Spotlight categories shouldn't be hard-coded

[matt-bernhardt]

Brigham recently requested that the Spotlight categories be adjusted (this was #65). The branch that responded to that request has now been put into production, which makes the requested change but doesn't (IMO) go far enough. The next time there's a category change, we'll still be on the hook for code-level changes and a re-deploy.

The underlying problem is that we've hard-coded category values in the theme. For example:
https://github.com/MITLibraries/MITLibraries-news/blob/master/inc/spotlights.php#L16-L18

if ( ($field['choices'][ $value ] ) === 'Featured collection' ) {
    $featImg ='<div class="or_star-25"></div>';
    }

The feature we're looking for is to map an arbitrary list of categories against a list of icons contained in images/sprites.png. This is currently done by looking up the category value within the template, and a long string of if statements in the template.

An alternate model, IMO, would be to maintain the mapping directly within the field itself - so the list of values that is currently:

check : Check it out
collection : Featured collection
exhibit : Featured exhibit
service : Featured service
story : Featured story
video : Featured video
media : In the media
tip : Tip
update : Update

...which are already key/value pairs, could instead be something like:

or_star-25 : Check it out
or_star-25 : Featured collection
or_star-25 : Featured exhibit
or_star-25 : Featured service
or_star-25 : Featured story
or_star-25 : Featured video
or_star-25 : In the media
info : Tip
update : Update

This should allow for site builders to pick the icon they want, and the template could become very simple - just spit out the value for the spotlight in the class attribute.

Thoughts, @PBruk @frrrances ?

[matt-bernhardt]

Another possible change, that already may be in flight, is to swap out this sprites file with FontAwesome icons (or some other library) - in which case the keys in the key/value pairs in ACF would be whatever is meaningful for our chosen library.

[frrrances]

If I were to do it from scratch, I would remove the HTML and make the image a css background based on the class, which could be derived from the key name (eg. ".spotlight-check", ".spotlight-collection", etc...)

[frrrances]

Also, @hartmans7 pointed out that there is a dependency in the parent theme on these categories:

https://github.com/MITLibraries/MITlibraries-parent/blob/prod/lib/news.php#L152-L157

For example, right now the "Check it out" category has this for the orange header: "Featured check".

More hardcoding that would be good to eliminate - feel free to branch this off into a new issue if that makes more sense.

[PBruk]

I spent some time on this over the weekend, specifically overcoming the hardcoding issue but had no luck. Would like to discuss options further.