Faceted search options

Omeka Classic Plugins
#1

We’re using v2.6 with the Solr search plugin to get facets at present. The solr plugin appears moribund. The Search by Metadata plugin seems to provide some of this functionality but only via linking directly on the chosen metadata fields rather than using a sidebar to display limiting facets.

Is there a suggested newer method to provide this outside the Solr plugin approach? We’re planning an upgrade to Classic 3.x soon and I’m exploring what the options might be.

Thanks.
Bobb Menk
MIT Lincoln Laboratory Library

#2

Hello.

You might want to check the Omeka Classic - Facets plugin.

Hope this helps.

#3

Thanks for the pointer! We’ve installed the Facets plugin but it doesn’t seem to behave as expected. We get a sorted column for “Record Type” which displays plain text rather than any kind of limiting filter. Across the top of the page we see a navigation bar that looks like it ought to display the limiter dropdowns, but which is also just plain text. Is there something we’re missing in the configuration for this perhaps? We added the hooks to item_browse and collections_browse per install directions and set display to horizontal for our Berlin theme. Something else we should be doing? Below is a snap of our search results page with the inoperative facet dropdowns if that helps in diagnosis. Thanks.

Clipboard01

#4

I’m not familiar with that plugin, but I can point out that it looks like you’re looking at the “sitewide” search, which searches across items, collections, things added by plugins, etc., but provides fewer options.

From the instructions about hooks that you mentioned, it sounds like this plugin might instead target the item-specific (and collection-specific) searches that are available on the browse pages for each type of record?

#5

Hello Bobb.

I have the same feeling as John: the plugin is working only in the browse pages for items and collections, while you’re looking at the results of the search page that is showing a mix of items AND collections AND exhibits AND simple pages.

The image you posted is showing the filter criteria you’re applying to that specific search. They are not not-working dropdown boxes.

To check whether the plugin is correctly installed and working, please open an items/browse or collections/browse page.

Hope this helps.

#6

Doesn’t look like the Facets module will do quite what we want - thanks to you both for your help!

Is there a conversion path from Classic to S if we were to install S on a local server?

Thanks.

Bobb Menk

#7

There is an Omeka 2 Importer module that will pull over all of your Omeka Classic items into an Omeka S installation. Despite the name, the importer is compatible with Omeka Classic 3x installations.

#8

Thanks for that plugin info. Not sure that’s the way we’ll go or not given the plugin won’t bring over exhibits or tags though. It does seem to be where most of the development work is happening though - is that accurate would you say? That would be a factor certainly in deciding whether or not to migrate from Classic obviously.

For the record, Classic 3.0.2 will work with the SolrSearch plugin. To make that happen with a Solr 8.x server we had to build a new core using an existing Solr 7.x schema. Just installing the plugin for use with Solr 8.x did not work out of the box.

#9

I can’t really offer any information about the Solr plugins since we don’t make those, but the Omeka Team is committed to maintaining Omeka Classic going forward. Since Omeka S is newer, we’re still filling in features and offerings and that is where the bulk of the development roadmap is at the moment. But, I think we’ll see some enhancements for Classic in the next two years as well.

So, I would say that your choice of platform should really be driven by the needs of the project and the content, and not by current volume of code commits.

#10

Thanks to all for the help!

#11

Bobb, should you have a chance, could you please let me know what features were you looking for exactly? That might help for possible improvement of the plugin.
Thx

#12

We use solr plugin to create facets for tags, collections, item types, and result types which users can use to limit more general searches. We also index, but don’t facet, whether or not an item is featured.

We have heavy use of the general keyword search box so we wanted the facets to operate as search limiters across all content basically.

Bobb