The ability to add additional functionality to websites created with Joomla is a key element for automating tasks and managing them more quickly and efficiently. ADALinker is a content plugin for Joomla that aims to contribute in this direction, especially for public sector websites. It enables website administrators to automatically add links to Diavgeia in their articles, enhancing the user experience.
How it works:
The ADALinker plugin automatically detects the pattern of a decision with ADA within articles, e.g., "(ADA: XXXXXX-XXX)". When it recognizes this pattern, it dynamically creates a link leading to the corresponding decision on Diavgeia, based on the content of the pattern and the administrator's choice.
From version 1.1, two optional settings are introduced in the plugin. Specifically, the administrator can choose:
- Link Class: You can enter a class for the link to facilitate further formatting or extend its functionality. For example, if you use JCE MediaBox, you can enter the class "jcepopup" so that the link opens in a popup window instead of a new window.
- Link Type: Here you can choose where the link will lead. The "View Page" option leads to the decision page on Diavgeia (i.e., the link will be in the form diavgeia.gov.gr/decision/view/ADA). The "View Document" option directly leads to the view of the decision file on Diavgeia (i.e., the link will be in the form diavgeia.gov.gr/doc/ADA?inline=true).
The application of the ADALinker plugin is simple and requires minimal intervention from the website administrator. The automated detection of text patterns makes its use very easy. However, it should be emphasized that the sought-after pattern is very specific, i.e., "ΑΔΑ:" followed by a space character and the alphanumeric pattern of the decision. It can also be within parentheses "(ΑΔΑ: ABCDEFGH-IJK)". Any other variation may not work correctly. For example, if there is any variation in the keyword "ΑΔΑ" such as "ADA" or "A.D.A.," the decision number that follows may not be read correctly by the plugin.
Adding prominent links to texts improves the user experience, offering faster and easier access to information posted on Diavgeia, actively contributing to enhancing transparency and information dissemination.
As mentioned earlier, the ADALinker Plugin is free software, meaning that anyone can redistribute and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
Application Study: symparastatis.gr
Diavgeia is the most important source of information for the Citizen and Business Ombudsman's Observatory, as monitoring the actions of local government is based on the information published by Municipalities and Regions either on their website or on Diavgeia.
However, due to extensive references to posted decisions on Diavgeia, manually creating a link for each "ΑΔΑ" mentioned on each individual page was not practically feasible, as it would take too much time. Thus, the ADALinker Plugin was created to automate this process by reading the ADA patterns and automatically creating the corresponding links to Diavgeia.