Presenting: Facetbrowser
On my photo page, the show all photos listing has become much to long to still be useful - time to do something. To begin with, I tagged all blog postings carrying photos with tags in the facet:value-fashion, defined tag attributes (like description or long title, all stored in a simple PHP array) and wrote a basic interface called the Facetbrowser to browse all this. Though it is rather meant as a tool for myself to see if things work at all and check the metadata's integrity, you can already use it to actually find stuff.
You can browse the collection from these directions - or by these facets:
- Kind of industry
- Kind of facility
- Company name
- Location (city, region, country)
- Color or b/w photo (this will be changed into "content type")
- Status when photo taken
- Current status
Each photo is one item, a photo showing multiple facilities can be indexed as carrying multiple items. Thus, any blog posting can carry multiple items (mutltiple photos or (multiple) photos showing multiple facilities). This is why there also is a facet that shows the ID of the corresponding blog posting stored in Movable Type.
For now, the Facetbrowser is rather simple. From what is of interest to you as a non-editor, it just performs these basic tasks:
- Show which values a facet carries and what attributes facets and values have: [facet:?]?
Example: List all regions [region:?]? - Show all items carrying a specific facet-value-combination: [facet:value]?
Example: Show all photos of blast furnaces [facility:bf]?
In its next iterations, it will also performs these more interesting tasks:
- Show what values of facet(B) match items that also carry the facet(A)-value(a) tag: [facet:?] IN [facet:value]?
Example 1: The names of all companies in the city of Dortmund: [company:?] IN [city:dortmund]?
Example 2: The types of facilities in the steel industry: [facility:?] IN [industry:steel]? - Show what items carry the tags facet(A)-value(a), facet(B)-value(b), ... : [facet:value] AND [facet:value] AND ... ?
Example 1: All photos showing coking plants in the Liege, Belgium region: [industry:coke] AND [region:liege]?
Example 2: All photos showing things of the steel industry that were in service when the photo was taken but have been torn down meanwhile: [industry:steel] AND [thenstatus:operational] AND [nowstatus:demolished]?
Stay tuned and please let me know (via E-Mail or Instant Message) if you have questions or comments.
