contribution plug-in -- contribution types

Hi,

is it possible to add to the list of contribution types (story, image, etc.)?

Thank you.
Beth

There currently isn't an easy way, from the administrative panel, to add to the list of contribution types. You could edit the code directly, but they're tied to the item types in Omeka. You can see this in Contribution/views/public/index/add.php here:

<label>What kind of contribution will you be making?</label>
<?php echo select(array(
'name'=>'type',
'id'=>'contribution_type'),
array(
    'Document'=>'Story',
    'Still Image'=>'Image',
    'Moving Image'=>'Movie',
    'Sound'=>'Audio'),
empty($_POST['type']) ? 'Document' : html_escape($_POST['type']));
?>

You could add things to the array that lists item types and their corresponding values in that 'select()' function. Does this make sense?

What kind of things were you thinking of adding? We've considered making the contribution types a modifiable setting in the Contibution plugin.

Hope this helps!
Jeremy

Hi,

Yes, this does help.

Some of the items in our collections will be textual, but not necessarily stories. So, I was planning to use "document" as a type, but that might be confusing since 'document' is already used as a key.

Beth

Is it just an issue of syntax?

I changed the name of "images" to "images and other files", since we just want two catch-all types. I agree that "story" is a little vague.

You could:
'Document'=>'Document',

and it will--at least--show up on the form that way, if that's all you're worried about. Presumably, Omeka itself just views any text-only item as a 'document', so it won't care about front-end changes.

Hi,

Yes, I guess that is true. The "story" option does not allow for uploading a file, though. Rather, the user is expected to type in the text, I think.

Beth

You can also create a custom item type, if you choose, and then make it available using Jeremy's suggestions above.

'Story' grew out of our work in digital memory banking/collecting projects as a way to encourage users to share a short reflection or anecdote, w/o them feeling like they needed to upload a large Word doc.

Luckily, the plugin can be adapted to fit your needs!

That makes sense. I'll try Jeremy's suggestion.

Thanks!
beth

Hi,

I finally got back to this. I have decided that I do not really want to add a custom item type, since any text files that our users contribute will fit into the document type category. Rather, I may change "story" to "document/story" or something to that effect. But, I would like users to have the opportunity to upload a file regardless of the type of contribution they are making. Is that possible?

Thank you.
beth