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#1 2008-05-08 14:25:45

miky_lbc
New Member
Registered: 2008-05-02
Posts: 1

Can I do "this" with txp?

Hello…

I´m newbie in textpattern world. I´m working on new webpages for modeling agency and thinking about textpattern, but I´m not shure, if is textpatter good CMS for me … I was able to make my own template and static content. Everything work great, farly better than in other CMS.

But I don´t know how to make profile pages for my models.

I need on my webpages (now about 300, in future more) personal sites for every my model face … every single page contain photogallery (one big photo + few thumbmail of other photos with possibility change main big photo after clicking) and information about model (about 6 atributes). I need two ways to open this personal pages – www.mypages.com/profilname and from my main pages (there i need page with thumbmail of all pages and sorting in many categories – profi male, profi female, male, female … + possibility search and show results from atributs of profile, like hair color and so…). And i really like implemet some “face of the day” function on basic page.

I don´t know if is real make something like this on textpattern, but i really like this CMS and if I make my site on this CMS, I ofcourse donate some money for next working on this amazing project.

If anyone have some idea, I will be realy thankfull.

Thank realy much for your time and forgive my english :o).

Mike

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#2 2008-05-08 15:30:28

jakob
Admin
From: Germany
Registered: 2005-01-20
Posts: 4,578
Website

Re: Can I do "this" with txp?

“this” should all be straightforward with txp. For each model make an article and assign them to a section such as “models” (or two sections, e.g. “male models, “female models”). Use categories for sortable criteria that you need to search by, e.g. hair colour, type etc. and custom fields for the attributes that don’t necessarily need sorting by (e.g. age, vital statistics, whatever).

Tehre are various approaches to photos – you upload the photos separately, so you need a way of telling the article which photos relate to it. One approach is to upload the photos, then enter their image ID values into the “article image” field of your article. You can then use a plug-in to make a gallery of those photos on the model page while using, say the first photo for the model overview page (hak_article_image does this well). Another approach is to assign your uploaded photos for a single model to an image category that matches the ID no. of the article – other plug-ins (rss-thumbpop for example) will then make a gallery out of any images you chuck into that image category. There are lots of hybrid approaches too – check the textpattern resources for gallery plug-ins.

On your model section page (or male-model and female-model section pages), you can then use categories etc. to filter the results according to certain criteria. There are further ways of sorting results too.

Re “face of the day”, check out some of the random plug-ins on textpattern resources. They are typically for a random image or quote-of-the-day but could probably be repurposed for a face of the day.


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#3 2008-05-08 20:10:01

merz1
Member
From: Hamburg
Registered: 2006-05-04
Posts: 994
Website

Re: Can I do "this" with txp?

Negative with TXP up to now (4.0.6):

An advanced database search interface must be hand coded!

  • No advanced search form possible for boolean combining of sections, categories and tags.
  • For a database search interface the core features of TXP are limited.

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#4 2008-05-08 20:33:50

jakob
Admin
From: Germany
Registered: 2005-01-20
Posts: 4,578
Website

Re: Can I do "this" with txp?

Negative

not a very helpful comment…

Clearly it does depend on the complexity of the search you need and the precision of the results you expect and that is as much a conceptual as well as a design issue – how precisely will your users need to search, and when does the search become too complex to use sensibly?

Put it this way:

  • if you want to shortlist all red-headed light-skinned models, that would be possible.
  • if you want all red-headed light-skinned models sorted by age, that would also be possible.
  • if you want all red-headed light-skinned models with a bust size of more than 99cm and an IQ of over 140 with less than 2cm long fingernails, then txp won’t manage that (though with the help of glz_custom_fields you can get some way there).

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#5 2008-05-10 14:01:41

merz1
Member
From: Hamburg
Registered: 2006-05-04
Posts: 994
Website

Re: Can I do "this" with txp?

not a very helpful comment…

Well, simply prove that my two statements are wrong. I am a Textpattern evangelist myself but always when new users ask for a kind of ‘database project’ then those limitations come to my mind and I think they have to be mentioned before somebody gets trapped. Article lists + sorting are not the solution for everything.

If somebody wants to implement a model database (!) then the extended search functions might become important.
If you need a simple ‘select by click’ search form then TXP does not not offer that out of the box.

I´m working on new webpages for modeling agency

A simple data structure example for a model database which spontaneously comes to my mind:

  • Model
  • Photographer(s)
  • Agency, Agencies, Represantative
  • Sex
  • Age
  • Model Skin Color
  • Model Hair Color
  • Model Eye Color
  • Size
  • Breast Size
  • Model Ethnicity
  • Etc.: City, Availability, References, Jobs by date, Jobs by photographer, Film, Photo, Subjects (Hierarchy?: Fashion, Cosmetic, Hand Model, Nails)

I wouldn’t know how to implement this data model with TXP without extensive PHP hand coding.

