What are Categories?
Categories are used to structure your site, and to categorize content. By "tagging" your pages to specific categories, you can organize and manipulate those pages for later use, for either viewing or simply organizing. Categories are completely customizable depending on the need for them. Many sites don't need them, but they are an incredible tool when needed, and should be used when needed.
The logics of Categories
Categories are dynamic in every way. Understanding a category system can be easy or incredibly complicated. The most difficult aspect of categories is the mental organization. They can be customized any way you wish. Here is an example of a logistical view of category organization:
You can make tree-like categories as the image above or it can be simple as "Faculty Directory" with no sub-categories. You can create one category to group specific pages. Again, it is your choice on how to use them.
How do I make a Category?
Categories are placed inside a container, like a "bucket". A container is usually the root of a category tree, but can also be created as the child of another container, or of a category. Containers are used for describing a particular way of classifying content, like "Faculty Directory" and having the different types of faculty as categories inside that container.
To create one, click on "Create content" and then "Container". The content of this page is not necessary, so you can leave it blank. Below the content box, there are options you can modify.
Container information enables you to specify the what you want to organize, how to organize, and its visibility. If you want to organize pages, select the "Pages" checkbox. You can modify the method of "tagging" your pages as well. Under the "Hierarchy" sub-section, there are 5 check-boxes:
- Related terms - Allows relations between arbitrary categories or containers.
- Synonyms - Allows synonyms for a category or container, such as misspellings and acronyms.
- Free tagging - Content is categorized by typing terms instead of choosing from a list.
- Multiple select - Allows nodes to have more than one category from a particular container (always true for free tagging).
- Required - If enabled, every node must have at least one category from within this container.
Below in the "Category menu items" section, you will want to disable "Menu items within this container", unless you want to create a menu to view the specific content. It creates a block if you want to have a menu, but you can disable/enable the menu once created.
All other settings should be left at their default status. Change only if you are sure of what you are doing.
How can I use Categories?
Categories can be used to organize or manipulate pages in your site. You can tag pages to view them based on one or more categories, or by subject in general. You can also manipulate a category with a View. A powerful example is this current Drupal Documentation site.
The site has 6 categories in the "Topics" container:
- For Administrators
- For Authors
- For Gatekeepers
- From Training Sessions
- Maintaining Your Site
- Updating Your Site
You will notice the menu on the left is very similar. The menu system points to Administer-created Views, instead of pages, which generate a list of all the pages of the specified category for each View. When someone creates a page and selects the category "For Administrators", it will dynamically display after page is created.
The category system is also set up to allow multiple select. You can select multiple categories and have them display in multiple menus. If you browse through the menu, you will see some of the same content in multiple categories. For example, the "View Pages Link" link in "For Authors" is also in "Maintaining Your Site". This is because that page was created with both categories selected.
A View is created in each category to display a teaser list of pages assigned to the category. Views are incredibly powerful in manipulating your Drupal site. More information on Views will be coming soon.