[OPEN-ILS-DEV] Item types in Template Toolkit

[Mike Rylander]

On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 12:22 PM, Bill Erickson <erickson at esilibrary.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 11:29:53AM -0400, Mike Rylander wrote:
>> On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 9:34 AM, Kathy Lussier <klussier at masslnc.org> wrote:
>> > Hi all,
>> >
>> > I've been looking at ways that we might be able to configure the item type
>> > list on the advanced search screen of the Template Toolkit catalog. What we
>> > would like to be able to do is list more specific formats (e.g. DVD,
>> > Blueray, CD, cassette) that can be pulled from the fixed fields rather than
>> > using a local MARC field to store this information.
>> >
>> > In looking at one of the e-mails Bill Erickson posted to the list, we should
>> > be able to customize the item type list by using Server Administration <
>> > Coded Value Maps. I came across a little trouble because I couldn't save any
>> > of the coded values I created in the staff client (I submitted a bug report
>> > on this at https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/845096)), but I could
>> > see how I might be able to create more specific videorecording item types by
>> > creating maps based on the videorecording format record attribute.
>> >
>> > My question relates to the best way to incorporate these in the item type
>> > dropdown list. When looking at the search.tt2 and coded_value_selector.tt2,
>> > I see that two record attributes (mattype, item_type) can populate the item
>> > type dropdown menu. If there are values for the mattype attribute, it will
>> > stop and only use the mattype attributes. If there are no values for
>> > mattype, it will then use the values created by the item_type record
>> > attributes. Am I understanding this correctly?
>
> That's correct.
>
>> >
>> > Ideally, I think what we would like to do is to populate that dropdown list
>> > with values that are pulled from several record attributes (videorecording
>> > format, item_type, etc.) instead of just one record attribute. Is there any
>> > way we could do that or is there any reason why it would be inadvisable to
>> > do so?
>>
>> There are several ways you could do this today (hard-code chunks of
>> searches in the dropdown; use a little client-side js to manage a
>> dropdown; other things), but none of them are very "nice" ... not
>> configuration based, and less upgrade proof than a baked in solution.
>> (But still more upgrade proof in the tpac than in the jspac, of
>> course.)
>>
>> So, my ideal suggestion would be to build a mechanism for creating
>> what I'm calling "SVF Families" which would then contain "SVF Group
>> Values".  These would allow you to predefine a combination of SVF
>> entries and use them as  afilter value in the same way you can use
>> individual SVF values today, spanning across SVF filters with one
>> query-level filter.
>
> For a practical example, a Group by be "Large Print Books" with
> item_type=a + item_form=d?
>
> IIUC, this would be another (more easily configured) way to implement
> audience groups... E.g. Group "Children" = audience=a + audience=c + ...
>

Exactly.  And extending your first example to cover Kathy's initially
presented use case, you could use an SVF Family to replace the
"format" dropdown from the old JS OPAC to include SVF Group Values not
only for Books, etc, that use item_type and item_form, but also DVDs,
Blu-Rays, VHS Tapes, and the like based on vr_format, since a SVF
Group Value would individually be able to pull from any SVF.

-- 
Mike Rylander
 | Director of Research and Development
 | Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
 | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
 | email:  miker at esilibrary.com
 | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com