Big killer argument: The TXP core search feature(s) up to now (4.0.6) do an OR search. A boolean AND search is not yet implemented. Realizing a simple ‘keyword1 AND keyword2’ search fails miserably.

Custom fields are nice but a bad workaround for a restricting boolean search.

And how do you refine a search result with Textpattern?


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#6 2008-05-10 16:05:30

uli
Moderator
From: Cologne
Registered: 2006-08-15
Posts: 4,303

Re: Can I do "this" with txp?

I find databases rather interesting these days, I’m fiddling around a little bit with mine (no expertise, just an affinity ;) So I asked myself, if you think it really needed much more code than shown here to feed some article tag with the information you listed above if you provide the page with enough selectors to choose from?

Last edited by uli (2008-05-10 16:19:39)


In bad weather I never leave home without wet_plugout, smd_where_used and adi_form_links

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#7 2008-05-10 16:20:49

Gocom
Developer Emeritus
From: Helsinki, Finland
Registered: 2006-07-14
Posts: 4,533
Website

Re: Can I do "this" with txp?

And ofcourse you can change the settings of your db/tables/columns ;)

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#8 2008-05-10 16:23:23

uli
Moderator
From: Cologne
Registered: 2006-08-15
Posts: 4,303

Re: Can I do "this" with txp?

This refers to … , Jukka?


In bad weather I never leave home without wet_plugout, smd_where_used and adi_form_links

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#9 2008-05-10 16:34:15

Bloke
Developer
From: Leeds, UK
Registered: 2006-01-29
Posts: 11,250
Website GitHub

Re: Can I do "this" with txp?

merz1 wrote:

The TXP core search feature(s) up to now (4.0.6) do an OR search. A boolean AND search is not yet implemented.

Correct but you might be able to use smd_if to get partway there. It has a choice of AND/OR (currently only one or the other; I’d like to build in combinations but I’m struggling at the conceptual stage right now of how to fit it into the plugin without making it (more) complex). And you can test if variables contain stuff. Putting smd_if inside the form of an article_custom that lists all (or a subset) of articles allows you to filter articles out based on search criteria in the address bar.

Custom fields are nice but a bad workaround for a restricting boolean search.

True. Look at sed_pcf for packing more stuff into fields and at least taking action if certain values are set. And of course the awesome glz_custom_fields plugin for dropdowns and the like.

And how do you refine a search result with Textpattern?

You don’t, but to be fair even Google doesn’t allow search refinement per se; it just does keyword replacement or “what about this instead” type things. smd_fuzzy_find does (sort of) offer the latter if you mis-spell stuff but it is very limited at the moment until I get more time to work on it. I’d like to be able to offer it as a replacement for the built-in search so it can offer close matches even if you spell stuff correctly, but if you use a search form without a <txp:article> tag, TXP complains and I havent yet found a workaround.

There is also ob1_advanced_search but I haven’t used that myself so I don’t know how good it is.

Short answer is that, yes merz1 is right, it’s not easy and it could be easier (full index searching would be useful in the DB for starters). But with some planning, a strict naming conventions, some plugins or ideas presented here / in the forums — and perhaps a dash or two of PHP — you could certainly get something workable. I don’t know of any CMS that can do this without at least some extra code, but I could be wrong.


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#10 2008-05-10 16:48:30

uli
Moderator
From: Cologne
Registered: 2006-08-15
Posts: 4,303

Re: Can I do "this" with txp?

Could smd_if’s resulting articles be triggered by the outcome of selectors chosen from?


In bad weather I never leave home without wet_plugout, smd_where_used and adi_form_links

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#11 2008-05-10 17:23:46

uli
Moderator
From: Cologne
Registered: 2006-08-15
Posts: 4,303

Re: Can I do "this" with txp?

A model of the day, btw, would better be accomplished with a time-based plugin (not a random), like Rick Sillettis ras_if_dates, which of–course–eats up one more precious custom field.


In bad weather I never leave home without wet_plugout, smd_where_used and adi_form_links

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#12 2008-05-10 17:31:40

Bloke
Developer
From: Leeds, UK
Registered: 2006-01-29
Posts: 11,250
Website GitHub

Re: Can I do "this" with txp?

uli wrote:

Could smd_if’s resulting articles be triggered by the outcome of selectors chosen from?

In theory yes. If the selectors are part of an HTML form and pass their output to the address bar in a query string then smd_if can grab the fields and use them in a comparison.


The smd plugin menagerie — for when you need one more gribble of power from Textpattern. Bleeding-edge code available on GitHub.

Txp Builders – finely-crafted code, design and Txp

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