Exhibit: Linking to a filtered set of results

[isaacn]

Hey all -

Short version:

Is there a way to provide a link to a pre-filtered set of results (pre-
filtered so that the user can unset some or all of the filters to get
an unfiltered set)?

Long version:

We're creating an "opportunities database" for our organization. Many
areas of the org have opportunities they'd like to list, and these all
go into one Exhibit database to be viewed by end users. This is great
for our end users--they can see any opportunity we provide, and sort /
filter down to exactly what they want.

However, we'd still like to be able to list all of the opportunities
provided by one particular area -- areas are selectable as facets --
but we want our users to be able to deselect the area and see all
opportunities again. For example:

Full dataset:

Area 1
- Opp 1
- Opp 2
- Opp 3

Area 2
- Opp 4

[isaacn]

---- edit ----

Whoops, accidentally hit "send" too early.

---- end edit ----

... For example:

Full dataset:

Area 1
- Opp 1
- Opp 2
- Opp 3

Area 2
- Opp 4

- Opp 5
- Opp 6

Normally, people will see all 6 opportunities, and be able to filter
down to area 1 or 2 themselves. However, the director of Area 2 wants
a link that he can put on his section of the site that will return
only

Area 2
- Opp 4

- Opp 5
- Opp 6

But with the option to uncheck Area 2, making Area 1 visible once
again.

Oh dear, I think this is getting too complex of a description. I'm
hoping people get my drift by this point. If not, I can try again :)

Thanks for any help.

Isaac

[Josh Aresty]

Hi Isaac,

To the best of my knowledge, this is not currently possible; at least not in the exact fashion you describe.  Some preliminary work has been done by Josh Huckabee (http://groups.google.com/group/simile-widgets/browse_thread/thread/7c7991988aae9a7f/c2248f8b281ca852?lnk=gst&q=exporting+facet#c2248f8b281ca852) which could be adapted to support direct linking to pre-selected facets. 

However, 

you can create an exhibit that has preselected facets - just use ex:selection="ChoiceA; ChoiceB; ChoiceC".  I can imagine a workflow in which you might publish separate exhibits for each department, using the same data source but preselecting the appropriate choices.

Does that help?

Josh

2008/6/17 isaacn <inieb...@gmail.com>:

--
Best,
Josh Aresty
Systems Administrator/Programmer
MIT LLARC
(Check out: http://llarc.mit.edu/flow/)

[isaacn]

It looks like Josh's work would be ideal, if there was a way of
getting a link that could import his exported options (this would also
be a great way to implement some kind of "send to a friend"
functionality.) It looks like someone's already asked about that in
the thread about importing facets. I'll echo that over there.

In the meantime, I suppose we'll probably need to go the ex:selection
route, but that's not ideal, since it doesn't directly give our users
the ability to see the full extent of the opportunities we offer.

Any other thoughts?

Thanks,

Isaac

On Jun 17, 11:54 am, "Josh Aresty" <jare...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Isaac,
> To the best of my knowledge, this is not currently possible; at least not in
> the exact fashion you describe. Some preliminary work has been done by Josh

> Huckabee (http://groups.google.com/group/simile-widgets/browse_thread/thread/7c...)

> which could be adapted to support direct linking to pre-selected facets.
>
> However,
>
> you can create an exhibit that has preselected facets - just use
> ex:selection="ChoiceA; ChoiceB; ChoiceC". I can imagine a workflow in which
> you might publish separate exhibits for each department, using the same data
> source but preselecting the appropriate choices.
>
> Does that help?
>
> Josh
>

> 2008/6/17 isaacn <iniebel...@gmail.com>:

[Josh Aresty]

Hi Isaac,

In the meantime, I suppose we'll probably need to go the ex:selection
route, but that's not ideal, since it doesn't directly give our users
the ability to see the full extent of the opportunities we offer.

This is actually incorrect - the ex:selection would just be the starting selection on the facets; i.e. what you were asking for before.  The person coming to the site could deselect those facets to see all the data.  The only difference is that there would be multiple exhibits, and therefore multiple URIs.  This might actually be desirable, since the URIs could be different per department - I'm not really sure how it would look off the top of my head.

Josh 

[isaacn]

Oh, cool--that could definitely work. I hadn't tried the ex:selection
stuff yet when I posted, so I wasn't aware that it would do that. I'll
have to do some testing.

Thanks for the pointers.

Isaac

[Josh Huckabee]

I'm working on extending my facet selection import/export
functionality to parse and spit out URLs with preset facet
selections. I'll post back here with a demo when I have a working
example.

[Josh Aresty]

Awesome.  Thanks, Josh :)  I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Josh

2008/6/19 Josh Huckabee <joshhu...@gmail.com>:

[isaacn]

Very cool. Thanks for your work on this--Exhibit's a pretty cool tool,
and I wish I had more to contribute. I'm not so great at the
programming side of things, but I can typically find my way around
well enough to help bugtest.

Isaac

[isaacn]

Josh -

Have you had a chance to get any further on this? Really looking
forward to seeing what you come up with...

Isaac

On Jun 19, 9:09 am, Josh Huckabee <joshhucka...@gmail.com> wrote: