Collection Catalogues
Learn how to publish a collection catalogue with Quire
Along with monographs, edited volumes, and serial publications, Quire is also designed with the publication of collection catalogues in mind. This can be achieved by setting entry
as the layout
value in the .md
file’s page YAML. For more information see the Page Types & Structure section of this guide. Collection catalogues typically feature a page for each object, images of the object, information about it, and an essay or entry text. To publish a catalogue with Quire, you’ll capture object data, create the object pages, and then, optionally, display a list of the objects included in your publication.
Capture Object Data
Much like figures.yaml
or references.yaml
, all catalogue object metadata should be captured in a single objects.yaml
file in the contents/_data/
directory. Here is a brief sample of an objects.yaml
file:
object_display_order:
- artist
- year
- dimensions
- medium
- location
object_list:
- id: "2"
title: "Impression, *Sunrise*"
artist: "Claude Monet"
year: "1872"
medium: "Oil on canvas"
dimensions: "48 cm × 63 cm (18.9 in × 24.8 in)"
location: "Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris"
link:
figure:
- id: "cat2"
- id: "3"
title: "Reading (portrait of Edma Morisot)"
artist: "Berthe Morisot"
year: "1873"
medium: "Oil on fabric"
dimensions: "74.2 x 100.3 x 12 cm (29 3/16 x 39 1/2 x 4 11/16 in.)"
location: "Cleveland Museum of Art"
link: http://www.clevelandart.org/art/1950.89
download: true
figure:
- id: "cat3"
- id: "cat3a"
- id: "cat3b"
There are two sections in the objects.yaml
file: object_display_order
and object_list
.
Your
object_display_order
controls the specifics of which attributes included in yourobject_list
should be displayed and in what order. Following the sample above, the attributes included on the pages would be:artist
,year
,dimensions
,medium
, andlocation
.The
object_list
is a list of the objects and their individual metadata attributes. With the exception of a few reserved terms, as noted in the table below, any attributes can be included here. These attributes and the associated values will ultimately display on the entry pages for each object. These attributes can also be renamed based on your publication’s needs. For example, you can use the termmaker
instead ofartist
. To pull object images into the entry pages, theids
listed belowfigure
attribute should match theids
in your project’sfigures.yaml
file.
Attribute | Description |
---|---|
id | Required. Used to reference objects on the entry pages. Only numbers and/or lowercase letters with no spaces or special characters (001 , fig-01a , etc). |
figure | A list of one or more images of an object. Use id values corresponding with ids in your project’s figures.yaml file. |
link | A URL link to a page with more/current information on the object. Usually the object in the museum’s online collection pages. |
Create Object Pages
Like all other pages in your publication, object pages are created as .md
files in your content
directory. An entry page can feature any images associated with the object, a table of object information (or tombstone information), and finally an essay or entry text. To create an object entry page, add layout: entry
and the object id
that corresponds with that entry in your project’s objects.yaml
file to the page YAML.
layout: entry
object:
- id: 1
Entry Presentation
There are two different ways you can format your object entry pages: side-by-side
in which the image appears next to the object information or landscape
in which the image appears above the object information.
You can determine the format by either adding presentation: side-by-side
or presentation: landscape
to each entry’s page YAML. Or you can set a default format for all your entry pages in the content/_data/config.yaml
by choosing either true
or false
for the sideBySide
attribute.
entryPage:
sideBySide: true
Whatever the presentation, you can further organize the content on the page by using Quire’s {% accordion %}
shortcode to wrap the individual parts of the object entry into collapsible sections. Read more in the Accordions chapter of this guide.
Object Images
You can add more than one image to your object entry page by listing multiple figure ids
in your objects.ymal
file. Multiple images are displayed as a rotating carousel and are arranged in the order they are listed in the objects.yaml
file. If any of the object images have a caption
and/or credit
, that information will be included as a pop-up window.
If the figure’s download
attribute is set to true
, a download icon will be included as well.
Object Link
If the object_list
includes a link
value, a “View in Collection” button is generated. The text of this button can be customized with the objectLinkText
attribute in the project’s content/_data/config.yaml
file.
entryPage:
objectLinkText: View in Collection
Generate Object Lists/Grids
In a collection catalogue, there is typically a visual table of contents for the catalogue entries. To create a page with a list or visual grid of all the object entries, the entries themselves need to be grouped in their own section. In Quire, this means putting them in a subdirectory within the main content
directory. Read more about it in the Pages Types & Structure section of this guide.
In the example below, the content
directory has a subdirectory called catalogue
. Inside the catalogue
folder there are three numbered .md
files and an index.md
file.
📁 catalogue
📄 index.md
📄 1.md
📄 2.md
📄 3.md
The .md
files are the individual object entry pages and the index.md
file creates the table of contents that displays all three objects. To populate the table of contents, add layout: table-of-contents
and the attribute presentation
to the page YAML of the index.md
file. Give the presentation
attribute one of the following values: brief
, list
, abstract
, or grid
. For more information on these different presentation
styles, take a look at the Table of Contents & Sidebar Menu section of this guide.
title: Catalogue
layout: table-of-contents
presentation: grid

layout: table-of-contents
presentation: grid
A visual grid version of the table of contents. Displays an image if one is specified in the page YAML or if the page is an object entry page. Table of contents page types can also be used within sections to display the contents of that section, in this case, the Catalogue section.