprimer ce mail / Bitte drucken Sie diese Nachricht nicht aus und helfen Sie so Logica dabei, die Umwelt zu schützen / Por favor ajude a Logica a respeitar o ambiente não imprimindo este correio electrónico. This e-mail and any attachment is for authorised use by the intended recipient(s) only. It may contain proprietary material, confidential information and/or be subject to legal privilege. It should not be copied, disclosed to, retained or used by, any other party. If you are not an intended recipient then please promptly delete this e-mail and any attachment and all copies and inform the sender. Thank you.

[Adam Monsen]

Thanks, Stefan, we have the source code and documentation. Saved here:

https://mifos.dev.java.net/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=11644

Could you (or someone) briefly describe how to build the code? It
appears to be a NetBeans project. I've not used NetBeans before; if we
could review and build the project in Eclipse, that would probably save
us some time during code review.

[Adam Feuer]

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 10:28 AM, Adam
Monsen<amo...@grameenfoundation.org> wrote:
> Could you (or someone) briefly describe how to build the code? It
> appears to be a NetBeans project. I've not used NetBeans before; if we
> could review and build the project in Eclipse, that would probably save
> us some time during code review.

Stefan,

Ideally, we would be able to build it from the command line too - via
maven or ant. Is that possible?

-adam
--
Adam Feuer <adamf at pobox dot com>

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[Rijk, Bart de]

Thanks Adam for uploading the zip to the Mifos are on java.net. I can't
answer your question; the only thing I know as a non-techie that indeed
we've built Mifos Light through NetBeans, not in Eclipse. We're in the
progress of ensuring one of our programmers will have time to answer
this and other questions.
For those who would like to download and run the application through the
executable JAR, here is the guidance:

* Unpack the Zip file; save it in a directory of your wish
* Open the directory path Code\mifos Light 0.2.4.2.28072009-1\dist
* Double click the 'Mifos light' executable jar file
* The login screen should appear. Use for both user name and
password the word "beheerder" (Dutch for 'Maintenance')

On the menu, the functions 'Collection Sheet', 'Bulk Entry Sheet' and
'Import/Export' should work. Reports is not operational yet.
Not all our defects have been closed yet. The upload only covers the
client-side of Mifos Light, not the add-on to Mifos Vanilla for
arranging export to Mifos Light and import from Mifos Light (the first
is ready, the latter isn't).

Regards

Bart

-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Monsen [mailto:amo...@grameenfoundation.org]

https://mifos.dev.java.net/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=11644

Please help Logica to respect the environment by not printing this email / Pour contribuer comme Logica au respect de l'environnement, merci de ne pas imprimer ce mail / Bitte drucken Sie diese Nachricht nicht aus und helfen Sie so Logica dabei, die Umwelt zu schützen / Por favor ajude a Logica a respeitar o ambiente nao imprimindo este correio electronico.

[Krishnan M]

Hello Bart, How are you? I remember seeing that you'd be away on vacation till early August. Perhaps you are back now. I wanted to request you to do a demo over Webex/Dimdim of Mifos Light, since i am very curious to understand how it works, and i missed the last one. i did read your functional specifications, and it looks like you have a chosen a nice and very appropriate subset of Mifos functionality for a first release of Mifos Light thanks again, krishnan Pune, India --- On Mon, 10/8/09, Rijk, Bart de <bart.d...@logica.com> wrote:

From: Rijk, Bart de <bart.d...@logica.com> Subject: Re: [Mifos-developer] Mifos Light demo notes

To: "Mifos Developer Discussions" <mifos-d...@lists.sourceforge.net>

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[Muthoni Masinde]

Hello Adam,
Thank you for finally bringing up the Mifos Light topic; I am a keen Java
developer/Mifos contributor from Nairobi-Kenya that is looking forward the
deployable version of Mifos Light. I have a had a chance to test Mifos
Light and study the code in detail. Mifos Light is so well designed; I see
it becoming a very robust product. It worked very well on my windows
machine but gave me issues on my MacBookPro; I figured out it was an issue
with the MySQL server I was using.

I could assist with details of how the code works in NetBeans if the
programmer(s) delay in responding.

