file access filtering options

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by

sarah

Hi, I’ve been using Groups and various add-ons with great success for several years – thank you! I now have a very large collection of files that I need to display in more user-friendly ways. I’m not so focused on the permissions as I allow all registered customers to view and download the files, but I am using the restrict categories plugin to group files together so that customers can find what they are looking for more easily.
I have 500 “worksheets” which are grouped into sets of 8 and I also display them all in one “link group” shortcode, but I have maybe 40 that start with the letter A and to find one beginning with M, it’s a long way down. Is it possible to filter alphabetically to show all files starting with A for example? Ideally I would love to be able to display a series of tabs with A-D, E-G etc.
Also, i have 500 worksheets right now but also working on two other document types that will eventually have similar numbers and the same title – eg “My Book Name Worksheet”, My Book Name Lesson Plan”, “My Book Name Teacher Guide” . Can i use a combination of tags and categories or multiple categories within a shortcode to filter down eg to show all files in Group “Yellow Level” that also have the tag “worksheet”, while a similar shortcode displays files from the same group, but tagged “lesson plans”. I’m needing this level of granularity to group titles into reading levels and book sets to match the way we sell the physical book. Thanks for your help!

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6 responses to “file access filtering options”

  1. sarah Avatar
    sarah

    I can’t seem to make this work.

    Where I previously had [groups_file_link group="Teacher Resource B"] working successfully to show all files beginning with B, I have now entered this:
    [groups_file_link group="Worksheets,Teacher Resource B"]

    I’m afraid that’s not working for me. Instead it now shows all 500 Worksheets, not just those beginning with B. I’ve also tried [groups_file_link group="worksheets","teacher resource B"] but this displayed no results.

    Can you suggest where I am going wrong?
    thank you!

    1. sarah Avatar
      sarah

      Apologies, I may not have been clear – I can see that this shortcode will list files in two groups – the comma acts as “and”, but what I need is only files that are in both Worksheets and group B. Is this possible?

      1. antonio Avatar
        antonio

        Hi Sarah,
        Sorry there isn’t an option to display only files in both groups.
        For cases like this, the solution is usually to create a group that unites both groups, for example: Ws_TR_B that includes Worksheets and Teacher Resource B. So you need to create combinations for your files type and the letters. For example if you have WS (Worksheets), PDF and Word, you will have something like this: WS_A, WS_B, WS_C … PDF_A, PDF_B, PDF_C … Word_A, Word_B, … Then in your “Worksheets files page” you will have:
        [groups_file_link group="WS_A" /]
        [groups_file_link group="WS_B" /]
        [groups_file_link group="WS_C" /]
        ....
        Kind Regards,
        Antonio B.

  2. sarah Avatar
    sarah

    Thanks for your help with this. I wasn’t thinking of a search – although that would actually be awesome – but the ability to filter by more than one group. I’ve followed your advice and created a group for each letter of the alphabet and this is displaying all of my files alphabetically – looks wonderful.

    But, right now I have 500 of one type of file and only 20 of each of the two others, and over the next 12 months we will add to the collection and I will end up with 500 of each kind, 1500 in total. Even dividing alphabetically this is a very large list.

    What i was really wanting to do, is filter by the Alphabet group AND the document type group. So a shortcode to display all “Letter A” group files that are also in the “Worksheet” group. Is there any way to do this?

    1. antonio Avatar
      antonio

      Hi Sarah,
      In the [groups_file_link] shortcode as ‘group’ option you can use a list of groups separated by comma. For example: [groups_file_link group="Letter A,Worksheet"]
      Kind Regards,
      Antonio B.

  3. antonio Avatar
    antonio

    Hi Sarah,
    There isn’t a search, but you could create for example Group_A, Group_B, Group_C … a group for each letter, and assign your files to the corresponding group.
    Assign all your registered users to these new groups (from Users->All users above the table you can use the bulk actions)
    Then using different pages or tabs system, create a [groups_file_link group="Group_A"] for each letter.
    I think this can help you to organize your files.
    Kind Regards,
    Antonio B.

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