Thread

Before I get lambasted (I realize there are lots of little pieces of info available with respect to this subject). I’ve read…
http://expressionengine.com/knowledge_base/article/how_do_categories_and_category_groups_work/
http://expressionengine.com/docs/cp/admin/weblog_administration/category_management.html (and all the sub-sections)

http://www.expressionengine.com/wiki/Category_or_Weblog
http://ellislab.com/forums/viewthread/9374/
http://expressionengine.com/docs/modules/weblog/categories.html
http://expressionengine.com/docs/modules/weblog/category_archive.html

Thought this might explain how Category Custom Fields might serve me.
http://expressionengine.com/wiki/Category_Archives_with_Custom_Fields/
and more.

Please correct me if I’m wrong. The general idea of the Categories feature is to categorize “weblogs”. When establishing a new weblog section, the user opts to associate the weblog with a pre-defined category group via a drop down. Then, when publishing an
entry in that newly defined weblog, the user can then associate the entry with any number of category items entered in the category group – this sound correct so far?

Where I’m lost is with the category custom field. I see how it allows a user to define more info about the category, but I’m not clear on how this is actually used…could someone enlighten me. Are the custom category fields strictly for EE consumption (i.e. better sorting of info), or is this information that can be displayed to users, if so, could someone provide a brief description of a real life example?

Thanks ❓

They can be used for pretty much anything.  I suspect the most popular use we’ll see will be for multi-lingual category descriptions.  They could also be used for extra image fields, links related to that category, etc.  They can be displayed with most of the category tags.

I don’t really have a personal use or this feature, but to test it I set up a {category_links} custom field.  For my ExpressionEngine category I put in a single link to see how it would output.  See My EE Category - the link to expressionengine.com there is in a custom field.

So there’s really many, many ways to use these - and just because they exist doesn’t mean you have to use them, either. =)

Hey Lisa, hope your weekend has been enjoyable.

Yeah…I’m not really sure how I’d benefit from the addition of custom fields to my categories, but ya never know.

So…in my situation, I have a weblog I’ve given the name “articles”. I then create a Category Group by the same name. That looks like:

Articles -
-Commentary
-Extras
-Features
-Interviews
-Stories

This then will allow me to fashion any number of query based on the situation at hand, and the info I need to display…this sound like I understand?

Without knowing more about your particular situation, it’s impossible to say if this is the best method.  But that is certainly one way.

I’m really trying to just get my head around how Categories might work.

If I were doing this with weblogs soley…I’d just establish five seperate weblogs (each assosiated with one of the 5 designations listed above) and establish a template for each. Users would then access each of the 5 sections via a sub-menu provided from an “Articles” template.