Thank you,
Muthoni

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> trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on
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[Stefan van Oss]

Hi Adam,

I totally see you point. Unfortunately we are lacking the developer capacity at the moment.
This sounds as a great opportunity to expand your IDE knowledge ;-)

Cheers, Stefan

[Adam Feuer]

Bart, Stefan,

Adam Monsen and I did some work to review the Mifos Light application
and source code today. We were able to successfully run the
application using the instructions provided earlier. We were not able
to build the application using NetBeans and get the self-built version
to run, though.

The following questions came up for us while looking at the application:

* Can you provide the patch to Mifos that generates XML files for Mifos Light?
* What version of Mifos does this patch work with? v1.0?
* Can Mifos Light be internationalized? How?
* Why does Mifos Light need multiple users if it is an end-client application?
* MySQL is bundled with Mifos Light. Is the project licensing adequate
to bundle MySQL? (Our understanding is that all the Mifos Light code
would need to be GPL then.)

cheers

[Adam Monsen]

> We were not able to build the application using NetBeans and get the
> self-built version to run, though.

A window was popping up saying "Install Error: Failed to read from
Branch table.", then popped up a wizard which appeared to be for
installing the Mifos Light database ( http://yfrog.com/5winstallp ).

But, here's an update on that: the .jar did run if we placed it in the
"dist" directory provided in the original source/binary deliverable
(directory contains lib, log, and mifosDb directories). Yay!

[Rijk, Bart de]

Hi Adam,

Many thanks for your questions, happy to hear that you've got at least
the JAR running.
Here are our answers to your questions on behalf of the Mifos Light
team; some are final answers, some are still preliminary.

First, your issue of building the application through NetBeans: Mark van
Venrooij suggests this may be caused by the absence of the 'lib'
directory in your code directories. The 'lib' is available in the
download, within the ' Code\mifos Light 0.2.4.2.28072009-1\dist'
directory. Mark may try to help you (through Skype or whatever means you
choose) to set this straight. You can arrange an appointment with him
for today - preferably not at the end of your working day otherwise you
may encounter a rather sleepy Mark.

* Can you provide the patch to Mifos that generates XML files for Mifos
Light?

Answer: Enclosed ZIP file contains the JSP files we've got for exporting
to and importing from Mifos Light. Our programmer on this part is on
holidays until first week of September, so we can't get full assurance
now that this ZIP file holds all relevant files. To our understanding,
exporting to Mifos Light should work; importing FROM Mifos Light is
still an issue.
Alternatively, we can forward you the full Mifos environment which
includes our patch as well - a 300 Mb set.

* What version of Mifos does this patch work with? v1.0?

Answer: Our patch works with Mifos 1.1.

* Can Mifos Light be internationalized? How?

Answer: Mifos Light is designed to work within one branch and hence in
one country, in one time zone and one currency, to keep Light really
Light. It assumes it uses the same country, time zone and currency of
the Full Mifos installation. Of course individual Mifos instances may
work in various countries. Regarding language support, Mifos Light is
fully prepared to support multiple languages. Here is how according to
Mark van Venrooij:

There are *.properties files available to facilitate to possibility of
internationalization, text displayed to a user can be easily changed by
adding new *.properties files. At this moment only a default version is
implemented which happen to be in the English language.

The *.properties files are located in the resources folder in a
package. E.g. the property file used in the MifosLightView.java file can
be found in the org.mifos.mifoslight.view.resources package as
MifosLightView.properties. In the code a resourceMap is called to
retrieved the localized message.

To provide a new language (e.g. Dutch) you need to create a new property
file with the following pattern:< CLASSNAME>_<LOCALE>.properties where
the<CLASSNAME> part is replaced by the classname where we need the text
and the <LOCALE> part is replaced by the locale string of the language
that's need to be supported. E.g. MifosLightView_nl.properties (dutch).

In this property file all key's given in the original file must be
copied. The key is everything before the "=" sign in the original file.
After the"=" sign a language specific string can be entered.

