By raiph on

Hi y'all. I'm part of a team (SFX+) drawing up a roadmap of proposed changes for http://spreadfirefox.com (SFX). My focus is drupal's taxonomy mechanisms. I think I've gotten to understand these pretty well, but I think it's time to ask some questions. This is the first of several How Do I? questions I intend to post.

I'm exploring the idea of (temporary logins to) a subset of the nodes on SFX. I'm mainly thinking about the potential of a taxonomy based subset, but group/role based subsets also sound interesting.

Imagine that SFX has a term, say 'Press', that has been used to tag a bunch of content -- blog entries, forum topics, polls, etc.

Now, consider the Spreadfirefox.com home page just as it is now. You see some posts promoted to the home page; links to forum topics; a list of recent blogs; a link to an image gallery; and so on.

I'd love for us to be able to have that same look but for the nodes to be restricted to those tagged with the term 'Press'. Further, I would want it so that, while one is "logged in" to this node subset, then, as one navigates SFX, the subset remains in place, so the only links and content one sees correspond to nodes tagged with the 'Press' term.

That's basically it, though I'd really also want to be able to create term combination subsets (eg 'Press' AND 'Mainstream'), and perhaps subsets based on groups/roles, and I'd want to alter the site's look while logged in to a subset to ensure the user doesn't forget that they are browsing a subset.

Does this makes sense to y'all? How would I best do it?

Comments

boris mann’s picture

boris mann commented

It sounds like you are halfway to putting together a solution, but you haven't described the problem.

What are you trying to accomplish? i.e. display all press posts to certain users? Restrict views for certain users? etc.

You say login, but do you mean that users would need to login to see these subsets? Another way to do this might be to tie this to subdomains. That is, have press.spreadfirefox.com to the main site, but there would be logic to only have subdomain press --> taxonomy term press. Combinations would be difficult to achieve this way.

Basically you want to set a taxonomy filter and have it stick, right? Well, this could be set in the session, the interesting part is making a UI for it that makes sense.

You might also want to check out the older "mypage" module, which was a personalizable taxonomy browser.

raiph’s picture

raiph commented

Thanks for the quick reply.

What are you trying to accomplish? i.e. display all press posts to certain users? Restrict views for certain users? etc.

I used 'Press' just as an example.

I want to enable any user to maintain a temporary focus of attention while otherwise using the site as is.

Thus, for example, the SFX home page displays the 10 latest blog entries and the 5 top high scoring posts (blog or forum topic), among other information. So I'd want to be able to view the SFX home page as usual, and see those lists as usual, but for those lists to display, respectively, the latest 10 blog entries that have been tagged with a chosen term or term combination, and the top 5 high scoring posts tagged with that same term or term combination.

Or, on SFX+, we display the latest 10 nodes of any node type, plus the latest 10 comments. So I'd want the list of the latest 10 nodes to be the latest 10 nodes tagged with a particular term or term combination, and the list of the latest 10 comments to be the latest 10 comments associated with nodes tagged with that same term or term combination.

You say login, but do you mean that users would need to login to see these subsets? Another way to do this might be to tie this to subdomains. That is, have press.spreadfirefox.com to the main site, but there would be logic to only have subdomain press --> taxonomy term press. Combinations would be difficult to achieve this way.

Sub-domains might be fine. I don't (yet) care how the "login" effect is achieved.

Basically you want to set a taxonomy filter and have it stick, right?

Yes. (I decided to avoid the word "filter" because that word is usually used here for a completely different meaning, namely to refer to filters that act on the text body of nodes. And I decided to generalize the idea beyond just taxonomy filters because I could see group/role based filters being possible and of interest too. I'm going to stick to using "node subset" for now.)

The key is: How? I'm looking for help in exploring this. I'm guessing that there are several node iteration functions in core, and I would need to modify them to incorporate the notion of a filter in their SQL statements. Does that make sense?

the interesting part is making a UI for it that makes sense.

Do you mean the UI for establishing the node subset; or the UI for "logging in" to that subset; or the UI for using that subset?

The UI I'm proposing for the latter -- for browsing a given subset -- is using a site exactly as is, indeed that's the very essence of what I'm trying to enable.

The "logging in" UI could just be using a sub-domain as you suggest or could be something else.

I have specific ideas for the UI for establishing the node subset. It might plausibly be based on the taxonomy browser module. But I wish to postpone discussion of that for now -- after all, it's only relevant if I can achieve the rest of the deal.

You might also want to check out the older "mypage" module, which was a personalizable taxonomy browser.

Thanks. And there's a somewhat similar My Workspace module.