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CollectionBuilder

Collection Settings

This section of “_config.yml” connects your metadata to your CollectionBuilder site so that your items can be pulled in. Metadata specified in this value will drive the browsing features and item page generation–this is the true heart of your CollectionBuilder project!

Collection Metadata

This option is an important place where GH and Sheets diverge (the only place really!). GH and CSV require the metadata option (which is not used in Sheets). Sheets uses the metadata-csv option instead (not used in GH or CSV). Because of the unique way Sheets handles metadata, we have kept these options separate.

metadata:

  • GH and CSV only
  • The filename without the extension of your metadata CSV file (contained in the “_data/” folder).
  • Metadata specified in this value will drive the browsing features and item page generation–this is the true heart of your CollectionBuilder project!
    metadata: boxing

To reiterate, notice that the metadata value does not have the extension “.csv”, this is a common error to avoid! The second most common error is spelling or case not exactly matching the CSV file–double check those filenames!

metadata-csv:

  • Sheets only! This value is generally used, but is not required–see development mode for details.
  • The full URL to your metadata CSV file or relative path + filename of CSV in your project repository
  • If using a CSV contained with in the project, use a relative path starting with a slash /.
    metadata-csv: /assets/demo-metadata.csv
  • If using a published Google Sheet, use the full URL provided
    metadata-csv: "https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSn7AA-cbsXT3_nNUGftc1ab-CKXOJHMQCIENeR9NHElbyI9_qA99o0-HNZdG04v-M2_N21bUe_krQQ/pub?output=csv"
  • If using a CSV in another GitHub repository, use the raw link
    metadata-csv: "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CollectionBuilder/collectionbuilder-sample-data/main/psychiana_cbdemo_gh.csv"

Page Generation Settings (CSV only, optional!)

CollectionBuilder-CSV uses a custom Jekyll plugin to generate individual HTML pages for each item (row) in your metadata CSV. By default, the “CollectionBuilder Page Generator” plugin needs no additional configuration–it will automatically use the value set in metadata to generate pages.

In advanced use cases only, you may want to tweak the CB defaults or generate pages from more than one data file. The values under the page_gen key can be used to customize page generation.

For details, please see “docs/plugins.md” in the project template you are using.