Now the new property file is created it is necessary to tell Java which
language needs to be loaded. This can be done by setting a system
property. This can be done by calling
System.setProperty("user.language", "NL_nl"); anywhere in the code but
it is best to do it before the first call to a properties file, so the
Locale does not change when the application is running. In our code the
constructor of the MifosLightView class is a good point for testing.

More information about locales can be found in the java api doc:
http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/Locale.html

* Why does Mifos Light need multiple users if it is an end-client
application?

Answer:
There are a number of reasons for Light to support multiple users.
First, where money, resources and PCs are scarce, it makes sense to
enable multiple end users on one PC and one instance. We see this for
example at the KEEF branches.
Second, we may want to allow for four-eyes principles in local
branches, where a local manager may need to approve data input by staff;
another requirement by KEEF.

* MySQL is bundled with Mifos Light. Is the project licensing adequate
to bundle MySQL? (Our understanding is that all the Mifos Light code
would need to be GPL then.)

Answer: In our understanding, you'd be most happy to have Mifos Light
code to be licensed with Apache, like Mifos in general. We are no Open
Source license experts (we're trying to reach our experts on this, but
that may take a little while), here's what we've found:
According to our interpretation of
http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/foss-exception , it would be
possible to have Mifos Light licensed through Apache as well, as we are
not making any changes to the MySQL source. Then, this exception would
apply. Maybe you have some experience yourselves on this topic?

Hope this answer set is of help to you, we're welcoming further
questions from your side!

Regards

Bart
-----Original Message-----
From: adam...@gmail.com [mailto:adam...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Adam
Feuer
Sent: maandag 17 augustus 2009 23:04
To: Mifos software development
Cc: O...@maroon.pobox.com; Rijk, Bart de; Oss, Stefan van
Subject: Re: [Mifos-developer] Mifos Light demo notes

Bart, Stefan,

Please help Logica to respect the environment by not printing this email / Pour contribuer comme Logica au respect de l'environnement, merci de ne pas imprimer ce mail / Bitte drucken Sie diese Nachricht nicht aus und helfen Sie so Logica dabei, die Umwelt zu schützen. / Por favor ajude a Logica a respeitar o ambiente nao imprimindo este correio electronico.

[Adam Monsen]

( Continuing
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.finance.mifos.devel/6409/focus=6635 )

> Here are our answers to your questions on behalf of the Mifos Light
> team; some are final answers, some are still preliminary.

Thanks very much, Bart!

I just talked with Mark. He helped me build and run the code via
NetBeans. I was able to copy a working database from the .zip file you
provided (I copied the whole "mifosDb" directory) into the top-level of
the source tree, and the Swing app was able to connect.

I also performed an import while I was chatting with Mark... I imported
collection-sheet-11042009-1.xml and personnel-sheet-11042009-1.xml, and
now my Mifos Light main view shows 163 customers and 36 system users.

This probably isn't a big issue, but the only thing missing from the
full "build from source and install" process is how to create an initial
Mifos Light database. When I start with a clean database, a window pops
up saying "Install Error: Failed to read from Branch table.", then a
wizard appears, looks like to help with installing the Mifos Light
database ( http://yfrog.com/5winstallp ). Mark mentioned he'd take a
look at this. Mark and I also noted that the Collection Sheet didn't
work.

> * Can you provide the patch to Mifos that generates XML files for Mifos
> Light?
> Answer: Enclosed ZIP file contains the JSP files we've got for exporting
> to and importing from Mifos Light. Our programmer on this part is on
> holidays until first week of September, so we can't get full assurance
> now that this ZIP file holds all relevant files.

These JSPs require some Java classes: these are missing from the zip
archive.

The JSP files themselves are fine for now, but eventually we will need
actual patch (diff) text file(s). We can also provide a branch in our
Subversion repository for a developer to commit changes to Mifos
required for Mifos Light.

> To our understanding, exporting to Mifos Light should work; importing
> FROM Mifos Light is still an issue.

Importing data into Mifos from Mifos Light is not yet implemented, or it
has defects?

> Alternatively, we can forward you the full Mifos environment which
> includes our patch as well - a 300 Mb set.

We'd definitely prefer a patch. It could be time consuming to match up
files changed and figure out the differences by hand.

