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agdarby edited this page Aug 30, 2023 · 11 revisions

Boxes (also known as Pluslets) are content chunks that you can drag or drop onto your page. Some of them are editable; some of them are fixed. Your friendly neighbourhood developer can create custom boxes for you, we have instructions here: Creating Custom Pluslets. If you don't have a friendly neighbourhood developer, you can make suggestions for new content types to the [http://groups.google.com/group/subjectsplus Google Group] or add them as enhancements to [https://github.com/subjectsplus/SubjectsPlus/issues Github] on the issues page.

Your SP admin can turn on or off any boxes via Admin > Config Site, so you can decide which you'd like to use.

The examples below are all shown in the default, rather grey theme that ships with SP4. Someday we'll ship with a beautiful theme--once someone feeds us one!

Editable Boxes

Editable box

This is the box you will probably use the most. It allows you to enter a mix of text and links and images, much like in Microsoft Word. This is what we used in Steps 2.2 and 2.3 of Using the Guides Tab

{| !Editable Box--Back End

!Editable Box--Front End
[[File:alice-ck.png
[[File:alice-public.png
}

Heading

This is a minimal box--just a title field. Your webmaster can style this heading however they like. You can also achieve the same sort of thing with an Editable Box by selecting "hide body text" in the box flyout.

{| !Heading Box--Back End

!Heading Box--Front End
File:heading-ck.png
File:heading-public.png
}

Image Card

This allows you to create a fancy card where an image is front and center. Of course, you can use an image in any box, but this is one formatted differently, with a focus on an image and brief associated text.

{| !Image Card Box--Back End

!Image Card--Front End
File:imagecard-ck.png
File:imagecard-public.png
}

RSS

You can use this box to pull in an RSS feed, for instance, the latest news from Scientific American.

{| !RSS Box--Back End

!RSS Box--Front End
File:rss-ck.png
File:rss-public.png
}

Social Media

This allows you to create a box with links to social media accounts. This information may also be added to your Subject Specialist box, but you might want to have accounts that are separate from the person.

{| !Social Media Box--Back End

!Social Media--Front End
File:social-ck.png
File:social-public.png
}

Video

You can create tidy, responsive (i.e., grow/shrink to fill available space) video boxes with this.

{| !Video Box--Back End

!Video Box--Front End
File:video-ck.png
File:video-public.png
}

Lightly Editable Boxes

Subject Specialist

This box will create contact information for people listed as owners of the guide (staff from the Metadata screen). You may tick on/off various pieces of information, and there is a free text area underneath.

{| !Subject Specialist--Back End

!Subject Specialist--Front End
File:ss-ck.png
File:ss-public.png
}

Table of Contents (TOC)

You can use this to create a table of contents box. Note that you should probably wait to do this until your guide is complete, since it will only be aware of content on the page at the time you create it. You can customize what you see. Note that when you click on a link, it will go to the selected box (even if it's on a different tab) and make it pulse to draw the eye...

{| !TOC--Back End

!TOC--Front End
File:toc-ck.png
File:toc-public.png
}

Chat boxes

There are chat-with-a-librarian boxes available if your library uses either [https://libraryh3lp.com/ libraryh3lp] or [http://questionpoint.org/ Questionpoint] software.

libraryh3lp

This requires some initial behind-the-scenes setup:

Identify your [http://docs.libraryh3lp.com/index.html jid and src]

Add the jid and src to /control/includes/config.php

Make sure the Chat pluslet is turned on.

QuestionPoint

This requires some initial behind-the-scenes setup:

Identify your institution ID. You can do this by looking in the top right corner of [http://www.questionpoint.org/crs/servlet/org.oclc.home.BuildPage?showauthorize&language1 your dashboard] after logging in.

Add the institution ID to /control/includes/config.php

Make sure the QP pluslet is turned on.

Once it is set up, you can add chat boxes to your guides. You can choose which language and color displays to your user.

Note: if your guide has multiple tabs, the Questionpoint chat box can only be shown on one of those tabs.

{| !Finding your Institution ID !QuestionPoint Chat--Back End

!QuestionPoint Chat--Front End
File:qp_id.PNG
File:qp_edit.PNG
File:qp_public_view.PNG
}

Uneditable Boxes

These boxes are just dragged/dropped into your guide. Your SubjectsPlus admin will need to customize some of them to work for your library. These are just guides that we set up at UM for our own local desires. You might very well not want them.

All Items by Source

Once upon a time, the core functionality of SubjectsPlus (and its predecessor, Pirate Source) was to create a List of all the Records for a given subject, sorted by the material type (or source). I'm not sure how much this is used anymore, but IF your guide has associated records, then this pluslet/box should appear in the Boxes sidebar, and you can drop this list into your guide. Your SP admin manages the list of source types at Admin > Sources. You can organize the order etc. of these resources by clicking "Organize Resources."

{| !All Items by Source Box--Back End

!All Items by Source Box--Front End
File:allitems-ck.png
File:allitems-public.png
}

WorldCat Search

{|

!WorldCat Search Box--Front End
File:worldcat-public.png
}

Catalog Search

Your catalog search box.

{|

!Catalog Search Box--Front End
File:catalog-public.png
}

Articles+ Search

This is what we call our discovery layer, which is currently Summon (but soon to be Primo). We will probably be adding a Primo box in the upcoming months. You will probably need to get your SP admin to tweak this box for local purposes.

{|

!Articles+ Search Box--Front End
File:articlesplus-public.png
}

Google Search

{|

!Google Search Box--Front End
File:google-public.png
}

Google Scholar

{|

!Google Scholar Box--Front End
File:googscholar-public.png
}

Google Books

For inserting google books search box. Note that this one didn't have a title field filled in for the box.

{|

!Google Books Box--Front End
File:googbooks-public.png
}

Layout Boxes

There are some box types that can be used to create a custom splash page. See also Customization_4.0#How_to_Use_a_Guide_as_your_Guides_Index_Page

Guide Search

A simple search box that will lead to your search results

{|

!Guide Search Box--Front End
File:guide-search-public.png
}

New DBs

This will show your five most recently added databases. Note that they need to have the Databases A-Z flag set in Records to qualify.

{|

!New DBs--Front End
File:newdbs-public.png
}

New Guides

This will show your five most recently created guides.

{|

!New Guides Box--Front End
File:newguides-public.png
}

List Guides

This pluslet/box type could be used to create the main listing of guides. Obviously, a) you would want to put it in a wider column, and b) you'd want to give it some CSS love.

{|

!List Guides Box--Front End
File:listguides-public.png
}

Guide Collections

It doesn't look like much, but this will create a box of all your collections of Guides.

{|

!Guide Collections Box--Front End
File:guidecolls-public.png
}

Experts

This pluslet will randomly grab four subject specialists and for each randomly grab one subject area.

{|

!Experts Box--Front End
File:experts-public.png
}