Introduction

A simple dexterity-based directory with faceted search. Developed initially as a directory of academic staff. This is designed to be used along with a Diazo theme to present the results.

Installation

Install as any other Plone add-on, i.e. add to your buildout.cfg and then enable your add-on in your site. See official install documentation for more advice.

Configuration

Before you start creating a directory, consider what fields you want your directory entries to have. For example, "department", "favourite animal", etc. Initially, directory entries have 2 fields, title and image. These can be edited or new fields added. To do this:

• Go to the Plone control panel
• Select "Dexterity content types"
• Select "Directory Entry"
• Click the "Fields" tab.

Add as many fields as you require, and/or alter the title/description of the existing fields.

Once set up, you can add a Person directory anywhere to your site using "Add new".

Facets

If you would like the "department" field you configured earlier to be sortable with facets (i.e you can filter the entries with links down the right hand side), then you need to select in in the directories' "Fields to filter by" list.

Suggestion Fields

If a field is selected as a facet, then you can also use the SuggestionFieldWidget on a TextLine field to show previously used values. To do this you need to alter the entry schema XML (click "Edit XML Field Model") and change it to:

<field name="research_group" type="zope.schema.TextLine">
  <title>Research Group</title>
  <form:widget type="ibme.persondirectory.widget.SuggestionFieldWidget"/>
</field>

Entry images

By default, there is an image field that can be used to, e.g. add portraits. The image will be scaled by plone.app.imaging. You can alter the dimensions in the "Image Handling" section of the Plone control panel. Edit the "pdir-image" size.

Sorting

By default, entries are sorted alphabetically. However you can change this by editing the directory object.

Credits

Authors:

• Jamie Lentin [lentinj], http://shuttlethread.com

Developed as part of the Oxford IBME website.

Further work

The resulting display is rather uninspiring admittedly, this is most useful in combination with your own Diazo theme. However, the initial view could be tarted up a bit.