How to use Bookmark ? (default topic type) DMX 5.0-beta-6

I’m unsure how to use the Bookmark topic type.

I assume the URL should be entered in the Search/Create dialog, e.g. https://forum.dmx.systems/c/user-questions

In case of “No Match”, I create a Bookmark (Topic Type).

If I now insert this URL https://forum.dmx.systems/c/user-questions into the Search dialog again, the newly created topic will not be found.

My second question relates to the Details view of a Bookmark topic:

58

The URL is displayed twice.

I expected the URL to be stored only once (and related to the second question: displayed only once in Details view etc.), and to be found in Search.

I assume the URL should be entered in the Search/Create dialog, e.g. […]

In case of “No Match”, I create a Bookmark (Topic Type).

Yes, that’s the intended way to create something in DMX.

The idea is that you don’t want create something that exists already. So in DMX Seach/Create is an integrated operation.

When you press the “Create” button DMX fills in the value you’ve entered in the “Search” field into the first field of the created topic. In case of “Bookmark” that is “URL”.

If I now insert this URL […] into the Search dialog again, the newly created topic will not be found.

Yes, there is indeed one thing to note here: if the search field contains at least one special symbol, DMX regards the entire user input as a Lucene query. Special symbols are + - && || ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \\ AND OR NOT.

So the culprit in your case is (at least) the - character. To search for an URL wrap it in " characters to form a phrase search. Searching for URLs works as expected then.

For details about how the DMX search dialog interprets the user input see this comment: https://git.dmx.systems/dmx-platform/dmx-platform/issues/274#note_11262

For the semantics of all Lucene special symbols see: http://lucene.apache.org/core/3_5_0/queryparsersyntax.html

The URL is displayed twice.

I expected the URL to be stored only once (and related to the second question: displayed only once in Details view etc.) […]

The URL is stored only once, but is indeed displayed twice.

The general DMX mechanics is as follows: the details rendering consists of 1) the topic label (rendered as heading in detail panel), and then 2) the topic fields. The label is calculated from the field values. For most topic types the label is calculated just from the 1st field. That’s why e.g. a Bookmark’s URL is rendered twice.

But note that in general there is no 1:1 relationship between label and field value. E.g. a “Person” topic creates its label by concatenating 2 fields: “First Name” and “Last Name”.

The label calculation rule can be configured interactively on a per-type basis. (See the detail panel’s View tab when a type is selected.)


All what’s written so far represents the status quo (as of 5.0-beta-6).
Possible improvements remain to be discussed.


@RalfBarkow we’re happy to welcome you at DMX!

We’d appreciate very much if you’d help us with improving the DMX documentation.

All info I’ve sketched out here is supposed to be fully covered in the DMX docs. If you think the docs are incomplete, or difficult to understand, or poorly structured, or if you find your questions not answered there, please let us know. Consider opening a docs-related ticket in the public issue tracker.

Thank you very much!

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@jri Thank you very much for your detailed answer.

What do you think about making this “phrase search” the default? (and add “Lucene query” as an additional checkbox)

What would be the exact rule for adding "..." programmatically?
What would be the exact semantics of a “Lucene query” checkbox?
Please include the discussion that took place at https://git.dmx.systems/dmx-platform/dmx-platform/issues/274, in particular:

We want both, retain incremental search, and supporting the user’s intuition that the more she types the smaller the search result will get.

I feel, it makes little sense to expand the rules and semantics of the Search/Create dialog only for the special case Bookmark. My point is: the user doesn’t find the concepts “phrase search” and “Lucene query” in the UI – no context-sensitive help yet –, but has to look them up in the documentation or ask here in the forum.

Maybe we can add a note for the special case Bookmark at https://dmx.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user.html?highlight=search#advanced-search-with-lucene

Shall I open a docs-related ticket in the public issue tracker ?

Actually there is no special case for Bookmark, and my comment did not aim to introduce one either. Sorry, at the moment I can’t discuss this further. @jpn can you jump in?

No need to discuss this further. Maybe I’ll open up a docs-related ticket in the public issue tracker

See issue “Searching for an URL #35