Little ZOO helpers
Menu Module and Search Plugin for the ZOO extension.
We already talked about the ZOO extensions itself. Also explained its features like the CCK and the catalog system. But to make the ZOO a great extensions we need a seamless integration into Joomla. Thats why the ZOO component will also include a menu module and and a search plugin.
Seamless menu integration
The ZOO also comes with a menu module which works exactly like Joomla's own menu modules: You can select a catalog and then choose in what depth you want to display its hierarchy levels. Further we took all the great styling possibilities which served us so well in all our templates and put it right into the new ZOO menu module. And here is the really good news for all YOOtheme members: When ZOO is used in combination with a YOOtheme template its menus will look exactly like the template's own menus including the drop-down functionality. So no CSS customizations are needed to make the ZOO menu match your design when using the ZOO combined with a YOOtheme template.
Full-text search
For the ZOO we wanted a search that shows results that matter, so we checked out a couple of ways how to go about it. First we took a look how Joomla handles searching its content articles. It uses a normal string comparison function provided by the database to search all articles stored into Joomla database tables. It works well and everybody used this feature on a Joomla websites. Next we thought about how to improve the search feature to make it better. After spending some time researching other options, we came across that MySQL offers a feature called "full-text search". It comes with "natural language search", a search that is focused on usability by using spoken languages, like English. Sweet! Further all results of a full-text search will be ranked by its relevance, which is based on a score the MySQL database calculates for every matched result. Also it uses a index to make searching even faster specially when you have large number of articles. The full-text search has been implemented since MySQL version 3.23 and will keep getting developed so we considered it a good idea to use it. So the ZOO will come with a search plugin which provides full-text searching.
This was our last post about the ZOO features. Next is our March template release and we are really excited about it. :-)
Comments (63)
kim.dyrlund.schuett
irancho
akkis
david.t.baron
John
Ervin
Jacob Whitaker
sascha
Jacob Whitaker
revive
Wade
amaet
Wendi
YOO to me
YOOtheme folks are the best.
adancer
david.t.baron
Rex
Does ZOO have frontend submission and editing? This is really important, IMHO.
TIA
(BTW, i have strange display problems with this comments in SAFARI, sometimes unusable, the comments disappear, the upper screen is blank... then way down i find the article ?!? Any clues? )
Stick
I hope long silence about this topic is just a coincidence, due to hard work on templates and components...
TIA for kind response!
Hugo
Punshdrunklove
Bart
Del
fan club
-replace components like sobi2, docman
-allow creating a downloads site, ebay like site, job, press releases site with only one component.
-work with any comment solution (discussbot, intense debate comments, jomcomment etc)
-work with any plugin (jw_allvideos, custom properties tags plugin etc)
-would allow users to submit entries, but the submit form should be customisable by section / category etc.
-custom properties tagging support and tag cloud module support
-joomla 1.5 core sef
-xmap plugin, if the "content xmap plugin" is not good
sofia.karakasidou
I'm planning on creating a business catalog (with companies of a certain type) or a web directory (call it whatever you like) so I think ZOO will be a great component to do it. But, I'll use it only if it has compatibility with sh404sef or has it's own SEF system.
Also, the user submission feature is a must imho. And the xmap compatibility is too important.
Some nice ajax functions would be great too, in order to improve the component's accessibility, functionality and interactive interface..
Can't wait for it...!
jazzz
Yoo fan
trl1986
YOOtheme works very hard at what they do and everything they have every produced has been the EASIEST thing I have ever had to customize. So people keep your pants on and hang tight. If you rush them, it'll probably be worse.
tvdwal
Bas
Next to this, it would be superb to automaticly genarate barcodes to each item in the catalog as they are entered into the system.
Then you have a complete input - / output- / input system
Eric T
Professor C Rebelo
louis.griffith
Laurie
PRETTY PLEASE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
John
Del
DaEmOnIak
sascha
Rex
(BTW, i asked this earlier... does it have a frontend submission or editing?)
Stick
Much of the topic have been convered in extensive manner in the past two teasing months but not a word about this... too strange.
Anycase, I've got some big project frozen because you said "in march". I know that we're not yet in the middle of march, and I don't want to take your anticipation as a promise, but I'd rather know if I'd better start off with something else for these projects or what.
I trust you and I know the quality of your work but I have pendig work to do. I'd really like to pay YOO (so, YOU) for your component rather then to buy JS or Catalog but I can't wait for "who knows when?!".
Meanwhile, I'm sure I'll swear savagely in the dark of my room if I'll get the job done just a pair of days before the release of Zoo...
So, not asking for release date, but for an advice: I'd better start my jobs off or what?
Thank you.
sascha
sergei.shablovsky
I understand this person. Because we all are one developer chain. We develop our best project using payed service & support, and best available component like YOO.
Just look at situation from our side: we need much more detail to determine what ZOO is in real. If we have more screenshots /video must be more discuss are done...
sascha
matteo.beretta
"Will not release it before everything is done" I share this method :-)
wow
david.t.baron
Del
It's so difficult to be patient! C'mon guys March is so short!! =)
Linus
"Finally all ZOO catalogs and categories can be delivered as RSS feed"
sergei.shablovsky
We hear more words and love YOO product quality, so could You pleasure to provide more information ad do not hype anything ? :)
Koobi Fora
Apparently the focus of this new product is significantly different then I had imagined. I thought this was a product to revolutionize the creation of online communities and catalog systems. Not very handy without frontend submission, is it? Or perhaps I misunderstood the earlier post...
brian
Rex
BTW we are in the first third of march... so there are some days and weeks left. IMHO, i want a stable extension. Not a fast release with 1000 patches and fixes a week. Though, i am a little disappointed about the missing frontend. I guess, i have to learn russian ;-)
Martyn Mills
johnny.nylund.3
quote from Sascha:
"Expect something like the current YOOtheme memberships "
Martyn Mills
david.t.baron
Pancho España
fan club
I saw taht with Zoo we could create a blog, but if plugins like jommcoment and jw_allvideos (or other) will not be supported then its not good.
Let us take for example myblog from azrul, it`s a disaster component.
I have a blog, created with jommcomment, joomla content and custom properties tags. If Zoo will be good I`ll use it, but it should give me the ability to import my precedent blog posts, and comments
I don`t understand if Zoo is a extension of the content component or a new content component :(
Del
Macaco do zoo
David
leila
I'm very curious... ;)
Rex
(if not build-in, maybe it is possible to add 3rd party code and plugins into the templates?!? Sascha?)
harold.c.corbin