academics.php.readme.txt

Academics Page Readme


FILTER CLASSES

Each element in the grid is given one or more classes.  The class "program-item" gives it the needed style.  There are
additional classes that correspond to the filter names; areas-of-study, special-programs, languages, performing-arts,
science, social-political, and interdisciplinary.


PROGRAM EXPANDED CONTENT

When a user clicks on a program an ajax request is made to a file called academics-expander.php.  The ID of the program
box is passed to that URL in a query string which can be used to customize the returned content.

Currently there are no IDs applied to the program elements and placeholder IDs are added by the javascript code in the
academics.js file (lines 12 through 16).  When IDs are added by the CMS automatically this block of code can be removed.

You can use the format of the academics-expander.php file as a guide for feeding real content from the CMS.  Line 105 of
academics.js constructs the URL and can be customized to match the needed format.


LAST-IN-ROW and SORT ORDER

In order to get the expanded content to show up in the right part of the grid, two key factors are needed.  The last
element in the selected row is needed in order to determine the element that the expander should be inserted after (e.g.
between the current line and the following line).  This is enabled through a function called setLastRows() in the
academics.js file.  That function scans through the visible programs and adds a class of "last-in-row" to all
corresponding elements.  This is run only as needed (i.e. when a user clicks on one of the programs).

A sort order data attribute is added to each of the program elements upon page load.  These are set in increments of 10.
 Once we know the position that we want to add the expander after, the sort attribute of the expander element is set to
that element's sort order plus 5.  The isotope animation plugin requires this in order for us to sort the elements in
the needed manner.


PROGRAM ORDER

The order that the programs appear in the code is the one that dictates the order that they will appear in. The
filtering functionality doesn't require the programs to be ordered by type or category. It's probably best to order the
programs alphabetically.