Possible to include items on a page based on a query rather than a list of objectIDs?

[juliaflanders]

I am just getting started with CollectionBuilder and am having a lot of fun :-) I am working on creating exhibits (narrative pages that contextualize items from the collection) and have been using feature includes (for example: {% include feature/image.html objectid="coll016;coll012;coll037" %}) to include small sets of items. I am wondering whether it is possible to have a feature include that specifies objects via a query or parameter rather than a literal list of objectIDs. For instance, if I wanted to include all items that have a certain subject or location, is there a way to express that? I have looked through the list of feature includes and don't see it, but I imagine it might be possible if I were more familiar with Jekyll. Grateful for any pointers!

[evanwill]

@juliaflanders I think that the gallery.html include has the filter feature you are imagining!

Let's say you wanted all the images with the subject "dog" it would look like:

{% include feature/gallery.html heading="All the Dogs" gallery-type="image" filter-field="subject" filter-value="dog" %}

[juliaflanders]

@evanwill Thank you so much--I tried including this and the build failed; when I checked more closely it appears that the gallery.html code isn't included in the version of CollectionBuilder I'm using. I'm working with GH and it looks as if the gallery.html include is part of CSV. Is there a workaround? Apologies, I should have indicated which version of CB I was using in my original query.

[evanwill]

@juliaflanders sorry, yeah it won't work in CB-GH right now--the version of Jekyll used by the default github pages build is quite old and does not support and/or statements in the Liquid where_exp: -- this particular include uses a BUNCH of them. It is possible to port it over to CB-GH, we just haven't updated it recently (it lags behind CB-CSV quite a bit). I will try to do that soon!

[juliaflanders]

Understood! I will look forward to it. In the meantime I'm just experimenting so it's no problem to wait for a bit. Many thanks for your help :-)

[emilycomeau]

hi @evanwill, are there any updates about whether this is possible on CB-GH yet? Or is there another way to achieve the same/similar effect? I’m trying to display objects on subject specific pages – e.g. the “Awards” page would display all of the objects with the subject “awards,” etc. Or is it possible to filter by subject in timeline.html? I would like all of the objects on each page to be displayed in chronological order (using a text value field I’ve added called date_range, instead of the default date field).

[evanwill]

@emilycomeau we haven't pushed any updates to CB-GH for awhile because we are going to retire it--you can create a GH-style collection (i.e. not create thumbnail images) in CB-CSV by filling in the "image_small" and "image_thumb" with the same image link, which then makes it a lot easier to customize everything.

That said, it would be relatively straight forward to create a custom page like you are thinking by writing your own page using some Liquid.
For example the "Awards" page, you would create "awards.md" give it layout: page, then in the page content you would start by filtering down the items and then iterate over them to create cards for each. You can copy a lot of the card logic from another layout like timeline or use one of the feature includes. It might look like:

# Awards

{%- assign items = site.data[site.metadata] | where_exp: 'item', 'item.subject contains "award"' | sort: "date_range" -%}
<div class="row my-3 py-3">
{% for item in items %}
<div class="col-md-4">
{% include feature/image.html objectid=item.objectid %}
</div>
{% endfor %}
</div>

This is basically what the gallery.html include does!

[emilycomeau]

thanks @evanwill!