Test page for collections format

Text Entry

The first is a copy of the text currently on the video archive page. This has several advantages:
1) It is straightforward and easy to understand.
2) It can be maintained in any order or grouping.
It also has some disadvantages:
1) Items and Groupings must be maintained manually
2) Getting proper line-up and spacing can be painful

Bansuri

November 9, 2019: Eric Fraser (bansuri)-1st half; Snehesh Nag (sitar)-2nd half, Narendra Budhakar (tabla)
July 22, 2017: Jay Gandhi (bansuri), Dibyarka Chatterjee (tabla)
September 26, 2015: Abhik Mukherjee (sitar), Jay Gandhi (bansuri) and Samir Chatterjee (tabla)
May 20, 2017: Nash Naubert (bansuri) and Samir Chatterjee (tabla)
March 28, 2015: Steve Gorn (bansuri), Samir Chatterjee (tabla)

Code Block with HTML Table

The amount of work needed to maintain this is approximately the same as for straight text entry. However, the text is maintained as HTML Tables with each entry being a table row of two cells. The main advantage to this approach is that lining things up is much easier. The big disadvantage is that you have to learn and use HTML and CSS (style sheets). However, after you become familiar with it, most changes are (copy/paste/change some text). Edit the code block below to see what the HTML code looks like. This is the simplest version of this, with two tables and minimal styling. There are lots of tricks that can be used to make it look just the way you desire. Still, it is not as straightforward as direct text entry.

Collections and collection displays

Collections are Squarespace entities that are essentially lists. There are different kinds of lists “Galleries”, “Events”, “Products”, “Album”, “Blog”, and “Index”. Each of these has certain inherent properties. Galleries require pictures, but you can use placeholders, Products have prices, The main calendar is an “event” page. The big advantage to these is that you can add “Tags” and “Categories” to them, which allows you to filter a what you see when you create a display. For example, the Video archive can have categories “Bansuri”, “Vocal”, “Sitar”, etc. applied to them. We can then create a display that is restricted to a particular set of items. Also, one item can appear in multiple displays. There are several disadvantages though:
1) Summary displays are restricted to a maximum of 30 items.
2)You have very little flexibility in the display format.
3)You cannot apply format or links to the title of an item, just the description.
4)The main list of galleries does not show the title, but a picture, so things could be hard to find.

Summary Blocks

Summary blocks are displays a “collection”. For this test, I created a “Gallery” collection called “Video Archive” and added the first 3 entries from the Video Archive page, and applied the categories “Sitar” and “Bansuri” as approriate.
1) A summary can contain a maximum of 30 entries. Most of the categories are below this limit, but it will grow. Also, as we are very likely exceed 30 concerts in our list.
2) The Gallery on which the summary is built requires an image. I did not find a collection that was text-only. Even though you don’t need to display the image, it is a bit hard to find a individual entry in the Gallery as the title does not display in the grid of images on the left.
3) You can’t change the display format to put the date and title on the same line.
4) You can’t put a link around the title of an entry, only the description.
5) The font size only seems to effect the title, not the description.

Still, it works.

Summary - Filter Category Bansuri:

Summary 2 - Filter Category Sitar - Font size large

Note that the description font size is not bigger