WordPress.org

1. gallilaw
   Member
   Posted 1 week ago #

   I have been trying out Joomla, Drupal and Expression Engine... and here I am still trying to make things work within Wordpress.

   My site in development will primarily be the functional equivalent of a library where members can share material such as html, pdf, doc and other materials. They will also share news, practical knowledge and tutorials.

   Pretend it's a site where doctors can discuss medical procedures of various types; post step-by-step tutorials including photos and possibly sound files; and provide search forms where folks can look for materials using drop down lists and/or radio buttons as well as text fields to look for materials that are in the library.

   In other words, a CMS that has a lot of stuff in the library, but needs a comfortable front end like Wordpress to keep users happy, and to permit site look and feel to be changed from time to time without convening a meeting of coders, hackers and CMS-engine fanatics to get it done.

   On the front page and in email announcements users will be told of recent additions to the library. Tutorials can be either posts or pages, of course, but they might also be pdf documents.

   Eventually there has to be one page with one comprehensive search form by which folks can search for and recall a formatted list of content using variables such as: contributor name; type of content [pdf, html, audio, video...]; medical condition [cancer, orthopedic, neurological...]; physician name; and so on...

   I was hoping that WP's custom fields function would help, but I think what I really need to do is separate WP's identification of posts from a different system that identifies the library materials themselves -- things that might be referenced in posts, but that will exist separately from posts.

   My brain is thoroughly fried from having to learn and test the three other CMS systems, all of which have frustrating problems from a site design and usability perspective.

   I need someone to help me simplify this project and get me back on track.

   Can you tell me what modules I need, whether I should establish a database separate from WP's, and how to make the systems play well together?

   Thanks.

2. Ivovic
   Member
   Posted 1 week ago #

   well, lets say that each type of library item goes in a particular category - you can then style that category template to look any way you want.

   you would use custom fields to add additional information which has to go along with each library item, but not to differentiate them necessarily, that's more easily handled by the category template.

   you can then extract "posts" from any one of those library categories, and have a decent idea of how they should be formatted for display.

   You will need to use a search plugin - or custom code yourself some queries for search to function the way you want, but that's going to be the fairly easy part, once your content is sorted into categories.

   So lets say you use parent categories to delineate, making things an imperial sh*tload simpler for templating...

   with a category like Library, the category-archive-template of which will actually be your library's front page, and sub-categories by topic, like say...

   Library
   - Oncology
   - Neuroscience
   - Cardiology

   etc... with posts in each of those categories being tagged 'audio', 'video', 'document' or whatever, you then have the option of filing "posts" (that is library items) under multiple topics in the library, and yet retaining the description of the content which is stored as a tag.

   using that tag, you can then display that content differently using php conditionals when it comes to actually viewing the library item itself - no matter where it's pulled from.

   That's when the custom fields come in. Use those only if you need additonal information about each content type. For instance, the length in time of the audio file you'll be playing back.

   Now because all this magic is done in category templates, and using conditionals on your single post template - nothing you do here actually affects the rest of your content.

   So, anything not under /library still looks like it did before, and can be used to build your site.

   I would simply use categories and subcategories to differentiate between all your content types -- including the page framework for your site.

   For example, there's no reason you can't even use posts as contact items.

   Consider a category named "contact" which shows the category description as the page contents on that category template... "blah blah, contact one of the following people:"

   then posts in that category, with the post title being the individual's name, and the body of the post being a little blurb about them, and a custom field with a picture, and another custom field with their phone number.... every time someone joins the team you post about them under the contacts category, and they instantly have an entry on the page.

   With me so far? you can really do anything you want if you use the multiple levels of categorization/tagging available to you.

3. gallilaw
   Member
   Posted 1 week ago #

   Thanks for the advice. I think my problem is that I simply don't know enough about simple database utility.

   Let's pretend my site is a library. I want someone to be able to call up an e-book using one simple form that lets the person search for e-books according to one or all of the following fields: author, subject, publication date, publisher, title, language and media type.

   I don't want every e-book in my site to be a post; I just need an administrative tool to get stuff into the database, and provide a simple but powerful search form to get the stuff out of it. And also a table of contents, hopefully one that permits sorting by each column heading.

   In other words, I want to reserve WordPress for the articles and news functions, and let the medial library be more or less independent.

   I guess what I am looking for is a media manager with good search tools.

   Still looking.

4. Ivovic
   Member
   Posted 1 week ago #

   well, you'll do it your way of course, but I don't see the problem with using posts in this way.

   in the end, they're all just records in a database. Calling them posts is all in your head.

5. gallilaw
   Member
   Posted 1 week ago #

   Nomenclature sometimes is important. I might have 17 real posts and 750 files. When I use the "manage posts" admin page I don't want to be presented with a list that includes all of the files in my database. When I set up a "recent posts" list I don't want to have real messages shoved aside because 15 files were just added to the system.

   What I need is a document manager. It would allow me to take files in, catalog them with custom fields, and then let me provide the visitor with access to them via a sortable table on a wordpress page, and also a search form.

   I do appreciate the help.

6. Ivovic
   Member
   Posted 1 week ago #

   Happy to bounce ideas, etc.

   I understand the desire to keep things apart, but really, with the ability to filter by category on the manage posts page, you're getting pretty similar functionality without having to reinvent the wheel.

   Anyway - I guess I really like the idea of being able to add any kind of content type by just making a new category.

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