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Will ZenTools2 V2 support content sourcing from K2 tags?
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8 years 4 months ago
I need to create a section on my website that tracks scientific abstracts. I have been trying to figure out the best way to display the data using Categories and Tags. Howwever, because there is not a one to many relationship I am thinking I may need to place all the abstracts into ONLY one category and then do all of my organizing of data 100% with Tags. This makes me wonder if maybe I would be able to use ZenTools2 pretty soon to create layouts to display this content.Here is my predicament. I was going to use diseases for the categories and subcategories and use other variables for the tags.
so,
Categories and Subcategories example:
Cancer
Prostate cancer
Lung cancer
Tags example:
Red Meat
Processed Meats
Chlorine
Unfortunately some of the Items would be relevant to more than one disease type and also some woudl be relevant to more than one tag.
Also, I wonder if I put two thousand small items all into one category if that would be a terrible idea. The project I want probably needs a real database but I want to keep it easy. That is where I hope that ZenTools2 might come in!
What do you think?
Thanks, Sean
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8 years 4 months ago
Hi Sean,I think this may work for you:
Display Joomla content based on category. eg in the content tab select all of the diseases.
Then assign tags to each item as needed.
Then use the filter option to filter items by tag.
So then you have a list of all of the tags in the toolbar and all of the content from your diseases are displayed.
If you add the disease states as tags as well then you can also have disease and related tags in the toolbar.
Thats the only way I can think of it at the moment.
Zt2 will have the ability to pull content from specific tags but I don't think that's necessarily going to improve what you want to do. eg being able to pull all content with red meat, processed meat and chlorine as the content is still not going to give you access to their disease categories in a meaningful way.
Having zt2 display 2000 categories is going to be quite slow. Having any site without significant caching is going to be quite slow unless the process is highly optimised.
Since Zentools is a one size fits all when we reference the database we pull down all of the content from the row and if you are retrieving other stuff like category information that also adds to the overhead.
If it's a significant project I would probably invest in getting a custom module built so that you can have a highly optimised query to get the data you need.
Hope that helps.
Anthony
- Anthony Olsen
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8 years 4 months ago
Hi SeanAs Anthony says depends if project can fund development and ultimate goal. A couple of half way suggestions for you to consider.
Content Builder has been slowly developing for a while and we used on data heavy projects. Depending on your level of understanding it may suit. It will build the data entry, extend the db and let you access the data properly from the database with queries to do the relationship stuff. If you can get your head around it you will save time over building and writing code from scratch. Worth also using breezingforms if you do go down that route.
crosstec.org/en/downloads/contentbuilder-cck-for-joomla.html
Second suggestion is you stick with k2, see you raised this on the k2 forum, and use extra fields to provide the categories within drop down lists. You can them filter the relationship between these, just need some thought when planning it out. We have done this before and then used a filter module, for us this works
styleware.eu/store/item/52-filter-for-k2
The k2 option is quick and easy, should do what you want if my understanding is correct. The issue is extra fields are stored flat in the db which is not great technically if you really want or need to do it properly. Not the speedest solution and relies on k2.
I guess it depends on the scope of the project and budget, it is sometimes just getting the job done. The above may give you some food for thought.
Regards Ian
- iafdesign
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8 years 4 months ago
Thanks for taking the time to post thisVery kind of you
Cheers
Paul
- manh
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8 years 4 months ago
Anthony,Thank you so much for those ideas. I will definitely be using ZenTool2 but appreciate your comments as I certainly won't be trying to use it to load thousands of records.
I do also appreciate the advice about the custom module idea! Actually I am wondering about using core joomla and using the component called CW Multicategories on the JED at extensions.joomla.org/extension/cw-multicategories
It looks like I could do what I want with Joomla and not need to have any tags at all. Although... I will probably end up with Tags as well.
My hope is that I could use this tool to organize the Research Summaries by categories and subcategories (with items being place into multiple categories) and hopefully allow the system to cache all the pages to help with the speed issues.
I am concerned about using this component on a site that is already using K2 and EasyBlog since it seems that less is usually better when it comes to the number of components on any one site. I do also have another site I considered using this project on but that site uses EasySocial, EasyDiscuss, EasyBlog, Komento and YooRecipe. So, again... afraid of performance issues adding another component.
If anybody else has good advice to pop into this thread I will be really glad to hear it.
- scarney
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8 years 4 months ago
I really appreciate the suggestions about using Content Builder and also the suggestions about using K2. I also found there is a K2 component for adding K2 items into Multiple categories. I guess that might be another options. I worry about K2 a bit because they have been so long to get the next version out but I do love K2 and hope that their new product is as great as it sounds!Have you ever experimented with CW Multicategory? I do want whatever we do to be pretty fast but also believe that a simple site with caching turned on will certainly help. Thanks again for your comments. I really appreciate it.
Sean
- scarney
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8 years 4 months ago
Hi SeanI have never used CW Multicategory - so cannot help.
I share your concern about K2, however it does much of what we need now and we can hack it to do a fair amount easily, we know our round K2. One reason we use the filter and extra fields is it allows us to limit what users can input by giving them a list to select from. Tags open up too much creativity for users when adding content, extra fields prevents numerous tags being created that mean the same thing. This method is fairly fast and with some optimisation you would return pretty good speeds on moderate data numbers.
You could then use zentools to display selected content elsewhere in the site drawing on the same content items. For displaying K2 we use our own version of k2.css, via k2.less, along with basic overrides to layout of the filtered items and full articles to match the template.
