Filtering by metadata for item browsing does not work anymore

Omeka Classic Troubleshooting
1

Hello Forums,
Recently we have run into the problem that links in the item metadata, such as tags, do not lead to a list of the items with that particular tag anymore. This stopped working last week, and I have already compared our theme’s collection files to similar files uploaded on github. We are currently using the Northfield-Master theme and our Omeka version is 2.7.1. I cannot for the life of me think of what might have gone wrong considering I have seemingly not meddled with the theme’s php files, so my only guess is that it might be a plugins doing?

In any case, I’d appreciate the help and am looking forward to your suggestions.

2

Can you share a link to an active example?

4

Sure thing. The tags acting as links are at the bottom of the metadata, although I am sure you’re very aware of that.
https://archivalgossip.com/collection/items/show/36

5

I think your guess is correct. It looks like you have a plugin that’s replacing your browse page wholesale, and the way it’s doing it is causing any browse links that include a query (like the tags) to just lose the query part.

Can you share what plugins you’re using? (The System Information page linked on the bottom of every admin page includes a convenient listing of them all.) And/or, if you can recall adding/changing new plugins in this time period where this stopped working, what plugin(s) were involved?

6

Were using quite a number of plugins:

AdminImages
AvantCommon
AvantRelationships
AvantSearch
CSSEditor
CsvExport
DerivativeImages
ExhibitBuilder
Geolocation
HideElements
Neatline
NeatlineSimile
NeatlineTime
PdfEmbed
SearchByMetadata (which I have added only after the problem arose)
SimpleVocab
SocialBookmarking

I have omitted the few inactive plugins we have. I remember updating the Neatline plugin and activating the AdminImages plugin, but I did not add any new plugins to the mix until after we noticed the problem.

7

We’ve seen this type of problem before with the AvantSearch plugin. Try deactivating it to see if it resolves this issue.

8

Deactivating Avantsearch did solve that problem, but that comes with its own set of problems. Those being of course, not being able to use advanced searches, and turning the item browse page into a mess. Is there some sort of workaround? It did work for the longest time.

9

I can’t really speak to the plugin side of things; you’d have to contact the developer. The basic problem is that it intercepts any attempts to go or link to the normal Omeka browse page and redirects them to the plugin’s version, and in doing so it’s dropping any existing query.

Visually, the browse page should be simple enough to manage with CSS and/or markup changes… we might be able to make some suggestions if you clarify what’s wrong with the “normal” browse page.

As for advanced search, what kinds of search options are you concerned about losing without the plugin?

10

Now that I’ve had a closer look on the browse page without AvantSearch, there actually is an advanced search option for items, it is just hidden next to the searchbar as it is indistinguishable from the search button. So I do not feel like that should pose a problem. The two things that bother me are the buttons, which all look the same and look unpleasant, and the “sort by” options which are unstyled.

I would appreciate the suggestions, if you have time to give me any. Otherwise, if you need more details, I could upload images related to the issues.

11

There’s definitely an issue with the buttons and the sort options on your site… each is supposed to have associated icons, but it looks like the theme you’re using has some issues with its styling that makes those icons not work correctly. This might be an unintended side-effect of someone editing the theme CSS to change the font being used.

The following places in the css/style.css file all reference the font Baskerville but instead should use “FontAwesome” as the original Northfield theme does:

At line 781:

  .pagination_next a:after {
    font-family: Baskerville;
    content: "\f105";
  }

  .pagination_previous a:after {
    font-family: Baskerville;
    content: "\f104";
  }

At line 926:

  #search-container button:after,
  #search-container .button:after {
    font-family: Baskerville;
    text-indent: 0;
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    bottom: 0;
    width: 2.25em;
    line-height: 2.25em;
    text-align: center;
  }

At line 1105:

  [aria-haspopup="true"]:after {
    font-family: Baskerville;
    content: "\f0da";
    margin: 0 0 0 .5em;
    vertical-align: bottom;
  }

At line 1452:

  .asc a:after, .desc a:after {
    display: inline-block;
    font-family: Baskerville;
    text-decoration: none;
  }

At line 1487:

  .remove_search:after {
    content: "\f00d";
    font-family: Baskerville;
    text-indent: 0;
    text-align: center;
    width: 100%;
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    position: absolute;
    line-height: 31.5px;
  }

Changing those mentions of Baskerville to FontAwesome should make the correct icons actually appear in those places. If you have issues beyond just the icons, screenshots would probably be appropriate.

12

Thanks John, this is immensely helpful. If I encounter any issue I won’t be able to handle myself after I’ve implemented the changes and contacted the other people involved with the website, I’ll get back to you.

13

Suppose it isn’t that important, but I’ll still say it. Thanks for the help, everything worked out just fine.

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