Pelican: Multiple Categories

[haridas]

Hi,

Like tags on every markdown pages, if we can specify multiple categories that would be very useful. Because most of the posts won't be comes under a specific category only. So accordingly we can display them on the menu bar.

Another suggestion is, A way to order the pages on the menu bar, I'm not sure that it was already implemented or not. I'm checking the code base.

Thank you,
Haridas N.

[almet]

We already discussed that in #349. Having multiple categories does not seem to make sense because it's already possible to have tags for the articles.

About ordering the page ordering, it's possible to do that by listing the pages you want there explicitly.

[haridas]

Hi,

Cool. I read the #349. I'm also now inclined to the single category per post option.. :). I realized that we could display the posts under "blog" category, and put the multiple tags to them.

Regarding the Page Ordering, Right now the documentation has two options,

1. PAGE_DIR = 'pages'
2. PAGE_EXCLUDES = ['dir1',]

But these settings only add or exclude required pages, but it won't order it.

Thanks for quick replay.

PS: I love the documentation of this project, that helped me to catch it quickly compared with other static site generators.

[curby]

Pasting from IRC at the request of alexis:

my own blog talks about three issues relating to product design. i've set things up so that each of these three areas is a category. tags are for much more specific things like a particular product or technology i might be talking about

my blog talks about the acts of designing, simplifying, and refining products. my categories are Design, Simplify, Refine, and General (for metaposts etc).

I posted recently about QR codes. The post belongs pretty squarely in both Design and Simplify. As a wrote, QR codes in marketing materials have the downsides of cluttering up the visual aspect of an ad (failure of Design) as well as putting additional steps between the customer and the information (failure of Simplicity)

In addition, I use tags. For example, the post referenced above is tagged with both "qr codes" and "good quotes" (because the post quotes another blogger). This allows someone interested in qr codes or design-related quotations to find them along with other relevant posts, but my blog doesn't center around qr codes _or_ quotes: it centers around the very few and carefully chosen categories identified above.

In short: tags allow me the freedom to identify more specific subjects; categories help me keep the blog focused on what I created it for. Allowing multiple categories is still occasionally relevant in a way that doesn't intrude upon the "territory" of tags.

[aclark4life]

+1 for multiple categories FWIW. I just moved my blog from wordpress.com and have categories like "Python, Plone, Mozilla". So, currently I have to pick one of the three and add the others as "tags"?

[justinmayer]

@aclark4life: It's not clear from your comment precisely what you're looking for. You can have as many categories as you want. The idea behind categories, however, is that only one is assigned to a given post.

The three items you mentioned sound more like tags, multiple of which can be associated with a post.

[aclark4life]

I'm looking for multiple categories per entry like @haridas. Mainly because I've just migrated from Wordpress.com where this feature is supported, and pelican-import resulted in things like:

:category: Mozilla, Python, Plone

So i've fixed all my entries by replacing :category: with :tags: and defined a single category for each entry.

[onlyhavecans]

I am aware of how wordpress works but I still agree with the original point made; categories should be a single all encompassing topic ( sysadmin, code, opinion for mine), tags are for fine definition and searching (git, pelican, wallet, dionaea, malware, etc).
I never understood why WP did that or liked it.

[almet]

@aclark4life you made a fair point here: the importer is broken with regard to this :)

[naturallymitchell]

I stumbled across this issue, and it conjured thoughts of Multiple Inheritance. In that light, I'm 95% sure that this feature is unnecessary, because metadata fields are per article, not per category. If an article has a field that is unusual for its category, it will still be outputted using the jinja logic that displays that field in the article.html template. You don't need to change an article's category to have that field displayed.

[castarco]

I think multiple categories are useful. It's true that in most cases tags are enough, but there are cases like @curby ' s case (and my case, which is similar).

After hours working on a port from my old wordpress blog to this static site generator, i'm anoyed by this lack of flexibility and empathy for those who work differently (and I've read the whole #349 and #350 threads, WP allows multiple categories precisely because the reasons pointed by @curby).

