Facet map would be a macro that would render a pseudo-hierarquical view of the wiki facets. Through them it creates a pseudo-hierarquical access of the wiki contents.This request comes from FacetedClassificationInMoin, MetaDataInMoin and FacetBrowsingTheme.
1. Some people and organizations feel they need a hierarchical organization/access to wiki pages. But applying categorization to page names (AKA subpages) can be problematic as seen in the discussion in PagesHierarchy.
At the same time, WikiCategories are (well?) known, already working and powerful mechanisms to organize information in a wiki, but somehow they don't seem to fulfill the subjective need for hierarchies, that should supposedly be "autogenerated" in a menu by some means.
- Facets are simple and very powerful, requiring no previous dictionary or rigid classifications, and allow any node (page) to be located on more that one group, and to change those groups over time.
Instead of a Theme, creating a macro would allow inclusion in any place that could be relevant (sections, sidebars, a "site map" page, etc.). In order to work like this, the macro should render facets in a way that are presentation neutral.This proposal suggests a list of ul (facets-names) including each li another ul (facet-values). A possible html rendering (usingFacetBrowsingTheme examples) would be:
<ul id="facetmap"> <li class="facetname">About (6) <ul class="facetvalue"> <li>Development ()</li> <li>Market (24)</li> <li>Translation (17)</li> <li>Administration (5)</li> <li>Planning (12)</li> <li>Help (31)</li> </ul> </li> <li class="facetname">Kind (5) <ul class="facetvalue"> <li>Tutorial (7)</li> <li>Reference (20)</li> <li>Article (3)</li> <li>Discussion (9)</li> <li>Roadmap (1)</li> </ul> </li> <li class="facetname">State (4) <ul class="facetvalue"> <li>New (7)</li> <li>Flux (31)</li> <li>Stable (12)</li> <li>Inmutable (5)</li> </ul> </li> <li class="facetname">Uncategorized (18) </li> </ul>
This output is easy to layout with CSS as a vertical or horizontal bar, and can also be collapsed/expanded with JS and CSS as noted in FacetBrowsingTheme. Please note a couple of differences from FacetBrowsingTheme.
- This is not a theme, but a macro (that of course, could be easily integrated in any theme).
There is no "none" last value in any ul class="facetvalue" li.
Instead, there a last ul class="facetname" li named Uncategorized.
Any interested party should see FacetsEngine for a implementation discussion. And vote for this request!
Discussion
- . It is the same idea, but a macro could be used in many places like a page of it's own (a "site map" page), a sidebar, etc.
. Sorry, I thought the purpose was clear. It is to generate a list of facets and their values, marked up is such a way that each wiki can use it were/how the like. As told before, that could be integrated in the navigation pane and/or in a page of it's own. I proposed the output also because I don't know how to do it, but I know what it should do in order to satisfy certain triad user/task/context (described in FacetedClassificationInMoin and quoted and the start of this page).
How do you use the list of facets? Possible uses:
- Filter - have a list on a one pane, select items from the list and click a button to get a filtered list of pages, or a filtered recent changes of those pages on a second pane.
- Browse - have a list on a one pane, select items from the list, and click a button to get a list of pages with selected facets on a second pane.
- Set page facets - have a list on the page and click check boxes in the list to set the current page facets.
- Search similar pages - have a list on a page and click each facet to get a list of pages with similar facet, or click the title in order to get a list of pages with same facets.
- Advanced search - have a list on an advanced search interface, show results matching the facets selection.
I don't see how a standalone macro can be used - it must be part of some application, e.g facet browser. Each application may have a different output.Also, the idea of a macro is that in the future it can accept other modifiers like show only one facet, or limit the depth, etc. . Yes, that is exactly why I suggested this simple output. Because it can be ajusted to be used in the 2 most desired scenarios (as a facet map page,AKA "site map", and integrated in a faceted theme) and because in the future it can be controlled in a more fine grained way. Nir, I am not suggesting something different or negating your ideas. On the contrary, I am suggesting something that (if it works as supposed to be) integrates all our ideas in one simple way. -- EduardoMercovich 2005-06-08 20:21:53