4.2. Adding Smart Folders

A smart folder is used for building a kind of virtual container for content -- the content actually exists wherever the items are stored throughout the web site, but the smart folder finds content along the guidelines set by a search criterion and makes it appear as if the items were stored in an alternate arrangement. For the butterfly pages described in the introduction to this section, the actual storage arrangement is by taxonomic grouping (Skippers, Monarchs, Dustywings, etc.), but with smart folders there can be virtual groupings by various criteria, such as by color. The butterfly pages matching the search criteria will be shown as if they "live" in the smart folder holding butterfly pages organized by color. Of course, there must be keywords for color in the butterfly pages for this to work.  Search criteria made for searching general text can assemble very meaningful arrangements also.

Learning to think about content being stored wherever it is stored, and about using custom smart folders to gather up different "views" of the content, is an important step to using Plone most effectively.  It is an intelligent system.

To add a smart folder, use the add item menu, as for adding other content types:

You will see the edit smart folder panel:

Below the title and description fields is a set of fields for specifying the format of search results returned by the search criterion for the new smart folder. The four fields in the panel above are in pairs. The top two fields let you limit the search results to a number of items that will be displayed.  The bottom two fields let you control which pieces of information about the search result items will be shown in the table listing of the results.

Setting the search criterion

After setting the display configuration in the edit panel shown above, click the criteria tab to show the panel for setting search criteria:

The top area of the panel, Add New Search Criteria, lets you set a field and a matching criterion. The bottom area, Set Sort Order, is a simple selection for a field to sort on. 

For setting the search criterion, you have the choice of these fields:

The criteria types for matching data in content items depend on which field is selected.

After saving the smart folder, the search criteria will be applied and the results shown when the smart folder is clicked.  You can create any number of smart folders for such custom views. For the butterfly example described above, the keywords field could be used to match color to have a series of smart folders for "Blue Butterflies," "White Butterfles," etc. 

Multiple criteria can be used for a smart folder. For example, a smart folder called "Butterflies Photographed in the Last Month," could be made by setting a criterion on Creation Date and on Item Type as Image.  Such date-based smart folders are really effective to show up-to-date views of content that don't require any administrative hand-work -- once such a smart folder has been created, it will automatically stay up to date.

Note: A smart folder doesn't behave like a normal folder -- you can't add content items via the add item menu, as you can for a normal folder.

Watch a video about adding a smart folder.

Next: Smart Folder Intelligence Previous: Organization of Content