Hacking Your Discovery Layer

Randy Oldham

University of Guelph

Ontario, Canada

roldham@uoguelph.ca

@roldham

All About TUG

TUG: TriUniversity Group Consortia University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario,

Canada) – 22,400

Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) – 14,800

University of Guelph (Guelph, Ontario, Canada) – 22,000

GUELPH

Fan of GOT?

300km (186 miles)

Ambassador Bridge

More about TUG

Snapshot of the TUG Software Ecosystem:

Shared ExLibris Voyager ILS Shared ExLibris Primo (each have our own

view) Ex Libris bX Recommender Ex Libris Primo Central Ex Libris SFX

Note

Lots of Ex Libris products

Hosted Locally: Voyager Primo

Hosted Provincially: SFX

Generally Speaking…

Locally-hosted More access to files More potential for hacking

Vendor-hosted Less access to files Less potential for hacking

YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY… Terms & Licenses

First Steps…

Determine your access to files: Is there backend administration? Can you modify/include CSS?

Simple colour changes & hide content

Can you modify/include HTML files? Customise headers and footers Include new JS files

Can you modify/include Javascript files? More advanced customisations Programmatically changing things

Can you modify core files? Carte Blanche!

General customisation notes

We had a general approach to customisations:

Avoid customisations to core files when possible

Keep it simple…as close to stock as possible

Backup…backup…backup Document all changes Share

Determine What to Customise

Just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD

Remember: Each hack has to be maintained through upgrades

Driven by usability testing: What would help users? What would increase their success? What would stop them from asking for

help?

Tools You’ll Need

1. Vendor customisation documentation

2. Access to customise or include files

3. Users

4. Knowledge of either: CSS HTML JAVASCRIPT

5. Firebug addon for Firefox

6. 1 bottle beer*

7. 1 bottle opener*

Quick Note on Firebug

Extension for Firefox Find div/class names:

To hide To change

Method One

RTFM Read The Functional Manual Vendors provide limited customisation This is your best bet Vendors support these customisations

through upgrades Reduces your upgrade time

COMPLEXITY LEVEL: LOWBACKEND ADMINISTRATION

Change Facet Order

Facet Order

Changed Facet Order:

WHY Change? Usability testing, Consortia, Analytics

Before: After:

Facet Order How to modify FACET ORDER in PRIMO:

Login to the Primo back office Click ONGOING CONFIGURATION WIZARDS Click VIEWS WIZARD Click on EDIT to the right of the view Click SAVE & CONTINUE, CONTINUE,

CONTINUE Select BRIEF DISPLAY from dropdown Click EDIT TILE to the right of REFINE MY

RESULTS Change the order & enable/disable facets here Click Save & Continue, continue, DEPLOY

COMPLEXITY LEVEL: LOWBACKEND ADMINISTRATION

Add custom tabs

Tabs

Add tabs (Blended, Primo, Primo Central)

AFTER:

Why change? Usability testing/staff feedback

tabs

All through back office

Modify your view

Go to the TABS section

Select your search scopes for the tabs

Save & deploy

Method 2:

CSS Override You must have access to edit CSS files Create your own CSS file and include it Use Firebug Determine div/class name

Visibility:hidden; to HIDE things Change colours Re-position things Replace some images

COMPLEXITY LEVEL: LOWCSS OVERRIDE

Change versions tab colour

Versions Tab Colour

Versions tab too pale:

If there are multiple copies of the same item, the records are de-duped and all records are displayed behind a VERSIONS tab

Usability testing/comments - users consistently missed this tab… too pale

Make the VERSIONS tab stand out more

Colour change = CSS override

The Goal

Versions Tab Colour

Instructions are on EL COMMONS CODESHARE

Essentially, we do the following: create a new triangle bit change the text colour change the background colour All done with CSS

Method 3:

Inject JS You must have access to an HTML file

loaded on each page (footer/header) Create a js file and include it in this Possibilities are nearly endless Be prepared to troubleshoot post

upgrades

COMPLEXITY LEVEL: LOWJAVASCRIPT ADDITION

Remove EXPAND MY RESULTS

Remove EXPAND…

Remove the EXPAND BEYOND facet

Why change? Usability testing/staff feedback

Remove EXPAND…

It’s a pretty simple one line javascript bit

$(document).ready(function() { $('.EXLFacetContainer

h3').filter(function(index) { return $(this).text().trim() === "Expand My Results"; }).parent().hide();

