19Jun
Improving the Islandora Record creation process with Islandora Form Fieldpanel Elements
From Cherry Hill Company
During a training with a library on how to use the Islandora record forms for creating Islandora Objects, the training group felt dissatisfied with how multi-value fields are handled by the out-of-the-box solution from the otherwise feature rich Islandora XML Forms module. The Islandora XML Forms module features various types of form elements (in addition to the default Drupal field elements) that you can use to fully create your form. One of these is the Tabs/Tabpanel form element combination. It features the multi-field items in a Tabs design pattern which allows you to easily go back and forth between your data. Below is a screenshot:
For what it is worth, I think the Tabs/Tabpanel form elements are actually quite good in a few scenarios. In particular, if you do not require examining a particular field element against any of its sibling elements, this is a very nice way to present your data for creation purposes. It is fairly compact, meaning the end user does not have to scroll on for what may seem like forever. However, due to the nature of the design pattern, it also presents a problem. If you DO need to compare your elements against each other, then you have to quickly glance at one tab, remember what was on it, switch to the other tab, and make a mental comparison.
Another point that came up during the training is they wished for the capability to reorder the elements. So let's say we had a subject chain that consisted of:
- President
- Developer
- Project Manager
- President
- Project Manager
- Developer