Editing advanced search options

I'm kind of a beginner here. I'm wondering if I can edit the advanced search page to be able to search by the SimpleVocab terms I created for a specific item metadata field. Here's the specific situation: I'm creating a database for a bunch of short videos. I used the SimpleVocab plugin to define the options for the metadata field "Topic." I'd like for users to be able to go to the advanced search page, and be able to search by topic through a dropdown menu that lists topic 1, topic 2, etc. Is that possible?

What about for another metadata field that doesn't have predefined SimpleVocab terms?

There is no way to do this presently, but it's a great idea that may make it into the next version of the plugin. I added an issue to this effect.

Follow up question: Is there a way to do this by editing the code on the advanced search page? I know enough PHP/SQL to try, but when I looked at the table created by SimpleVocab it didn't look exactly how I expected, so I'm not sure if I could do this without guidance...

Same for fields that don't use SimpleVocab- could I access those terms through a query?

It is possible, but it would not be easy, and it would violate two principles that we try to maintain: 1) keep client code and the Omeka codebase separate; 2) keep business logic and the display mechanism separate. I recommend not altering the advanced search page.

Got it. Thanks for noting it as an issue!