Faceting by locale

bjansdeb

Hello all,

I'm currently trying to create a facet for the ca_places by preferred_labels on the "browsing" Providence side.
However, I'm struggling with the three locales we use with CA (french, english and dutch).
Currently CA returns me the results with the three languages in the same time (so I get Bruxelles, Brussels, Brussel).
Is there any way to precise I only want the french one ?

Here is my browse.conf code :

ca_places = {
show_all_for_no_criteria_browse = 1,
facets = {
title_facet = {
type = label,
sort_by = [name],
restrict_to_types = [],
preferred_labels_only = 1,
group_mode = alphabetical,
label_singular = _("label"),
label_plural = _("labels")
}

Thanks !

seth

There's currently no way to control this. Do you want to be able to specify that the facet is always in a particular language? Or have it always default to the current user's language (or both options?)

bjansdeb

Clearly, both options would be very great.
Sad there is no options like "restrict_to_locale = [fr_FR]" or "[user_locale]". That could be useful for multilingual users/countries.

darrigan

Hi @bjansdeb,
I’ve tried something you can test on your own system if you’re not afraid to add four lines of PHP code to a file! 😁
This has been tested on CA version 2.0.9, which I used as a test environment.

In your providence directory, go to /app/lib/Browse/ and make a copy of the file BrowseEngine.php to save the original untouched file!
Edit the BrowseEngine.php file, at about the line #3858. This corresponds to the moment when the code is selecting the "WHERE" conditions for the SQL request, in the "type = label" case of a facet.
So you should have this code here:

				if (isset($va_facet_info['preferred_labels_only']) && $va_facet_info['preferred_labels_only'] && $t_label->hasField('is_preferred')) {
					$va_where_sql[] = "l.is_preferred = 1";
				}

Copy-paste this piece of code just after:

				global $g_ui_locale_id;
				if (isset($va_facet_info['restrict_to_user_locale']) && $va_facet_info['restrict_to_user_locale']) {
					$va_where_sql[] = "l.locale_id = '$g_ui_locale_id'";
				}

Explanation:

1st line get the locale_id of the user (a global variable).
2nd line checks whether the optional parameter restrict_to_user_locale = 1 is present in the browse.conf file for the desired facet.
3rd line properly add a WHERE clause that selects only facets corresponding to the user's locale.
Save.

Now, edit your browse.conf file, go to the desired facet and add the "restrict_to_user_locale = 1," line, as:

		title_facet = {
			type = label,
			sort_by = [name],
			restrict_to_types = [],
			restrict_to_user_locale = 1,
			preferred_labels_only = 1,
			group_mode = alphabetical,
			label_singular = _("label"),
			label_plural = _("labels")
		},

Et voilà !
Hope this will work for you as it works for me.
Screen captures:

With restrict_to_user_locale = 0 (display english and french labels):
With restrict_to_user_locale = 1 (display english labels only):

(Perhaps we could add this to the official code if @seth agrees.)

bjansdeb

Hi darrigan

Thanks for your reply !
I tried you solution on production and unfortunately CA does not work as expected. It returns me all the languages as usual.

I will keep thinking about a solution over the next week based on your own.
However I'm quite reluctant to hardcode directly into the lib, helper or controller files because each personal added modification increase potential future maintenance/update issues.

I also think a more robust way could be to get the array with all locale variables used by CA and to chose one of them (for instance, the default locale) rather than calling the global ui one. This latter option may create too much variation in the returned results.
Any idea whether an helper exists that returns the default locale defined in the setup file (CA_DEFAULT_LOCALE) or an array with all available locales ?
That would be a good starting point.

seth

We are working to add a locale setting for the labels facet. We've already pushed a change to add it for authority (relationship) facets. Look for the change this week. I'll post here when it's up.