[Archon-L] Good thing it's Friday / "Advanced" Searching in Archon

[David Malone]

Yea, I'm more thinking that this other archive on campus could hire a programmer to do "read-only" queries on the MySQL data to get the info they are looking for.  This is more for staff or advanced searching, not the average patron.

David

>>> "Kyle Fox" <kylefox2 at uiuc.edu> 6/20/2008 1:50 PM >>>
This would probably work fine, but I wouldn't feel comfortable
distributing something made with that methodology. All of the
interaction with the database right now is done through the API. This
helps make it clear when things need to be escaped for queries, when
permissions checking needs to be performed, etc. Adding database
queries to the interface files could easily work, but I would be
worried that this would invite sloppy programming in the future and
possible security/function problems.

Now, most things outside of database querying could be done outside of
the API. I think a page or two thrown into a theme would probably be
the most efficient way to program a new searching interface. At very
least, it could provide a more efficient way to take advantage of the
searching functionality already present in Archon. I could see this
being useful for many folks, naturally.

On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 1:42 PM, David Malone
<David.B.Malone at wheaton.edu> wrote:
> Kyle,
>
> Since I am not a programmer (except for my BASIC affair in 1982) I was thinking that such an Advanced Search feature would be something that could be developed outside the API as  a set of pages that queried the database and returned results. This may be a very naive way of looking at it and may show more my ignorance. I didn't think it best to confuse the Archon structure/philosophy with something that only a few (?) folks would want.
>
> David
>
>>>> "Kyle Fox" <kylefox2 at uiuc.edu> 6/20/2008 12:15 PM >>>
> Making the front end for the page could be fairly painless using
> archon's template system. Developers could design the system to pass
> along 'advancedsearch' or something similar through the f variable to
> Archon's public index page.
>
> Genre searching is already possible through this alone by passing a
> value through the subjectid variable to the search results page. This
> is what the "Browse by Subjects" page does when you click a subject's
> name. Similar techniques can be used for creators, etc.
>
> Things like searching by date range would be more complicated as they
> would require changes to the api. The search functions in the api are
> already pretty complicated, especially for collections, so any
> interested parties would need to do a decent amount of planning to
> figure out the best way of making these changes.
>
> I'll make a note to consider implementing advanced search at UIUC for
> distribution, but I'm not sure when this would be done.
>
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 9:11 AM, David Malone
> <David.B.Malone at wheaton.edu> wrote:
>> The Following question is brought to you by:
>>
>> Archon Pest Control
>> Serving the Archon Community Since 2008
>>
>>
>> Has anyone tried to create a staff search page or an "enhanced"/advanced search page/engine for Archon?
>>
>> Wheaton is a mutli-repository campus and one of our archives would like to do more in-depth searching out of the data that Archon keeps. I'm sure that this is possible as it is an extension of what Archon is already doing itself (but was not intended to do). I could imagine a page where someone could limit by date range or genre.
>>
>> So, this is the question of the day (maybe--I could have another one).
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>>
>>
>> David B. Malone
>> Assistant Professor
>> Head of Archives & Special Collections
>> Wheaton College
>> 501 College Ave.
>> Wheaton IL 60187-5593
>> 630.752.5707
>> 630.752.5987 FAX
>> david.b.malone at wheaton.edu 
>> http://library.wheaton.edu 
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Kyle Jordan Fox
>
>
> Senior in Computer Science
> Developer - Archon Simple Archival Information System
> Tour Manager/Internet Officer - Varsity Men's Glee Club
> -
> University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
>
> <kylefox2 at uiuc.edu>
>
>



-- 
Kyle Jordan Fox


Senior in Computer Science
Developer - Archon Simple Archival Information System
Tour Manager/Internet Officer - Varsity Men's Glee Club
-
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign

<kylefox2 at uiuc.edu>