}); No modifications to core files! EXLibris Support = Survives upgrades!*** Code in El Commons

COMPLEXITY LEVEL: MEDIUMBACKEND & JS

Customise MORE tab

Add TUGdoc Tab

TUGDoc Request Tab

Consortial interlibrary article lending

TUGdoc Tab

We co-opted the “GetIT! Link 2”… MORE tab

Mapping tables: Delivery: GetIT! Link 2:  changed the “link field in PNX” to tugdoc for everything except Remote Search Resource

Mapping tables: delivery: templates – mapped tugdoc to the URL template:

  tugdoc 

https://insite.lib.uoguelph.ca/primo/tugdoc/index.cfm?bib={{control/sourcerecordid}}&view=GUELPH               link to TUGDoc request

   to open the tab in new window: Mapping tables: Delivery - URLs

Attributes https://insite.lib.uoguelph.ca/primo/tugdoc       OpenInNewWindow

  For the label of the tab: Code tables: Delivery: GetIT! Tab2 – changed

name to TUGDoc Request

TUGdoc tab

TUGdoc tab shows up on every item

We only want folks to use TUGdoc for ARTICLES…not other resource types

So we programmatically HIDE the tab for NON-JOURNAL resources using JAVASCRIPT

TUGdoc Tab

The code is in EL Commons It’s a pretty simple one line javascript bit

$(document).ready(function() { $('.EXLMoreTab').not('tr.EXLResultMediaTYPEjournal > td > div > div > ul > li').hide();

}); No modifications to core files! Vendor Support = Survives upgrades!***

COMPLEXITY LEVEL: MEDIUMJAVASCRIPT ADDITION

Boolean Search Example

Boolean Search Example

Add a boolean search example

AFTER:

Why change? Staff request Enhance usability

Boolean Search Example

Relatively simple one line of JS $('<div

class="TUGSearchFieldRibbonBooleanExample">e.g., king AND shakespeare NOT lear</div>').insertBefore(".EXLSearchFieldRibbonAdvancedSearchLink");

We find div on the screen and then insert a div just before it. We give our div a class so that we can style it. We specify the content of the div

COMPLEXITY LEVEL: HIGHJAVASCRIPT ADDITION

Where is it? integration

Where is it feature

Patrons/staff said… cool… I have a call number… but where is the thing!?

Guelph/Waterloo/Laurier were different

Guelph had a CF web app which supported URL var and form input

Waterloo had a different CF web app which supported form input

Laurier had static floor maps

Where is it?

Primo has the call number… Our consortia has apps (or static maps)

that can take call numbers and show building locations for materials…

How doth we marry these things!?

Where is it?

Some JAVASCRIPT! Read in item type Read in location, and call number Do something based on some logic EG:If you find BOOK, then:

If UG/UW: create link which submits call number to CF apps via URL

If WLU: create static link to floor map of proper call number range

EG 2: If you find ANNEX, then always: Display NOTE text instead of LINK.

Where is it?

Try the Guelph view

Where is it?

And one with a note…

Method 4:

Edit HTML You must have access to HTML files Add logos, customise headers/footers These are least likely to survive

upgrades Be prepared to troubleshoot post

upgrades

COMPLEXITY LEVEL: MEDIUMHTML MODIFICATION

Customised Help

Help Doc Updates

Customised discovery layer = customised help

Updated screen caps Updated instructions /exlibris/primo/p4_1/ng

/primo/home/system/thirdparty/jbossas/server/search/deploy/primo_library-app.ear/primo_library-libweb.war/static_htmls/

SEARCH TIPS: /help/search.html

In Summary

We explored 4 different ways to hack your discovery layer: RTFM CSS JS HTML

THESE WORK FOR OTHER VENDOR APPLICATIONS TOO!

Can be simple, or more complex, depending on the app and your comfort level

Thank You!

Thank you so much

Twitter me @roldham Email me at roldham@uoguelph.ca

Questions, requests for me to pronounce Canadian things? Eh? About Out and about hoser