Enable Search by Metadata for Collections

[mebrett]

A request from an Omeka.net user to enable Search by Metadata for collections properties as well as items properties.

[patrickmj]

I think this has come up elsewhere (maybe the forums). One complicating factor is whether to have it work by only searching collections from collections and only items from items, or if they want the results mixed together. Any sense of which they're looking for?

[DBinaghi]

Hi Patrick. I also vouch for adding the chance to search for Collections (and Exhibits, since we're at it).
I think it should be configurable (something similar to Hide Elements plugin, table with 3 columns Items / Collections / Files).
As for the results, it's a good question. In our case, we added Subjects and Authors from the same pool used for Items, but we have very few Collections, so I think it'd be useful to have the results mixed together, maybe with some kind of label stating which ones are Items / Collections/ Files, or, maybe, to leave that choice to plugin configuration.

[DBinaghi]

Further on: I've taken care of the first part of the issue (browsing by Collections); while Patrick hasn't merged the code from my pull request, there's a downloadable updated version at https://github.com/DBinaghi/plugin-SearchByMetadata/releases/tag/v2.0

Now, working to see whether merging results is possible (should be) and easy (not sure).

[sharonmleon]

(Patrick no longer maintains the Omeka code that he worked on for the team; he moved on to a new job several years ago.)