Catalog Creation
Audience
Web Managers
Summary
Catalogs are useful to organize a complex list of items, as in a program directory. Explore an example at NCDR's NC Places to Visit.
A catalog consists of 3 kinds of items:
- Parent Categories (a taxonomy term). Aim for 3-6 parent categories.
- Secondary Categories (a taxonomy term that must have a parent). For example, under the parent Colors, secondary categories might be "red" and "blue." Aim for 3-10 secondary categories within each parent category.
- Catalogue Items (a content type, that usually links to a page on the website). Each secondary category should have multiple catalogue items.
- Procedure
Determine your parent and secondary categories, and your catalogue items. Each catalogue item must have at least one parent and one secondary category.
Ask Digital Solutions to set up a catalogue for you. This provides you with the basis to add your categories and catalogue items.
Go to Structure > Taxonomy > Catalogue Categories and click add terms to create your first Parent Category. Name is the only required field.
Once you've created a few parent categories, create terms for the secondary categories. The only difference for secondary categories is that you must select the correct Parent term under Relations. Do not choose a secondary term as the parent term, only a primary category term.
Finally, add items to the catalogue: Go to Add Content > Catalog Item. Enter a Title and select a Catalogue (required fields). Catalogue Categories are also required. You can add multiple categories by clicking on the "Add another item" button, and you can add a new secondary category by selecting a primary category (the first element) and choosing "<Add new item>" from the secondary category (second element). Optional fields are description, links, contact and location information. Try to be consistent for each catalog item. Save.
To visit the catalogue, go to Admin > Structure > Taxonomy, click on 'list terms' for 'Catalogue.' Select the term that matches your catalogue.