> * MySQL is bundled with Mifos Light. Is the project licensing adequate
> to bundle MySQL? (Our understanding is that all the Mifos Light code
> would need to be GPL then.)
> Answer: In our understanding, you'd be most happy to have Mifos Light
> code to be licensed with Apache, like Mifos in general.

Here's the catch: if the MySQL _server_ is included in a Mifos Light
distribution, Mifos Light must be licensed under the GPL
( http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/foss-exception/#2 ) or you
have to pay for OEM licensing.

The GPL v3 may be a reasonable choice since it is compatible with the
Apache software license v2 (the license used by many Java libraries).
This may or may not work depending on what licenses are used by the
libraries in Mifos Light.

[Rijk, Bart de]

Hi Adam,

Great to hear you've got things moving from NetBeans as well.
Regarding the Collection sheet; we do have it working here - once we've
got the XML file imported and choose a loan officer/group/date which is
available in the data. So Mark and I wonder whether the Collection sheet
works for you after importing the XML files. Otherwise there is an issue
which needs further attention indeed.
Regarding the initial empty database: you do have a point here which we
haven't foreseen. Mark will have a look at it; possibly an SQL should do
the trick.

Regarding the Mifos Full classes: I'm not able to identify the specific
classes for our patch from the whole Mifos pack; hope we can help you
out early September upon return of our programmer.

Regarding Mifos Input from Mifos Light: We've started to create this,
but got stuck in the issue of inserting our data into the Transactions
table. Chiman Sachdeva has entered some questions on the forum on this
issue.

Regarding Licenses: you're knowledge is surpassing ours. We're happy to
provide you with our code and apply any license you deem to be best fit.

Regards

Bart

-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Monsen [mailto:amo...@grameenfoundation.org]

Sent: dinsdag 18 augustus 2009 18:01
To: Mifos Developer Discussions

Thanks very much, Bart!

Please help Logica to respect the environment by not printing this email / Pour contribuer comme Logica au respect de l'environnement, merci de ne pas imprimer ce mail / Bitte drucken Sie diese Nachricht nicht aus und helfen Sie so Logica dabei, die Umwelt zu schützen. / Por favor ajude a Logica a respeitar o ambiente nao imprimindo este correio electronico.

[Adam Monsen]

> So Mark and I wonder whether the Collection sheet works for you after
> importing the XML files. Otherwise there is an issue which needs
> further attention indeed.

Yes, I tried importing the XML files and running collection sheet; same
error ( http://pastey.net/121891 ). I believe Mark was able to reproduce
this or something similar.

> Regarding the initial empty database: you do have a point here which
> we haven't foreseen. Mark will have a look at it; possibly an SQL
> should do the trick.

Ok.

> Regarding the Mifos Full classes: I'm not able to identify the
> specific classes for our patch from the whole Mifos pack; hope we can
> help you out early September upon return of our programmer.

Sounds good.

> Regarding Mifos Input from Mifos Light: We've started to create this,
> but got stuck in the issue of inserting our data into the Transactions
> table. Chiman Sachdeva has entered some questions on the forum on this
> issue.

Ah, ok, thanks for reminding me. Here's that thread:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.finance.mifos.devel/6351/focus=6384
( http://tinyurl.com/qy2z3h )

[Oss, Stefan van]

Hi Adam,

 

In this new attachment we added the Java source files used by de exportimport functionality in the jsp's of Mifos(Full).

 

Hopefully this completes the "changed/added" files.

 

Cheers, Stefan

 

Please help Logica to respect the environment by not printing this email / Pour contribuer comme Logica au respect de l'environnement, merci de ne pas imprimer ce mail / Bitte drucken Sie diese Nachricht nicht aus und helfen Sie so Logica dabei, die Umwelt zu schützen. / Por favor ajude a Logica a respeitar o ambiente não imprimindo este correio electrónico. This e-mail and any attachment is for authorised use by the intended recipient(s) only. It may contain proprietary material, confidential information and/or be subject to legal privilege. It should not be copied, disclosed to, retained or used by, any other party. If you are not an intended recipient then please promptly delete this e-mail and any attachment and all copies and inform the sender. Thank you.