If you are looking to a really large dataset and speed is important then you will need to get your hands dirty and code directly to the db. No such thing as a free lunch! Much depends on the client expectations and budget plus any on-going requirements to share data and expand. Again if speed and access searches are really key, you could argue that Joomla may not be the best route for displaying this data. Once you drill down into database design that get more complex some would argue you need more robust db like Oracle anyway.
Unless you can justify the extra expenditure, then in my opinion I would go down the K2 route with filters, it is a simple solution that works now and with careful planning will get the project moving forward. It keeps the overhead on Joomla as low as practical and you can use well developed tools to support it. Keep it Simple.
Anyway that is my two pennies worth, hope it helps a little.
Cheers Ian
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8 years 4 months ago
Thanks for your two pennies - it's much appreciated.Good luck with it Sean
- Anthony Olsen
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8 years 4 months ago
Ian,I have read your message multiple times and keep coming back to it. You are helping me to think in a way I had not considered. I am going to play with your ideas! I believe it will work and is worth a try!
Thank you so much for taking the time to outline your thinking!
I am grateful!
Sean
- scarney
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8 years 4 months ago
Thanks SeanGood luck with it
Thanks again Ian
- manh
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8 years 4 months ago
You're welcome.If you fancy diving into coding this book is a good place to start
www.packtpub.com/web-development/learning-joomla-3-extension-development-third-edition
Of course there is tons of stuff on the web, just be sure to make any code secure as a little knowledge is sometime dangerous!
Cheers Ian
- iafdesign
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8 years 4 months ago
Yeah - certainly agree with a little knowledge is dangerousThanks for book steer - I've got a copy of that somewhere I'll have to dig it out
Cheers
Paul
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8 years 4 months ago
paulus103 wrote:
Yeah - certainly agree with a little knowledge is dangerous
Hey, that is the story of my Joomla life! Always getting in trouble and then getting bailed out. I will do all that I can to avoid having to code right now.
That said Ian,
I have been looking at K2 and believe you are giving me a good idea. I did notice that K2 allows us to use Tags with 'Selection-based tagging' and wonder if I should use them instead of Extra Fields because I am not seeing how I could create menu items based on the Extra Fields.
- scarney
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8 years 4 months ago
Hi SeanThe reason I would avoid tags is users can go off in their own direction, extra fields retains control over the options, that said tags may well work for you and your users.
For extra fields, using the filter, you can create whatever menu items you choose and setup the filter (one I suggested is a module) to display the items set or sub set however you determine, then create the relationships between them to suit.
For example is you displayed transport, you had cars, bikes, buses, and in different colours, you could have a menu item that displayed cars - all of them - then use the filter to restrict the view to just say red cars.
I hope that helps.
Ian
- iafdesign
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8 years 4 months ago
Hi Ian and Sean,Yes tags - I am working on a site where the users have run amok with tags
They have tagged each item with its own individual tag
So I'd echo Ian's advice
Cheers
Paul
- manh
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8 years 4 months ago
I am assuming that the filters you are referring to are filters that are in either K2 Content Module or the ZenTools2 module?Otherwise, I would sure love a bit more of a hint about how I would filter on the extra fields in order to get Red Cars only to display.
Although I may be in a situation where that type of filtering is not really relevant. Basically my articles might be related to cancer and hypertension and red meat consumption. But, it may not be the same as having a variable on one item. ie. not a category like car that has an option below it like red. That is why I was thinking about tags. But, with K2 I see we can make it so that the users can't free text tags but the tags have to be created on the backend and then those items can be selected while editing the K2 item.
Thanks, Sean
- scarney
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8 years 4 months ago
Yes you are right Sean Zt2 cant filter based on extrafields.But your solution there sounds like a good one - ie using K2 tags.
Cheers
- Anthony Olsen
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8 years 4 months ago
Hi SeanIf K2 tags can work for you, then it is the cleanest way to go.
Using the filter module, one I suggested, allows you to apply the AND / OR logic to selecting articles based on a term (extra field) you determine, it is more a relational connection in the search.
For your situation of articles about, cancer, hypertension and red meat consumption the filter allows the user to get returned just article of interest.
You can set it up to show articles with references to all items selected or just articles that have both references. If the user filtered on cancer and red meat, you could return articles that had reference to just both cancer AND red meat, or cancer OR red meat depending on your requirements. You can start at a top level and work down filtering in or out based on selection. The extra fields and the filter give you a lot of potential control, and you can nest the filter logic, so you created chain filters. The styleware site will explain this better and you can download the manual.
I hope this helps rather than confuses!
Regards Ian
- iafdesign
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8 years 4 months ago
Ian, I obviously need to download the manual. I was not aware that the extra fields could do all of that. Now I am starting to realize more why you find this so powerful. Is the manual you are referring to a K2 manual. I will try to find it later today when I can come back to my computer. In the meantime I have to go work on repairing a house that got damaged when we had 18" of rain in one day. Crazy!BTW, I am playing already with this and with using Additonal Categories for K2 and the results are promising:
drc.cloudaccess.host/science/condition/cancer/prostate-cancer/item/373-test-study-that-talks-about-prostate-cancer-and-breast-cancer-related-to-red-meat-consumption
Sean
- scarney
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8 years 4 months ago
Hi SeanManual is for K2 filter for extra fields here is the link to the module page, the download link for the pdf docs is towards the bottom
styleware.eu/store/item/52-filter-for-k2
This is a commercial module for K2 not from k2/Joomlaworks. K2 documentation was never great to say the least ic my memory serves me, filter docs are better. Worth 20 euro to try it out.
Ian
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