Categories/Sub-Categories/Tags

#1

This is a pre-use question. I am trying to figure out how best to set this up.

Lets say I want to have a For Sale Category. Below this would be 5 sub-categories, below each of these 5 sub-categories, would be 20 Sales Types (sub-sub-categories) which would be the same for all the 5 sub-categories, and below that would be 10 Price Ranges (sub-sub-sub categories) which would be the same for all the 20 Sales Types and on up to the 5 sub-categories.

What I envision happening for posting a sale would be to click on the For Sale Category, which then give you a choice of 5 sub-categories (hard coded), and whichever subcategory you choose you are then given a choice of 20 Sales Types sub-sub-categories (hard coded), and whichever Sales Type you chose you are given 10 Price Ranges (hard coded), which would bring you to the postings for ForSale>SubCat1>SalesType1>PriceRange1> (as an example). No posts would be allowed in any of the higher sub-categories until the user reaches this point. Where they can read and post messages, with a Title and body of text.

For reading messages, there could be 1 other option = All Price Ranges. This could also apply to ALL 5 sub-categories too by having an option to include all top level sub-categories by having an all choice too. But this would not be applicable for all Sales Types. Also, if any of these wildcards are chosen, it means readers cannot create new posts, but can read/post to the threads available. Which might be handled by a simple question "Have you got something to sell? When clicking on the For Sale Category. If Y you see the menu as explained above. if N you get the options All for both the sub-categories and the Price Ranges.

I’n not really familiar how tags really work, or if these could be added to the structure, if it would help. If they can be pre-defined.

If this suggestion is impractical. Are there any other suggestions which might achieve a similar result.

#2

Hi stub welcome to the forum

First, Discourse does not have sub-sub-sub categories. Discourse has Categories, sub-Categories and Tags. There is some flexibility on how Tags can be used. They can be used to cross-reference categories and they can be used as a way to differentiate topics within a category.

Create (topics), Reply (posts), and See permissions are per Group, set on Category level and apply to Topics within a Category. Tags can have create and use permissions. but they are per topic and are not connected to Category permissions.

Does that sound workable for you?

1 Like
#3

See It's Time We Talked About Tags for a discussion of tags.

2 Likes
#4

Hi Mittineague,

Thanks for the welcome. I kinda figured out that Discourse had Categories, Sub-Categories and Tags. I just wanted, explain what I think I wanted from my point to view. So that we can have a discussion about it.

OK. I could do away with the For Sale Category and promote my sub-categories to Categories. the 20 Sales Types would become Sub-Categories. They are the same for all 5 Categories. Do I have to define them for each Category or can they be global across all 5 Categories? Which leaves me with the 10 price ranges. Could these be coded as Tags? Can these be set to be the only fixed tags allowed by the Forum? Meaning there are no forum member created tags. Then the member can select the Categories and Sub-Categories, and if they did not select the price range tags they see listings for every post posted in the Sub-Category, but if they selected the price range tags they would only see those posts listed in the Sub-Category and the price range. Is that correct?

This would probably work. Provided that when it comes to making a new post, the member must specify, Category, Sub-Category, and Price Range Tag, or the post would not be accepted… The Categories must also be non-postable to.

I, err, have only seen these forums with Categories. I’ve not really seen how they look and work with Sub-Categories. Can somebody post some examples of forums which use Categories (unpostable) and Sub-Categories (postable).

Thank you.

#5

Hopefully something visual will help.

Cat_A 
  sub_Cat # 
    Tag_A.....Z
  sub_Cat.....n 
    Tag_A.....Z
Cat.....Z

* Tags can be used across Categories

Having sub Categories with the same exact name could be a problem in terms of UX and possibly routing. If their names are relatively short I would be tempted to prepend their parent Category. eg. Fruit - Apple and Pie - Apple not both Apple. Even then it could look awkward being
[Fruit][Fruit Apple]

Another approach could be to give each sub category CSS that relates it to their parent Category. eg. Green color for Category and lighter green for its sub Categories (and pale green for the Tags). Because using color in such a way is not a good thing to rely on, some extra effort would be needed to keep accessibility up to par.

1 Like
#6

Yeah. That’s what I kinda want. But the Issue for me is the admin is the only one to create these Price Range tags. All other creation of tags should be eliminated. And a new poster MUST HAVE TO select one of the these fixed tags when posting a message. Otherwise this plan falls thru.

Since these 20 Sales Types are kinda universal to the 5 Categories. I’m not that worried too much about the UX. But it’s maybe a good idea to have a prefix or color coordination. I’ll think about that a bit more.

#7

What are the settings to get the three levels to display like so:

image
image.png916×154 7.58 KB

As in: Topics tagged import