Recommended (Related?) Posts
How Do I?
Hello!
I’m possibly looking into implementing one of those “related entries” in a blog, where at the bottom of a blog post, there’s a list of similar or suggested posts (from either the same or different channel). Is there a general recommended way to do this?
If I remember right, I think I once used the Relationships field back in EE1 to do something like this, but is this still the way to go about it? I haven’t touched EE in a while, and it seems a lot has changed in the past few versions, including the Relationships field.
Is using the Relationships field for something like this overkill? Also, will it have significant impact on performance? And if Relationships isn’t really meant for something like this, what would be a good way to achieve what I’m looking to do?
Any help or suggestions appreciated, thanks!
That depends. Are you planning on doing some manual curation with the related entries to setup the relationships? Then yes, native relationships.
If you want ee to give you some best guesses on related content automatically, you may be looking at: https://ellislab.com/expressionengine/user-guide/add-ons/channel/channel_entries.html#related-categories-mode
Or if you want to start tagging your content and have related entries listed based on the tags, then look at plugins like:
Solspace Tag: http://www.solspace.com/software/detail/tag/
DevDemon Tagger: http://www.devdemon.com/expressionengine-addons/tagger
Are you planning on doing some manually curation with the related entries to setup the relationships?
That’s pretty much what I’m looking to do. You said it much more to the point than I managed to! 😊
I’ve used the related content via categories before (and tagging too, yes) and while they do have their uses, I’ve been thinking of ways to do this in a more controlled way for posts when needed - for example, when posts might be part of a mini-series, if a post is inspired by another post, or just posts I feel are tightly related in terms of topic or style. I think it’d be nice to be able to relate some posts like that, so I was looking into various ways I might achieve something like this.
So…you are asking if a relationships field is appropriate for….related content? 😉
Yes, yes, and yes. Use the native relationships field to specifically choose related content. Unless you are working with 1000’s of entries I don’t imagine you’ll see performance issues.
So…you are asking if a relationships field is appropriate for….related content? 😉
Lol, indeed.
Actually, I guess it was more my worries about it being overkill since I think I remember reading something about the relationships field being one of the things to check for performance issues… but this was back in EE1 though. The site I was using it on at the time had a set amount of entries that weren’t going to grow much, so I wasn’t particularly worried (and the list to choose related entries would never get too unwieldy either).
The relationships field has obviously undergone a lot of developments since, and now that I’m looking to do something similar with a blog, I’m questioning whether there are other ways to do this (or even not at all if it isn’t worth it). The relationships field just seems to be much more capable than what I’m looking to do with. I didn’t want it to be a case of renting a crane to lift a book. 😛
The entire feature was re-written for better scaleability. If it’s curated related posts you want, I’d see no reason not to use the feature sitting there designed to do it..😉
I’d see no reason not to use the feature sitting there designed to do it..😉
A very good point. Onwards with Relationships field it is. Thanks for setting my head straight!