record review site - could use some help with general principles

nardo · 2008-11-13 22:57:18

having a hard time working out how to do this efficiently! maybe someone with similar setup can help?

these are the main content types -

authors – each author needs a name, image, bio (that they can edit themselves)
records (LPs, 7”, 12”) – each record is an article, with a review and star rating by an author
charts – top 5 records, associated with an author, each record in the chart linking to the appropriate ‘records’ article … and charts must be viewable over time (e.g. Jan 09, Feb 09, etc)
blog posts – articles posted by an author

it’s associating authors, records and charts that’s the main issue…

and secondary, how to do charts? 5 custom fields, to be populated by article IDs? not so friendly for the authors, but I cannot think of another way

any help greatly appreciated

sthmtc · 2008-11-13 23:04:29

seriously this might sound like the worst post ever, but have you considered using expressionengine for this project? i’m sure it’s perfectly possible with textpattern — and don’t get me wrong, i seriously love textpattern — but this sounds like an ideal candidate for EE and its custom section field and reverse related entries goodness. would probably be a no-brainer with EE.

Last edited by sthmtc (2008-11-13 23:06:10)

nardo · 2008-11-13 23:28:19

thanks Sven, I’ll certainly keep an open mind!

Bloke · 2008-11-13 23:29:12

nardo wrote:

it’s associating authors, records and charts that’s the main issue…

How about:

Assuming each author has a TXP login, use mta_author_section or its perfectly capable predecessor (which I still use) bos_author to ease profile pages and display. These plugins allow you to filter by author and show articles (from one or both sections via article_custom) that belong to the selected author. You may even be able to do this with built-in tags and <txp:if_author /> now, but I’ve not delved into it
Each record article (in its own dedicated section) has its details in the body and various custom fields for attributes (record type (7”, 12”, etc), band name, record label, blah blah) plus categories for genre
Each review (again in its own section) by an author has a custom field labelled rating and one labelled record. This can be used to tie the record <-> review by using an article_custom call with section="records" record='<txp:title />' attribute. EDIT: Mind you, dunno how you’d cope with an article called “The Power Of Love” because that title’s been used by at least 3 artists I know of… hmmm
Charts: smd_query is probably easiest to construct some old-fashioned SQL :-) That way, it’s automatic and there’s no need for anyone to store any additional info. Look at some of the examples on the smd_query thread to see the sort of thing you can do for ‘top 10 whatevers’
Blog posts are independent, stored in their own section
Use sed_section_fields to hide custom fields per section so authors know which fields to fill in for which type of article

That’s how I’d approach it, but I may have over-simplified something or missed some part of your intended design. Does that give you any more ideas?

Last edited by Bloke (2008-11-13 23:34:24)

nardo · 2008-11-13 23:44:57

The Power Of Love – FGTH … and?

could be a custom field to select records for your chart … pop up … like upm_image_popper … and the record’s article ID is added, that’ll always be unique

I’ve never seen a good application for charts – have you bloke?

Bloke · 2008-11-13 23:48:19

nardo wrote:

The Power Of Love – FGTH … and?

Jennifer Rush
Huey Lewis & The News :-)

could be a custom field to select records for your chart … pop up … like upm_image_popper … and the record’s article ID is added, that’ll always be unique

If you want to manually make a chart, yes. I thought you meant make a chart like “highest rating by author”, in which case, smd_query could do it automatically. But the upm_ approach would solve the ID / duplicate record problem. Maybe look at glz_custom fields then? Not sure if that can help, or hack jmd’s image popup thingy? Or the one that uses wet_peex… name escapes me right now?

I’ve never seen a good application for charts – have you bloke?

Not really. Not yet anyway :-)

Last edited by Bloke (2008-11-13 23:52:22)

jakob · 2008-11-14 00:05:53

I’d probably also try something along the lines bloke has suggested.

Regarding charts, there are ton listed on smashing magazine and a few more on this list of js techniques.

nardo · 2008-11-14 00:13:17

LOL charts… for me it means the ones in say Straight No Chaser magazine or many other fanzines back in the day…!

hey SNC are online
http://www.straightnochaser.co.uk/charts.php

wet · 2008-11-14 06:45:11

sthmtc wrote:

seriously this might sound like the worst post ever, but have you considered using expressionengine for this project?

The jihad will find you, Salman Ellingen ;-)

sthmtc · 2008-11-14 07:53:50

wet wrote:

The jihad will find you, Salman Ellingen ;-)

ROTFL

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#1 2008-11-13 22:57:18

record review site - could use some help with general principles

#2 2008-11-13 23:04:29

Re: record review site - could use some help with general principles

#3 2008-11-13 23:28:19

Re: record review site - could use some help with general principles

#4 2008-11-13 23:29:12

Re: record review site - could use some help with general principles

#5 2008-11-13 23:44:57

Re: record review site - could use some help with general principles

#6 2008-11-13 23:48:19

Re: record review site - could use some help with general principles

#7 2008-11-14 00:05:53

Re: record review site - could use some help with general principles

#8 2008-11-14 00:13:17

Re: record review site - could use some help with general principles

#9 2008-11-14 06:45:11

Re: record review site - could use some help with general principles

#10 2008-11-14 07:53:50

Re: record review site - could use some help with general principles

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