importing existing users to Patrons

No - I'm afraid this functionality doesn't exist. You might try doing an export of your users table and then do a node import into patron - just a thought. I would definitely try it on a development site first.

The way that simplenews handles this is using a cron-job in which it syncs the users/groups with defined newsletters.

I guess the GPL says, you could rip that code :-)

A cron job isn't a bad idea - I checked out the simplenews module and it doesn't look like it's automatically creating nodes based on patrons... Perhaps it's a sub module?

I was just referring to the cron bit.

During the Cronjob Simplenews just makes sure that its internal subscribers are in sync with the users. I dont know how it stores its subscribers, pretty sure they are not nodes indeed.

Just dont forget that if you automatically sync, you have to drop the requirement for firstname & lastname. Or implement some profile-magic, like 'You must Map the Profile First Name and Profile Last Name fields to the Patron First & LastName fields before you can switch on the synchronisation". Personally I would prefer to drop the whole Name-storage in the Patron Node altogether. People can use CCK for that if they want to.

that remark is a separate feature request as well: http://drupal.org/node/323657

I'm looking at using this module for a local tool sharing organization. I don't quite understand why you would want a separate Patron type to begin with - why not just use users? I realize it may be difficult to restructure now that you've gone down that road, but dealing with two different data types that essentially describe the same thing jumps out to me as the #1 obstacle to using the module. Or is there some reason for it that I'm missing?

The initial client I built this for wasn't going to have clients as users, but I thought it would be rather useless without that capacity. Ironically, 5 months later the requirements changed, but my initial module was already complete.

I second teejaydub's comments. I would like to see this module using users. I am considering hacking it about to try to make it work that way (time permitting).

I just discovered this module and it's a great one, but the patron idea it's something I don't quite get it.. It's some sort of a 'user', am I right?.

I'm going to take a look at the module to see if I can get rid of this idea and at least make First Name and Last Name not required (maybe hide them), because I'm using profiles and having two Frist Name fields, and two Last Name fields it's ridiculous.

Did anyone find a solution/alternative for this?

Patrons are the people who can be associated with library items - whoever has an item checked out. They may or may not be Drupal 'users'

After a few days using this module I found out what patrons are. I wish it could be possible to use one or another option and not force the users to create some sort of "node profile" while creating a patron. I'm still trying to find a way to use this module without patrons (or at least to get rid of the first name, last name and email fields) but my guess it's that I have to break the entire module and change lots of things. So, it's probably going to take me some time.

Do not misunderstand me, it's a great module and I read the part about "The initial client I built this for wasn't going to have clients as users", I only would like to know if you're planning to change this behavior or if you know/have any patches.

Thanks

I'm afraid at the moment, I don't have the time to devote to rewriting this module - and yeah - major change. :)

I really like this module, though I agree with all that it would be a welcomed change to not have a separate patron component from the Drupal users. I'm curious if anyone has found a method to remove the patron portion. I'm using a single sign-on (SSO) with the webserver_auth module. I encountered problems (see below) recently when I tried to enable the Path module also. Everything works as long as the patron settings are not set to 'Associate Library Patrons with Drupal Users'. With webserver_auth whenever a new user enters the system, they can automatically become a Drupal user, however, the patron setting 'Autocreate Library Patron on User Registration and Delete on User Deletion' is incompatible. I think it would all work if there were no separate patron component. My errors include the following:

warning: array_fill() [function.array-fill]: Number of elements must be positive in /public_html/includes/database.inc on line 241.
warning: implode() [function.implode]: Invalid arguments passed in /public_html/includes/database.inc on line 241.
warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /public_html/modules/user/user.module on line 502.
user warning: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ')' at line 1 query: SELECT p.perm FROM role r INNER JOIN permission p ON p.rid = r.rid WHERE r.rid IN () in /public_html/modules/user/user.module on line 502

If anyone has experienced this or has any success removing the patron component, I'd be interested to hear about it.

Regards.

as @jastraat said in #13, to remove the patron from this module, the module has to be rewritten.

Please check out the patch in http://drupal.org/node/814986