Thread

If I have 1 weblog with many categories is it possible to have 2 entries with the same name with different categories?

Birds -> Parrot -> Habitat
Birds -> Eagle -> Habitat

Here is a simple example, both entries would be called habitat but have different categories (parrot or eagle).

If this is not possible, can you make it so that when you select a category, the entry title is automatically prefixed? i.e the entry titles become eagle-habitat and parrot-habitat respectively.

Unfortunately you cannot have two categories of the same name even if they are subcategories of different things.  At least that is what I determined from my testing.

Greg,

What if you did it the other way around? You would have:

Birds -> Habitat -> Parrot
Birds -> Habitat -> Eagle

That way you only have one Habitat category. I’m sure you’ve thought of that and rejected it, but I thought I’d toss it out there just in case.

I have thought of that but there could be many instances of this. I mean to go on with my example there could be colour, prey etc. So that idea would not be suitable, I would have to make many additional unnecessary categories.

Greg,

What if you did it the other way around? You would have:

Birds -> Habitat -> Parrot
Birds -> Habitat -> Eagle

That way you only have one Habitat category. I’m sure you’ve thought of that and rejected it, but I thought I’d toss it out there just in case.

The problem with this is that he would need more than just a habitat for the animals and he wouldn’t be able to duplicate their names somewhere else either.

Does anyone have any ideas about this? I can’t think of a solution that doesn’t require a lot of duplication.

This, I’m fairly certain is doable. You need the short_names of the categories to be different, but I know we’ve set-up a weblog for a client, where categories such as long distance and credit have appeared multiple times, for example: telephone ->long distance   and travel ->long distance.  Why don’t you just enter the categories in and see if they work.  Categories are keyed by category_id not category_name.

But my thought is, I’m not certain what other repeats come up, but if they happen because of the same issue (i.e Habitat not being a bird or Food not being a bird), then maybe those items should be in a different place, such as a custom field or related entry.  For example, if you are going to take the time to write up a full entry on the habitat of eagles vs parrots, then why not have a weblog of habitats, and just relate the entry to the proper bird species.  Or else, if your not planning a write-up, but just want to specify habitat type, like: woods, mountains, north america, whatever. Than you could probably get away with a custom field in the actual entry.

I’m still trying to figure out what it does but this appears to have more advanced tagging functionality…maybe you should check it out:

https://secure.expressionengine.com/index.php?ACT=Tag

Solspace’s Tag Module is great for on the fly tagging of items. I use in combination with a keywords field, where the keywords are separated by commas. What it does, is allow any keyword to become a link to other entries with the same keyword. We’ve used it with news and publication posts for clients with great results. I’ve been considering using it with calendar items as well, since they are stored in a weblog as well.  The version 2.0 has a lot more functionality, most of which I haven’t played with, but I highly recommend the module. It’s been a life saver for a couple of our clients needs.