categories

[zapdafish]

Type of Help Needed: Problem

Where: Main Site

How do I use the categories section on the articles tab? It is right below menu on the far right column.

BTW, I'm liking the articles tab, soon to be home page tab. Not so much when it first came out but the tweeks to it are looking good.

[ehpoole]

Please do not feel ignored if it takes a little while for this question to be answered.

Since it is not an urgent issue I would really like to give one or more of our newest admins or moderators a chance to answer before Steve or myself chime in -- it is the perfect sort of question for them to gain some experience with.

However, if it takes too long to get an answer, please feel free to PM me and I'll answer it promptly for you.

[zapdafish]

ah, no rush, I didn't even realize there was the option to not submit it as a problem.

[Bryan S]

My apologies for being slow to respond, but had this minor issue with no power last night.

Basically the menu and categories give a way of organizing the articles and grouping similar ones together and make it easier to find articles related to a specific area you are looking for. This will become more important as the article database grows. It helps me to think of the categories as sub-menus within the main menu list, with each menu item in the main list having its own sub-menu. This is something I did not realize until late last night. The sub-menu or categories as we call it is specific to that menu or, rather, each menu item has its own list of categories. It also does do some cross-referencing for us, because each article can be related to and listed in more than one category.

Lets go to the woodworking part of the menu for example and we will find 17 different categories listed. Lets say we are looking for something that is electrical in nature. Clicking on the electrical category brings up 2 articles. Both of them are electrical, but notice that under the article title they are also listed in 2 other categories and this is where the cross-referencing comes in. These two articles are related to the other categories that are listed under the article title and clicking on one of the other categories will take you to that category. We will find that article again listed again with some others.

Like others, I am still in the learning process here and forgive me if I did not completely answer you, but got to get ready for work.

[SteveColes]

My apologies for being slow to respond, but had this minor issue with no power last night.

Basically the menu and categories give a way of organizing the articles and grouping similar ones together and make it easier to find articles related to a specific area you are looking for. This will become more important as the article database grows. It helps me to think of the categories as sub-menus within the main menu list, with each menu item in the main list having its own sub-menu. This is something I did not realize until late last night. The sub-menu or categories as we call it is specific to that menu or, rather, each menu item has its own list of categories. It also does do some cross-referencing for us, because each article can be related to and listed in more than one category.

Lets go to the woodworking part of the menu for example and we will find 17 different categories listed. Lets say we are looking for something that is electrical in nature. Clicking on the electrical category brings up 2 articles. Both of them are electrical, but notice that under the article title they are also listed in 2 other categories and this is where the cross-referencing comes in. These two articles are related to the other categories that are listed under the article title and clicking on one of the other categories will take you to that category. We will find that article again listed again with some others.

Like others, I am still in the learning process here and forgive me if I did not completely answer you, but got to get ready for work.

Good answer. Here is another way to look at it.

We have divided all our articles into sections. An article can be in only one section. But each section can have some number of categories. Each article in a section can be in one or more of the categories.

I really just said what Bryan did, but in a slightly different way.