 |
||
ADDING YELLOWPAGES
Creating a Yellowpage
In Tutorial One: How To Create An Affiliate Site we covered in detail how to add categories to Red Queen. In that case the example site catered to DVD titles. For this tutorial we are supposing that audio and or video files will appear as separate items, each of which will be assigned one or more musical categories, or genres. So instead of discussing how to add categories again here, we will consider how to add what in Red Queen is called a yellowpage--a container of suppliers, in the same way that a category is a container for items.
The reason for this is that we are going to assume that in addition to categorizing audio and video files, Mike wants to go a step further and have a separate area for each band that supplies the tracks/clips. Red Queen allows the webmaster (or the person supplying an Item) to associate each Item with one or more Suppliers. Also, because these suppliers have an associated profile page, the supplier is an ideal representation of a company, or supplying entity, such as a band (which supplies the audio/video samples).
Suppliers appear on the Yellow Pages branch of Red Queen. It is possible to find a given supplier by doing a keyword search, or by looking through the alphabetical supplier listings, but in general the recommended approach is to create "yellow pages", or hierarchical containers that work just the same way that categories do, but instead hold suppliers rather than items. Users can then locate the kind of supplier (band) they are interested in by drilling down through the various yellowpage titles that interest them.
Mike could categorize garage bands by the kind of music they identify with. Instead, he has decided to categorize them by physical location. That way, people will be able to figure out which bands might be playing at a nearby location in the future. Obviously, garage bands in your local neighborhood will be more accessible than others half way across the country.
In this tutorial will we discuss how yellowpages can be added/edited using the Yellowpage Browser. The Browser is designed to allow the Administrator (or assigned yellowpage editors) to perform yellowpage operations by interacting with the yellowpage tree, which remains visible on the left side of the admin page in a separate frame.
To get to the Yellowpage Browser Mike enters the administrative area of Red Queen by typing a URL into his web browser something like:
http://www.mydomain.com/cgi-bin/path/to/.../redqueen/do/admin/admin.cgi
He then looks for the Yellowpage Browser, which can be accessed from the link on the navigation bar entitled Yellowpages. When he clicks on it he sees a new page with a bare folder named Home on the left. This represents the top level of the (currently empty) yellowpage tree. It should look something like this:
 |
 |
Home |
When Mike clicks on the Home folder, a single link appears on the right of the page entitled "Add Yellowpage". When he clicks again he sees a form for adding a yellowpage. To create a top-level (or State) yellowpage named "California" he fills in the form like so:
An asterisk indicates a required field. At a minimum, the yellowpage requires a "Name". When a yellowpage is created the supplied "Name" field cannot contain the forward slash / as this is the character used to delimit components of a yellowpage. If Mike sets the "Is Validated" field, the created yellowpage will appear on public pages. Otherwise it is only accessible to him via the Yellowpage Browser or the Database area.
If a yellowpage "Description" is provided it can be placed on the public pages. It can also be hidden by toggling the appropriate configuration variable from the administrative configuration pages (see the Configure > Build / Browse page). If a yellowpage "Description", or yellowpage "Keywords", are provided, these will be used to fill the metadata fields for the yellowpage when static pages are built. This helps the Search Engine spiders index your pages more accurately. These two fields also assist in the functioning of the internal Red Queen search engine.
As Mike does, you should ignore the "Template Prefix" field (consider it an advanced feature which can be used to bypass the default yellowpage templates). For now, Mike also ignores the section of the form containing the "Rating Questions" which control which rating attributes are assigned to the yellowpage. We will come back to the rating questions later, once the yellowpage is created. If desired, an "Image" can also be assigned to the yellowpage by clicking on the Manage Upload button and using the dialog box that appears to upload an image. In general, if you want to add an image to each yellowpage, it would probably be wise to delay this until you have come up with a series of images, all of the same size and style, which can be used to decorate the yellowpages in a uniform way. For the purposes of our discussion Mike decides not to bother with yellowpage images or yellowpage descriptions.
When Mike submits the Add Yellowpage form the yellowpage is created and the Yellowpage Browser automatically updates to display the new configuration:
  Home |
|
California (0) |
The zero in the parentheses on the right of the new California yellowpage indicates that there are no suppliers in the yellowpage yet. We postpone for the moment the task of creating suppliers to populate the new yellowpage, and instead allow Mike to click on the "Add Yellowpage" link on the right of the page to create another yellowpage beneath California, to be named Los Angeles Region (he has decided to segment each state by regions surrounding the major cities of the state, which should lead to less than 1000 yellowpages in total--a manageable number to work with). He goes through the same procedure as before, fills in the form, supplying Los Angeles Region for the "Name" field, and submits. The new California > Los Angeles Region yellowpage is created, and the Yellowpage Browser updates to reflect the yellowpage addition:
|
Home |
|
California (0) |
|
Los Angeles Region (0) |
It is always a good idea to plan out the intended yellowpage tree before one begins adding them to the database. However, yellowpages can be moved or deleted if needed, and Mike would find the links to perform these operations on the right side of the page once a given yellowpage is added. At this point we stop and move on to consider the next task, which is to associate rating attributes with each yellowpage--a task that will be made easy by employing the concept of Shared Reviews.
Next Section: SHARED REVIEWS / RATING ATTRIBUTES
Copyright © 2004 Random Mouse Software. All Rights Reserved.