With the method I outlined, each city, is a node, of whatever content type you set up for cities. You can configure your fields however you want. One benefit of doing it this way, is that then city nodes can be indexed by search, (even though the views content inside of them will not be indexed) so that when someone searches for 'Dallas' the node for Dallas is in the search results instead of only other posts tagged with Dallas.
As far as vocab control.... I am not sure what the best method is here, if you want users to be able to create them, and limit them at the same time. You could set it up with a fixed vocabulary, or maybe even as a multiple value node reference field for tagging other posts. If you go that route, just point the node reference to only return nodes of the content type for cities that you create. Other than that I would say, maybe disallow free tagging, and allow multiple selects, and programatically create the terms when each new city page is created.
Not sure if that fits with your workflow or not. I suppose you could even go the opposite way and create nodes programmatically based on the creation of new terms in your chosen vocab.
I don't know that Organic Groups is or isn't the right solution for you, generally I tend to lean towards organic groups for things like access control for groups of people or anything that manages subsets of membership. If neither of those is an issue for you, I'd still say you could use it, but it isn't the first tool I'd reach for if doing the type of project you're working on.
-Mike
On Mar 15, 2008, at 3:40 PM, Neil: esl-lounge.com wrote:
Sander,
Thanks. I have a couple of questions relating to your idea:
- would your solution allow for each city's InfoBox as shown in my
page mockup image? How would this info be entered? As this info would be unique to each city, I thought the only way of doing it would be to have the city page itself as a content type (or "group", which is a content type anyway, I suppose) and use CCK fields to get that info into each city's page. How would Views allow me to do it?
- How would I have a tight policy of tags across the different
content types to ensure all dallas content did indeed end up in the right View? Would I have to set up a "Location" vocabulary (with 100,000 potential terms??) and not allow free tagging or multiple tagging. I'm just trying to get my head around a few of the more mundane queries running through my head.
Finally, would you not suggest doing this via OG as I mentioned in an earlier mail?
Neil
----- Original Message ----- From: "sander-martijn" lists@severeddreams.com To: support@drupal.org Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2008 9:14 PM Subject: Re: [support] Is this achievable using drupal alone?
Check out views arguments. With this you could have a cities view that lists all the cities out, and cities/dallas to show dallas tx with it's own header and listings etc, or a lot of things like that. Also take a look at some of the other views modules, like the views bonus pack.
.sander
Neil: esl-lounge.com wrote:
Thanks for the responses so far...this has certainly kept my brain busy for the last couple of days and there are still a lot of uncertainties in my mind. I'm not sure I understand how I would use Views to present each "page" for each city with the tagged entries underneath. As I understand Views, I could present a list (table, full nodes or teasers) with, for example, all content tagged with "Dallas, TX", but how would I alter what comes at the top of each page (using, presumably the page/header text box)? I would ideally like to present some type of Info box at the top of each city's page (founded, population, long/lat, country/state, etc). I wouldn't be able to do this with views, would I? This is also why I was toying with the idea of just having a group for each city.
Using CCK, I could have member enter all the Info Box fields when they create each new one. Then, using my exisiting node-group.tpl.php, the group page could be laid out with the info box at the top of the page, the mission statement, etc, to one side and all the relevant content (forum posts, blog entries, images, pagers, etc) showing below. So I might have something like this:
http://i29.tinypic.com/9bazyf.png
Does this sound workable? What problems are there in having potentially 10,000 groups? Or 100,000? How would I get them all to link together (as the [category:Texas] function would allow me to do in MediaWiki, for example.)? Is there any way I could use a special CCK field to introduce the idea of hierarchy (United States >> Texas >> Dallas >> Plano) into the group content type? Or would I need to get busy with a Location taxonomy and tag each new group as it's created??
Again, I really appreciate any input on this from anyone, if only to point me in the right direction.
Neil
----- Original Message ----- *From:* Metzler, David mailto:metzlerd@evergreen.edu *To:* support@drupal.org mailto:support@drupal.org *Sent:* Thursday, March 13, 2008 5:42 PM *Subject:* Re: [support] Is this achievable using drupal alone?
If it were mine, I’d make the cities be required taxonomy terms for the content type. Then people create individual entries and tag them as Dallas, Texas or Clairborne or whatever. Use views with a term as an argument to pull lists of content for a city. People can comment or make their own entries for the city.
Dave
*From:* support-bounces@drupal.org [mailto:support-bounces@drupal.org] *On Behalf Of *Neil: esl-lounge.com *Sent:* Thursday, March 13, 2008 9:27 AM *To:* support@drupal.org *Subject:* [support] Is this achievable using drupal alone?
I have quite a specific content-type requirement for my site and have been pulling my hair out thinking about how I could achieve it with drupal - so I turn to this support list, if not for a solution, then for at least a pointer or two to push me nearer an answer.
I have a site where I want members to be able to enter information about hundreds or even thousands of cities. It's not relevant exactly what type of information they are writing.
For example, a member creates a new X content type (this is the big question) and puts the title Dallas, Texas and writes a paragraph or two about it. Other members can rate that entry or attach comments to it...or, very importantly, add their own entry, which would have equal weight to the first entry. Ultimately, tags could be attached to each entry to allow some type of sorting.
Look here at a screenshot mock-up I've made to give some idea of what I'm talking about.
http://i31.tinypic.com/2lo0qkw.png
The original idea called for a wiki where each city would be a wiki page, but we're now veering more towards having seperate entries (not editable by other users) by each member, to which comments can be added. So these are almost nodes within nodes. We considered some type of views/og solution but is it feasible to have 10,000 views or groups? Would views allow me to gather together, dynamically, all "entries" on "Dallas, Texas" and seamlessly switch (using an auto-complete text box perhaps) to Houston, Texas or to any of 10,000 other towns? Would $arg help me there??
Is there anything that already exists on drupal that can help me towards a solution? I've already thought about book pages, forum pages, groups for each city and a few other possibilities besides, but nothing seems to fit. There could well be some useful modules out there I am unaware of.
Thanks in advance for any guidance you can offer.
Neil
-- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
-- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
-- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
__________________ Michael Prasuhn mike@mikeyp.net http://mikeyp.net 949.200.7595 714.356.0168 cell 949.200.7670 fax