Add a scrolling box for longer lists of suggestions
| Project: | Suggested Terms |
| Version: | 6.x-1.2 |
| Component: | User interface |
| Category: | feature request |
| Priority: | normal |
| Assigned: | Unassigned |
| Status: | needs work |
Hi, I was very happy to find this module, but somewhat disappointed when I installed and tried it. The problem is: 5 (or whatever) suggestions? Alphabetic, most popular, whatever, that doesn't really help. One has to make it infinite to solve the problem in practice, but with any reasonably large taxonomy, the output will then be unwieldy. What is actually needed is a drop down list or similar of the entire vocabulary, just as with predefined terms, so you can select or add fresh. In other words, what I am really after is a workalike to predefined terms, except that I can conveniently add fresh terms on page creation instead of having to go back into administer every time I find I need a new term (which is a royal pain when you're trying to get creative work done).
I had a go at modifying it myself, but I got completely confused trying to sort out how it worked.
Thanks for creating this nice module though!
Many thanks,
Ron.
#1
I have had another look at this problem and I have managed to get a bit of a bodgy solution going.
I have made the changes listed in the accompanying diff file.
It puts the terms in a scroll box if there are too many of them.
#2
This is not a unified diff file. Please see: http://drupal.org/patch/create
#3
That said, no, the intent of this module is not to provide a list of all terms in a given taxonomy. That can get horribly unusable in the UI. It's to provide suggestions based on what you are likely to want. You can control how many terms are listed. The autocomplete functionality already provides suggestions for the entire vocabulary. No sense in duplicating that.
#4
It gets unusable only because they don't appear in a scrollable list, which is what I am trying to make it do. And autocomplete doesn't solve the problem. One wants to see the taxonomy items that exist so one can select as appropriate, but also be able to make new ones without having to divert from the writing at hand to go into the admin pages. Creative writers think of new taxonomy items all the time, but still the taxonomy is basically fixed-but-necessarily incomplete, rather than free. (Example: bird species - one knows the list is limited, but no one wants to have to input the whole lot before starting writing articles.) A small number of suggestions from a big taxonomy is useless, as the ones needed in the next article are unpredictable. And don't even mention the five most popular - it might seem helpful, but it just wastes your time looking in order to find that what you want isn't there. This module is so close to solving a big usability bottleneck, but fails entirely as it is currently written.
#5
Hi Crell, I think this is the correct patch file. The code is slightly different from that in the wrong file - made some tinkering to get the appearance better.
Cheers,
Ron.
P.S. To see the effect, you have to display more than the default 5 suggestions. 0 for the lot is the usage for which the patch is intended to improve the interface.
#6
I have polished the modifications up a bit, by adding a configuration question so users can specify whether they want a scrollbar window, and if so, how big. Defaults to the current behaviour for anyone who doesn't go to the configuration page, so existing users who don't try to change settings should notice no changes. Hopefully it should please everyone. Also took the opportunity of shifting a line out of a loop. Still works as far as I can see.
#7
#8
Please see http://drupal.org/node/303697 for the resolution to this problem/the status of the inclusion of the patch.
#9
Better title...