Understanding Taxonomy and Nodes

Drupal sites can use taxonomies (categories) to organize the content of the website. By organizing the nodes according to a specific taxonomy system, content is easily accessed and built upon by users. Nodes are specific content types that can be classified under each systems taxonomic system.

Definition of Nodes

Nodes are almost any form of content--excluding comments--that is posted on a Drupal website. For example,

• Blogs or weblogs: An informal online journal where users of the site can write their ideas and comments.
• Book page: designed to be part of a collaborative book.
• Forum topic: are used as online bulletin boards usually dedicated to a particular topic or question.
• Page: are typically linked into the main navigation bar.
• Story: are generally used for information which is only relevant for a period
  of time and is expected to eventually be pushed off the page because
  new stories are being added.
• Polls
• Images

Definition of Taxonomy

Taxonomy is a classification system devised of vocabulary and terms used to organize content. In taxonomy vocabulary is a category group that contains category entries called terms. Within any Drupal website there is the ability to create its own taxonomy using a variety of vocabulary and terms relating to the website's content. Users can locate the website's vocabulary on the either the left or the right of the page which will allow the user to navigate the site efficiently.

Note: One of the hardest things to understand about taxonomy is the fact that a vocabulary cannot exist without terms. To give an example. Let's say "French" is a language but there are no words in it. You can not speak "French" because without adding words to the language saying that you speak "French" is meaningless. Trying to speak the language without words is impossible. This applies to vocabularies and terms also.

If you are the sites owner or administrator then you probably will want to know more about how to use taxonomy to form and control your website. Greenash has some very good thoughts, ideas and explainations of taxonomy and using it in Drupals CMS.

An example of taxonomy

In this example, the vocabulary Sports could include the

following categories and subcategories:

• Water Sports
• Swimming
• Water Polo
• Surfing
• Field Sports
• Football
• Flag Football
• Tackle Football
• Baseball
• Soccer
• Court Sports
• Tennis
• Basketball
• Volleyball

Creating and Editing Nodes

Creating and editing nodes and comments is actually a fairly simple concept to understand. The way that Drupal organizes a site is by using nodes. Users can make suggestions by posting comments to these nodes and simply selecting the Add New Comment option while viewing a specific content node.

Basics of Nodes and Content

Before you begin to create and edit nodes and comments, it is necessary to understand a few things.

What is a node? On a Drupal site, a node is the content on a page, which can take on various forms like books pages, forums, personal blogs, etc. This will become more clear as you start working with the system and its components.

• Ways to View Comments for Node
• Threaded: allows you to view both the conversation and the sub-conversations
• Flat: displays the comments in a chronological order
• Expanded: shows the title and the text attached to a specific comment
• Collapsed: displays only the title of the comment

Because of the choices in website design and layout, there is no standard view; but it will be one of the four mentioned above. Each comment board has a control panel to customize the comment view. The administrator gives comment permissions to users and groups allowing them to edit the last comment if no others have been posted since.

Drupal sites also have an option that allows users to be emailed when new comments are posted to a topic that interests them. Other administrative options allow users to view comments, have total control over comments, have the option to rate comments, and post comments without approval. The permissions that you have will vary depending on the Drupal site and what the administrator chooses to do.

Content can be defined as anything you post to a Drupal site. This can include personal blog entries, stories, forums, pages, book pages, and collaborative books pages. Drupal displays the comments attached to each node.