Symphony.

Hello,

I'm getting up to speed on Symphony in general and trying to see if version 2 might meet the requirements for a particular project (pending its stable release - or an abundance of beta use reassurance ;)

Below are some requirement needs I have that I'm not quite clear as to whether Symphony 2 (or XSLT in itself) can address. If anyone could provide any insight it would be greatly appreciated.

Best, Clayton

Requirements

• Custom CSS per entry (I.e. color palette hex values? Could this be done by pulling custom fields into page styles?)
• Customizable admin interface (this seems to be a major difference in v2, right?)
• Dynamic site map for both individual entries and categories
• Forms -
  • Ability to utilize a common form across entries?
  • Ability to append unique form fields, per entry, to a common form?
  • Processing submissions to multiple email addresses?
• Internal note fields per entry (this could just be done via a non-templated custom field?)
• Non-displayed, but searchable, entry ‘meta’ data?
• Reliable WYSIWYG entry interface that doesn't break code? (Is TinyMCE reliable in this respect?)
• Site search of not only content and category but also non-displayed ‘meta’ data?

• Custom CSS per entry: Yes.
  • Customizable admin interface: Yes.
  • Dynamic site map: Yes.
  • Forms - o Ability to utilize a common form across entries: Not sure what you mean. o Unique form fields: Yes. o Processing submissions to multiple email addresses: I think so.
  • Internal note fields per entry: Yes.
  • Non-displayed, but searchable, entry ‘meta’ data: Yes.
  • Reliable WYSIWYG: As far as I know, yes.
  • Site search: Tough one. You'll have to wait for the devs to weigh in.

Thanks czheng. I appreciate it. In your experience working with v2 thus far have you found it lacking in anything critical?

To clarify about Forms functionality - all of the pages on this site will utilize a form that is likely 90% similar. Ideally, I would like to have a common form template (may be wrong name for it) that allows me to manage those 90% of the form's fields and then append custom field data per entry if needed.

For Search functionality I need to be able to return pages based on both the 'meta' data associated with them (i.e. someone searches by a zip code and it matches a zip code data set within an entry's custom field) as well as provide a custom formatted search results page (similar to this.)

Thanks again,

Clayton

Search is the one major remaining question mark for me. There were a couple other things, but they're coming down the pipeline with rev6.

craig

Alistair, could you confirm (or conversely burst my delicately constructed hopes ;) v2's search functionality?

Would something like this be possible (i.e. display of custom fields and grouping by category [e.g. 'Ground Campuses' v. 'Online Campuses'].)

Thanks! Clayton

Alistair, could you confirm (or conversely burst my delicately constructed hopes ;) v2's search functionality?

Are you referring to frontend or backend search? Frontend search is possible already, all the very basic (using REGEXP in your data source as a filter option). I'm working on an extension that will make it more flexible. The cool thing about this approach is that you can apply filters to any field; you can choose what fields in a section are included in your search and even have multiple data sources for multiple sections.

Would something like this be possible (i.e. display of custom fields and grouping by category [e.g. 'Ground Campuses' v. 'Online Campuses'].)

Sure.

Thanks Lewis. I am referring to the frontend search although the backend search will also be highly sought after once there are a substantial number of entries.

Would something like this be possible... Sure.

Do you mean with the basic, existing backend search or via the extension that you're building?

You can search what you want and group it how you would like through the data sources without any extension. My extension will simply take a user's search query and simply reformat it for the appropriate regex. The simple biggest drawback using REGEXP in your data source filter is that you cannot search for multiple words, only the literal string that is entered (you could teach your users to enter a regular expression, but that's not friendly). Take a look at this thread to find out more about using REGEXP in your filter and the problem that I came across.

Thanks for the clarification and link Lewis. At the moment, I'm a bit out of my depths - hopefully it all starts making sense soon ;)