By scarecrow-rye on

Within Drupa there seem to be so many ways of setting up a website in a Home > Section > Category > Page construction. So many that I am getting a little confused as to which method is best. You can tell from some of the Book, Taxonomy and Categories documentation that the authors really know their stuff, but I'm finding a lot of it if flying right over my head.

Which is the better method to use for a smallish website?

⋅ Categories: Drupal 4.7.x

Comments

Axel_V’s picture

Axel_V commented

Sorry not to be able to help you but it might be worth supporting your point. I'm a newbie and I find the issue of organizing my content in a hirarchy very confusing as well. All the different systems and not even a proper step-by-step explanation of how to set things up. Many of the explanations on the module pages (such as category) seem to take for granted that everybody knows exactly what to do.

MacRonin’s picture

MacRonin commented

Just adding a comment so I can track this issue.

venkat-rk’s picture

venkat-rk commented

I can empathise with you. I have been around here for a while, and I can tell you that a Home > Section > Category > Page construction is incredibly hard to achieve currently.

To anyone who questions this, I propose the following challenge - try and achieve it out of the box with drupal, WITHOUT employing additional modules or coding. This is the kind of stuff that drupal core should make available by default but doesn't; this is the kind of stuff many, many people try to build:

  1. A page for section that serves as the kind of index.html you see all the time on static sites
  2. Introductory paragraphs for Section and all the top level pages beneath it.
  3. A navigation menu that matches the hierarchy and is automatically generated
  4. Breadcrumbs that reflect this hierarchy clearly
  5. Urls that match the hierarchy
  6. The ability to combine static and dynamic content

Result: You will end up banging your head in frustration.

Options

  • With the default taxonomy module, you get none of these. Surprised? Don't be:-)
  • With the page module, you can build all of this manually, but your pages are, well, static.
  • With book module, you can get the structure, breadcrumbs and matching urls (although entering path aliases by hand is a major pain, but remember, we are not using contributed modules), but not dynamic content. You can tag book pages with categories alright, but not much more and clicking on the category links will take you right out of the site structure.
  • With Taxonomy_context you go about 90% of the way only to be stopped short as its implementation for 4.7 is a bit flawed and defeats the entire purpose.
  • With category module, you get EVERYTHING, but it is a work in progress and Jaza still considers it beta quality. Well, it certainly has a lot of issues, but I am using it on some sites without using its pathauto function and taking care not to make frequent changes. You may not be able to take that chance.

If taxonomy_context's 4.7 implementation could be corrected, it would solve the problem for users until the vastly superior category module settles down.

llyra’s picture

llyra commented

Thanks for the post.. this is one of my challenges with drupal too. I was planning on using the Taxonomy Context but now I may go with the category mod. So many options = confusion! I wish Drupal would incorporate the rating (with comments) on each module so newbies have some basis for making their decisions. Sigh.

venkat-rk’s picture

venkat-rk commented

Welcome. I had occasion to return to taxonomy module recently, but the experience was so distressing that I went right back to category, with the decision not to use category_pathauto, the distant parent functions and not to move around the containers and categories too much or make changes to containers if they are positioned in the primary links area.

llyra’s picture

llyra commented

After playing with Flexinode I decided to use CCK (based on more of your posts actually!). I installed Imagefield with CCK and now all is good on that end. Here's my question. I have installed Categories (not all options, but these: Category, Category-Bulkedit, Category-display, menu, Category-outliner and Category-transform) and played with the demo found on the category website. I am assuming this is mod will let me link up the custom content types to appear on one page. For insance all content types of Apples will display on a page titled Apples. Maybe my brain is overworked today, but the following is what I'm trying to do and I can't seem to figure it out:

    A user visits the site as anonymous and can view a page called 'fan art' which will list all those that have submitted fan art via the custom content type (called fan art). I will need to list at the top of the page a description of the fan art and at the bottom of the page provide an obvious means to have someone submit their own art. To submit one must be registered with the site. I want to be able to organize it by date (as their submission will go into mod view and I will approve them all on the same day) and have past dates be archived on its own unique page. That way when someone wants to see past entries, they can click 'next' or 'more' and it will take them to the previous day's entry. I'm sure this is possible, but I cannot seem to figure it out. Any direction would be greatly appreciated!

Here's my other question: I am also using Taxonomy_access. In my admin menu, I show two menu items called "Categories". One is the core taxonomy module and the other is the category module. So I am assuming I will need to disable taxonomy.module and Taxonomy_Access.module then revert back to using the Simple_Access.module AND enable the category_lite.module? OR can I NOT enable the Simple_Access and just use the Category_Lite.module (whic says: "Simple access control based on categories.")?

Thanks so much for your help!

sepeck’s picture

sepeck commented

Despite ramdak's horrifying experiances with taxonomy module :D it works just fine for some people's needs.

One approach mentioned here: http://drupal.org/node/26384#comment-45860 combining it with path module. I have a friend who uses book module as it suits his needs. I tend to stick with taxonomy module and mix it with path and static pages. It depends on you and your needs.

Here's a thread you might want to look at that has a variety of ideas for modules and sites. May help you out.
http://drupal.org/node/31896

Drupal is really flexible. That means you start with a wide, sometimes confusing array of choices. There isn't really one right way, there is what is appropriate for your site's needs. As you build sites with Drupal, you will find tools/modules you grow comfortable with and tend to use more, yet will continue to be surprised at the way others are doing things too.

Have fun.

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

llyra’s picture

llyra commented

I'll look at these options as well as I am using static as well as interactive portions for the site. Sigh.. see all of the options! :)

venkat-rk’s picture

venkat-rk commented

Yeah, I have a love-hate relationship with taxonomy, as Sepeck pointed out;-)

He is right that drupal gives you so many options for doing the same thing that it really confuses the heck out of you to begin with.

The thread that Sepeck is interesting as it shows you an implementation of a lovely site that no one can possibly identify as drupal on first look. So, you see the potential there.

Personally, I have a problem with the way the menus and hierarchies are built on that site. If you notice, the 'Contact us' link takes you to a page having a menu with several options, some of which take you to the 'About Us' section and some to the 'Contact Us' section. Not the usual type of hierarchy, although you can have cross-sectional hierarchies.

If you click on a link that takes you to the 'About Us' section (for example, Locations and Hours) and take a closer look at the breadcrumbs, you will see it is Home » About Us » Locations & Hours » Locations & Hours and none of the links in the breadcrumb trail except Home are clickable. This is very non-standard, I would think. It makes me wonder if they struggled with hierarchy and menus and settled for a compromise.

stanbroughl’s picture

stanbroughl commented

(bookmarking! - also in taxonomic pergatory...)