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We are updating our documentation library to be ready for Sector 10! Find out more in our Sector 10 roadmap or head straight to our collection of Sector 10 - Changes and Updates.
In Sector, we use taxonomies as filter criteria, to add metadata, and to label content - as well as for some magic behind the scenes. This guide introduces the concepts of taxonomies and explains what each of the taxonomies do.
Managing taxonomies is an advanced editorial task and requires the Content Administrator role.
Architecture of a taxonomy
Taxonomies are organised into vocabularies, and each vocabulary contains a list of terms. However, in most cases the term taxonomy and vocabulary are used interchangeably.
We refer to taxonomies as flat, hierarchical, or structured. A flat taxonomy is a simple list of terms. A hierarchical taxonomy uses parent and child terms to create a term hierarchy. A structured taxonomy will be flat, but also include additional data fields and displays.
Sector taxonomy vocabularies
Sector taxonomy vocabularies can be grouped into:
- Public metadata - metadata used as public sort and filter criteria, as well as public content labels and tags.
- System metadata - used for logic behind the scenes. These need to be managed with care.
- For your site, are also might be taxonomies that are both publicly displayed and used by the system. Again, these also need to be managed with care.
Public term labels (tags) and taxonomy pages
Public term labels are terms rendered on the public front-end - for example as tags. Public labels can either be display-only or linked. By default a linked term will link to a public taxonomy page.
If you link your labels or not, Drupal creates a publicly available taxonomy page for each taxonomy term. Each page can be found under <your-domain>/taxonomy/term/{taxonomy-term-ID} and lists all published content that is tagged with that term. For Sector, we review the taxonomies for each use case and will redirect the terms via rabbit hole where we are not using the default taxonomy pages. Learn more under Rabbit hole for taxonomies in the editor guide Managing taxonomies.
Taxonomies in the Sector Starter Kit
You can see taxonomies in use on your site by going to Structure > Taxonomy in the AdminUI toolbar.
<your-domain>/admin/structure/taxonomy
| Taxonomy vocabulary | Source | Use case | What it's used for (with links to the Sector online demo) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Article category | Starter Kit | Filter criteria, public label | Selecting a category for a news item. This is used for sorting and filtering news items in the news archive |
| Resource category | Starter Kit | Filter criteria, public label | Selecting a category for a resource. This is used for sorting and filtering resources on the resource landing page |
| Tags | Drupal core | - | Tags are used to group content into topics. Not in use in the Starter Kit. |
| Page variant | Starter Kit | Theming | Selecting the page variant for a page (this is ‘standard page’ by default). Page variants change how a page is displayed. |
| Promotion variant | Starter Kit | Theming | Selecting a type of promotional box for a promotion (e.g. promotional tile). Promotion variants change how a promotion is displayed. |
| Copyright and licensing | Starter Kit - currently not in use | - | Selecting a copyright license (such as ‘All rights reserved’) for a media file. |
Taxonomies in Sector add-ons
Something missing? Our add-ons are ever growing - this list is a snapshot in time. Let us know if something is missing using the feedback form below.
| Taxonomy vocabulary | Source | Use case | What it's used for (with links to the Sector online demo) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blog post category | Add-on | Filter criteria, public label | Selecting a category for a blog post. This is used for sorting and filtering blog posts on the blog landing page, the blog sidebar, and in blog archives. |
| Event category | Add-on | Filter criteria, public label | Selecting a category for an event. This is used for sorting and filtering events on the event landing page and in the event archive. |
| Portfolio category | Add-on | Filter criteria, public label | Selecting a category for a portfolio page. This is used for sorting and filtering portfolio pages on the portfolio landing page |
| Content audit | Add-on | Backend | Assigning a status to a content node during a content audit. |
| Content development | Add-on | Backend | Assigning a status to a content node during content development. |
| Content settings | Add-on | Backend | Selecting content settings for a page node (such as ‘hide sidebar’). These settings change how the node is displayed. |