This is such a cool module. I fought with it for several days before I realized the heartbreaking reality that it simply does not work with Views and/or Panels.

Considering the widespread use of Views and Panels modules to override the default taxonomy pages (e.g, ‘taxonomy_term’ view), I think it would be a good idea to put an explicit caveat on the module overview page.

Something like the following:

Note: This module is incompatible with taxonomy views created by Views or Views + Panels.

I know this would have saved me days of frustration and heartache.

For the record, here’s why (for anyone else searching these threads):

The Taxonomy Filter module only works with the core taxonomy views which have the ability to parse a URL in the format

    /taxonomy/term/x,y,z

into a page listing only nodes tagged with terms x,y and z, (i.e., only nodes tagged with terms ‘x’ AND ‘y’ AND ‘z’).

However, this will not work you are using Views (or Views + Panels) to override the default taxonomy view pages.

The problem is that Views treates multiple arguments as OR instead of AND and there is no reasonable way to disable this behavior. As a result, the filters provided by this module do not refine the list of results as expected.

Comments

solotandem’s picture

solotandem commented

Respectfully, your assessment is incorrect.

As a result, the filters provided by this module do not refine the list of results as expected.
This module is incompatible with taxonomy views created by Views or Views + Panels.

This module does not determine the list of content displayed. That is done by whichever module responds to the URL -- views or core or whatever. This module simply builds links to refine what the other module displays.

This module is not "incompatible" with Views. Rather, because Views does not provide an "AND" listing, using it to determine the content displayed collides with the intent of this module. However, if it did AND the terms, it would also be compatible with this module. The 7.x version of this module uses the Multi-term Views module to provide the "AND" effect since neither Views nor Core does this in Drupal 7. Seems I should backport the latter so "Views would work with this module" in 6.x. Or, you could also provide this functionality yourself.

Panels integration seems to be another story waiting to be solved. Others have posted problems with this. If someone could provide helpful debug information, that would be great. Obviously, you would have to use the core taxonomy term page with Panels to test it.

zach harkey’s picture

zach harkey commented

Thanks for the quick reply, solotandem.

I guess I didn't realize how Views-centric my wording was. You are right that Taxonomy Filter isn't the problem here. TF actually works awesomely with the core taxonomy pages. (I didn't test it with any other modules respond to taxonomy/term/% URLs, aside from Views and Panels).

I should have been more clear that it is the Views taxonomy pages that don't work properly with Taxonomy Filter. Taxonomy Filter actually does a great job of building the links to refine results in following with the URL scheme used by the drupal core taxonomy module. It's the Views module that is converting 'AND' style URL arguments into 'OR'.

Unfortunately, the end result is the same. At the end of the day, Views' taxonomy pages don't work properly with Taxonomy Filters. While it isn't this module's responsibility to cater to the limitations of Views in this regard, I still think some kind of explicit statement to this effect would help people avoid the same misunderstanding I had. But that's your call. The mere existence of this thread may also help.

Taxonomy Filters is a remarkable module, I really wanted to use it on my current project but they rely so heavily on Views for display. I've been using Drupal long enough to know I don't have the skills needed to backport the Multi-term Views functionality to 6.x or I would.

solotandem’s picture

solotandem commented

I just committed a 6.x branch of Multi-term Views project. This should allow you to use Views with this module.

If you could try out the combination with Views and Panels, and report back that would be great. Start a new issue -- feature request. If the combination fails with Panels, please describe your panel setup so I can emulate it. If you can debug the problem, kudos to you as well.

zach harkey’s picture

zach harkey commented

You're awesome.

I'm cloning a copy to test right now. I'll follow up under that project.

Thanks.

solotandem’s picture

solotandem commented
Title: Warn users that TF doesn't work with Views or Panels » How to use TF with Views and Panels

Hopefully, we will be Panels-integrated soon as well.

zach harkey’s picture

zach harkey commented

For the record, I am pleased to report that thanks to the new 6.x branch of Multi-term Views (tf_views), Taxonomy Filters now works with Views ...and Views+Panels. (So you killed 2 birds with 1 stone, my friend).

Big Thanks to Solotandem.