How to set a Field as Mandatory in the WEB OPAC ILL2 Forms?

• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 18.01

Description:
In the WEB OPAC a Book request form has mandatory fields Author and Title. We would also like Year of Publication field to be mandatory.

For the Journal request form, we would like Volume field to be mandatory.

How can we do this?

Resolution:
In both Book and Journal request forms for the new ILL2 module the MARC21 Bibliographic fields are the declared as following (example, Title field - 245):

Book:
<input size=40 maxlength=120 name="BIB_M_2451_a_1500" value="$1500">

Journal:
<input size=40 maxlength=120 name="BIB_M_2451_a_1500" value="$1500">

As you can see, the "name" attribute has the following format:

BIB - bibliographic field
"_M_" - mandatory field? "_M_" means mandatory, "___" means not mandatory (optional)
2451_ - field code and indicators
a_ - subfield code
1500 - placeholder, must match with the "value" attribute

If you look the field 260$$c (Publication date) from the Book form (filename: new-ill-book-request) or Volume field (ISS$$v) from the Journal form (filename: new-ill-r-mn) will you see that the mandatory string of these fields are set to be "___" (optional):

Book form (new-ill-book-request):
<input size=15 maxlength=15 name="BIB___260__c_2100" value="$2100">

Journal form (new-ill-r-mn):
<input size=6 maxlength=6 name="BIB___ISS__v_2000" value="$2000">

So, to make these fields mandatory you just need to edit both files (new-ill-book-request and new-ill-r-mn) and change the "BIB___" string to "BIB_M_". In the end, the lines will look as following:

Book form (new-ill-book-request):
<input size=15 maxlength=15 name="BIB_M_260__c_2100" value="$2100">

Journal form (new-ill-r-mn):
<input size=6 maxlength=6 name="BIB_M_ISS__v_2000" value="$2000">

Make sure to clean the utf_files directory (util x/7) after applying the changes to the WEB OPAC files.

Note: the form for the Journal request has more fields in the "new-ill-journal-request" and "new-ill-r-ser" files. If you wish to change how the fields behave in the future, please take a look in all these files to find where the field you want to change is located.