Tutorial Index Suggestion

[BuffaloHelp 24]

A member (.nol) brought up an excellent point today. Index (table of content) of tutorials.

 

An easy way to browse what kinds of tutorials are available in Xisto--both general and GFX. The simplest way of doing this is to generate RSS by sub-forum and then present it via Annex (for those who do not know it's our Community page). Or, if OpaQue grants, I can include HTML code to Tutorial Index forum post. Either way, it should be automated and updated according to RSS feed.

 

RSS is the easy part. What I would like for all members of Xisto to do is think about how RSS can sort by keywords or same keywords.

 

Basically, if titles are:

Photoshop: Lightning Filter

Sig Title: Sky

Lens Flare Effect PS

Burning Heart Effect

they should be listed under:

Photoshop Tutorial

Photoshop: Lightning Filter

Lens Flare Effect PS

Burning Heart Effect

Sig Tutorial

Sig Title: Sky

Well, you get the idea. Start discussing how we should categorize and how to approach. I think we'll be using RSS2HTML conversion program, similar script used in GFXTrap.com. PHP is the choice of programming language. Build an array of specified keywords and sort them accordingly. So I'd like to know what keywords are important. Those titles fall out of these keywords should be listed under MISC category.

 

Thank you everyone.

[Saint_Michael 3]

RSS Feed would be insufficient due to the fact that when a new post is made on that tutorial it will be brought to the top of the list and of course moving the previous ones down. So with that happening you won't be able to see any of the older tutorials unless you close every tutorial topic that has been made to prevent people from posting. With Keywords you would have to add all the keywords into Topic title, description and all over tutorial for search engines to even pick it up, because RSS doesn't have a keyword element in it's coding structure that I am aware of.

Of course I tried looking up keyword RSS feed generators and the only that comes up doesn't work on specific keywords I used for the Xisto forums

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Building a tutorial index on a RSS feed is a lot more complicated then it looks because you limited to what xml elements you can use for a RSS feeder to pick up and then display them and so your best bet is to create a tutorial system like pixel2life, and then build a RSS feed component around that. I have seen a few IPB mods for setting up a tutorial system on the board you could swing that way as well, of course you would have to downgrade to IPB 2.1 to use them.

Of course you could use the customization page mod and set up a tutorial index that way, but again the problem is setting up the keywords to be pick up by the search engine to be index properly

[BuffaloHelp 24]

What you are considering is a fact. That's why I suggested array of keywords, such that

$array1 = array("gfx", "photoshop", "brush", "effect")$array2 = array("sig", "signature")foreach (rss =>array1 or rss =>array2) {  if (any keyword in array1 match RSS title) {	  photo[$i] = RSS title	  $i++  }  elseif (any keyword in array2 match RSS title) {	  sig[$j] = RSS title	  $j++  }  else {		  misc[$k] = RSS title  }}sort (photo[$i]) ... sort allecho "Photoshop Tutorials"for ($i = 0; $i < array number; $i++) {	echo "<a href=\"$photo[$i]\">$photo[$i]</a>"}echo "Signature Tutorials"for ($j = 0; $j < array number; $j++) {	echo "<a href=\"$sig[$j]\">$sig[$j]</a>"}...and  echo rest of unrelated titles

This will sort within keywords and display sorted under each designated category. The sorting is easy. What it needs to be done is to find keywords that are most effective before sorting.

This will eliminate the sort by only post date. I wouldn't make suggestions unless I have considered some possibilities.

Another sort() is to sort array using another array (array_multisort), which isn't my field of expertise. Thus I have made my case known.

[rvalkass 5]

The problem with sorting by keywords is that you have no way to really choose which category a post ends up in. Certain tutorials could also fall into multiple categories, and the current script, as shown above, would limit each one to only one category. Perhaps it would be better to just pick every tutorial out of RSS feeds and put the information in a database. This could then be searched by anyone browsing the list of tutorials.

[Imtay22 0]

I remember this discussion in the shout box. I had an idea, but I just forgot it. I just thought of another one, though. The RSS one was good, here is an add-on to it. You can have a link to the subforum for the RSS in the bar at the top just under the logo where it says "Search," and "Xisto," and "Free Web Hosting," just under the community drop-down. That's my input.

[BuffaloHelp 24]

By default, IP.Board v2.x and above has RSS feed generated automatically. It's located at the bottom of every page. GFXTrap.com is receiving RSS feed from Graphics forum since the beginning. ACP allows RSS topics to be isolated to any forum(s) of choosing. So the location and RSS generating aren't the issue.I am in the process of making xml to sort by title. If this works the second implement would be to sort by relevant keywords and list under said categories. Anything that does not fit to keywords or category will be listed under MISC category. If topics that are miscategorized all we have to do is edit the topic title. Then the title short will take care the rest.Since it would be written in PHP, I'll be hosting it with gamma server (not the forum server) and iframe to the post or the forum description area.