[justinmayer]

@castarco: "Lack of _empathy_"? Seriously? I find that notion offensive.

Can you point us to a stated policy that says: "We are resolutely opposed to multiple categories... forever"? Oh, you can't? Right — because we never said that.

We are all unpaid volunteers, most of whom don't see the value in having multiple categories. But this project is a community. If someone were to submit a pull request that handles multiple categories in an elegant fashion, we would certainly consider it.

So if you want to talk about being "annoyed", I'm annoyed at the ungracious accusation that we do not care about our users. (And make no mistake — that's what you said, because that's what "lack of empathy" means.) In conclusion, please think more carefully in the future about the words you put forth to folks who volunteer their time to a project that many folks enjoy every day, for free.

[castarco]

@justinmayer : I'm sorry for the offense. But it's important to note that what really bothers me is the fact that in the same moment @curby expressed his reasons in favour of multiple categories, then the issue was closed without response and further discussion. It's true that the thread continues, but these ideas weren't considered at all.

The exposed reasons to avoid multiple categories weren't like "hey, we don't have more time and/or energy and we need to prioritize the ones we need/like more". The exposed reasons were more like "multiple categories are theoretically wrong", presented as indisputable truths.

P.D.: I'm a developer and I understand the value of the code and the work behind it. And I also understand that in free software is important that programmers enjoy what are doing, and that many features take time to be implemented and can't be required like if it were human rights. My complaint isn't related with the lack of a feature, but with an attitude: If A and B are the main developers of a project and they think a feature is utterly crap (I know you didn't use this language, it's an hyperbole), then I have no chances of seeing it implemented even If I send patches, unless I fork the project.

I don't want to be offensive, and maybe do you think this post is even more offensive than the previous one, but the idea floating in the air is that this feature is unwelcome (as a bad thing), not that isn't desired enough.

[onlyhavecans]

but the idea floating in the air is that this feature is unwelcome

Correct, this feature is unwelcome.

[justinmayer]

@castarco: I don't know else to say other than perhaps our perspectives are far apart on several levels. Your last comment contains claims that are patently false.

[...] then the issue was closed without response and further discussion.

You conveniently leave out the fact that the issue was closed by _the original submitter_ — not a project maintainer.

The exposed reasons to avoid multiple categories weren't like "hey, we don't have more time and/or energy and we need to prioritize the ones we need/like more".

That's correct. Why would anyone volunteer their time, time that is already in severely short supply, to implement a feature that they personally don't need? That doesn't mean we said, "This feature will never be considered," as I already explained above. It means that we, personally, don't feel like implementing it. That's the nature of open source — stuff gets built when someone feels strongly enough about something to submit a pull request.

The exposed reasons were more like "multiple categories are theoretically wrong", presented as indisputable truths.

No, they weren't.

[...] I have no chances of seeing it implemented even If I send patches, unless I fork the project.

Completely irrelevant to the case at hand. I've already made it clear that an elegant solution — if contributed with docs, tests, and everything else that we require for all features — would be considered.

[...] the idea floating in the air is that this feature is unwelcome (as a bad thing), not that isn't desired enough.

Once again, just because maintainers don't personally have need for the feature in question, and thus are unwilling to spend their precious time building it, does not mean that someone can't submit a pull request.

Perhaps we just have a different sense of what open source means. If so, there's not much I can do about that.

[fgallaire]

The problem is always here 5 years after. I'm trying to migrate two Wordpress blogs that have multiple categories by post.

The most important problem is that the great pelican-import is broken for a widespread Wordpress feature (whether it is a good or a bad one is not the point here). And I think it will have more and more Wordpress migrations in the coming years.

The most objectionable problem is that Pelican is not even coherent in its way of handling multiple categories. pelican-import --dir-cat take the first categorie as directorie name, but the Category metadata is the list of the categories separated by commas, and treated by Pelican as a weird category name.

I'm sure nobody wants this result:

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[oulenz]

There is now a plugin that allows multiple categories per article, more_categories:

http://github.com/getpelican/pelican-plugins/tree/master/more_categories