Drupal Taxonomy
Getting the most out of Drupal’s taxonomy system

Session format
• Conversational
• Ask Questions
• “Meetup Style”

Session parts
1. Concepts
2. Implementations
3. Alternatives

Taxonomy is not:
photo by Orin Optiglot

Taxonomy IS:
• Classification
• Categories
• Tags
• Naming

Why Taxonomy
• To organize content (in multiple ways)
• To make it easier to find things

A few live examples
• http://www.developmentseed.org/tags/meetup
• http://www.discerningreader.com/
• http://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/Africa
• http://www.lynda.com

developmentseed.com

discerningreader.com

foreignaffairs.com

lynda.com

Terminology
• taxonomy "system"
• vocabulary "facet"
• term "category/tag"
• nodes

Terminology
• Taxonomy » Vocabulary » Term
• Taxonomy = Multiple groups of categories
• Vocabulary = Attribute Area (or Category Type)
• examples: “Genre” “Tags” “Color”
• Term = Actual Attribute or Category
• examples: “Romance” “Africa” “Purple”

Basic Structures
Flat Hierarchical

demos

Alternatives
• CCK text fields (dropdowns)
• CCK content_taxonomy fields
• Custom content types (posters vs images)

CCK Text Fields
(dropdowns)
• If the list will very seldom change
• Harder for hierarchies

content_taxonomy
module
• Maintain lists using taxonomy system
• More separated from the taxonomy system

Content Type
• When you need lots of meta-data, attached
fields
• e.g. Actor: Name, Age, Photo, Awards

Questions
• Be kind :)