Categories

The "Categories" item in Editing, allows you to create website sections to classify contents according to the criteria you defined in the editorial plan.

Editorial categories, with "public" visibility are listed in your website navigation menu. Covers and banners have a special role: they can be linked to Layout and Editorial ones as "Related Categories", to provide additional information and functionality to your website pages.

CATEGORY HEADER AND SUMMARY

While adding a new category, the first step is defining the category class:

Editorial
Cover
Banner
Layout

The amount of information required by SevenDaysWeb to configure categories depends on the class they belong to. Editorial and Layout categories have more settings, to allow you to customize their layout and funcionality.

Covers and Banners require a minimal set of information, because they only serve as containers for cover and banner contents, which are displayed according to the rules defined for the categories they are related to.

The next picture shows the page where a "banner" class category is defined:

Let's describe category information in detail, starting from header information of editorial and layout categories:

Category Type	Category Type determines the usage of the category and the set of information needed to configure its aspect and behaviour. There are 4 category types: Editorial. Used for standard editorial contents, as news, articles, product and service descriptions, etc. Cover. Used for covers of editorial categories and home page. Banner. Used for advertizing contents. Layout. Used to define presentation layouts used in some website sections. In our sample websites we have 2 layout type categories: Home and Search. The latter displays user search results according to the layout (see below) that we assigned to it and the display parameters we set up.
Title	The category title is displayed in the website navigation menu, home sections and wherever displaying the origin of some content is required.
Name	Name appears as part of the URL that SevenDaysWeb displays for the category and its contents. For example, in our Green Style sample website: Index page URL for "Products" category: http://en-green-style.sevendaysweb.com/products/index.html Content page URL for content belonging to "Products" category: http://en-green-style.sevendaysweb.com/products/extra-virgin-olive-oil.html Name is automatically derived from the Title and it is editable. It must be unique within the website.
Published Content Types	List of content types available for the category. SevenDaysWeb fills this information automatically, based on the category class. Pre-defined content types are: Standard, for editorial categories. Cover, for cover categories. Banner, for banner categories. "Published Content Types" define the data structure that is pre-set for contents belonging to the category. For example: the Standard type, used for content belonging to editorial categories, is made of text paragraphs, video, images, etc... Cover and Banner types include a link to the target page to display when you click on the content.
Image	The category image is normally displayed on the category index page, between title and summary. If the category summary is set to be displayed in home page (see "Show in Home" below), a miniature of the image will also be displayed.
Summary	The category Summary is a short description of category content. It is normally displayed in the category index page and eventually in home page.

LAYOUT SETTINGS

Layout settings are a set of parameters that control the way the category is displayed.

Visibility	Category visibility can be: Public. Category Title is displayed in the navigation menu and, depending on website configuration, in the various website sections. Not listed. The category is not displayed in the menu but, depending on configuration, may be displayed in summaries or as sub-menu within the navigation menu. This value is useful to avoid displaying a category while preparing its contents for publication. Private. A private category is never visible. Set this value to hide a section in your website.
Position	Number indicating the sort order for the category within lists (e.g. in the navigation menu). Leave empty to use alphabetical sorting based on category title. Suggestion: leave an interval (e.g. 5, 10, 15, ...) between consecutive categories, in order to easily change their sort order in case of need.
Show in home	Determines if and how the category is displayed in Home Page: No. Category not displayed. Show summary. Home Page displays a frame including category title, image miniature and summary. Show contents preview. Home page lists previews of the latest category contents. The next parameter (Max previews) defines the number of previews to display. Use this value to display the category as a section in Home Page.
Max Previews	If "Show in home" is set to "Show contents preview", defines the maximum number of category contents to display. There's no ideal value; it depends both on the website model (how much space is available in Home Page) and how many categories you wish to display. Suggestion: try different values between 2 and 4 and see the results.
Show cover	When ticked, if one ore more Cover categories are set as Related categories, content belonging to the Cover categories will be displayed. In other words, suppose you wish to display a cover for this category (let's call it A): you have to define a category of class "Cover" (say B); add the cover you wish to display as content of category B; edit category A and set category B as "Related Category" (see below); the "Show cover" flag toggles visibility of the category cover.
Max covers	If "Show cover" is ticked, sets the maximum number of covers to display. Suggested value: 3 Note: if more than one cover is available and "Max covers" is set to a value higher than 1, covers rotate as a carousel.
Carousel Timer	Indicates the persistence time in seconds for each cover in the carousel. Suggested value: between 5 and 10.
Show banners	When ticked, allows banner contents to be displayed. Banner contents displayed are those belonging to the banner categories set in "Related Categories". Banners are normally displayed on the right side of category page and category content pages.
Max banners	Sets the maximum number of banners displayed. Suggested value: 4
Show latest content	If you enable this flag, the latest content you entered in this category will be fully displayed at the beginning of the category page above the title list of other contents. This feature is useful when you have a single content for the category (e.g. in the "About Us" category), or when you wish to highlight the latest content as opening article.
Max contents	It is the maximum number of contents listed in the category content title list. Remaining contents are accessible through history search, tag cloud and search engines (e.g. Google). Suggested value is 12.
Related Categories	"Related Categories"define which contents to show together with category contents. Depending on the class of the related category the system behaviour is: Cover class categories. Covers will be displayed in a wide frame under the page header. Banner class categories. Banner will be normally displayed in a long and narrow frame on the right side of the page. Special layouts may provide for different placement.
Layout	Defines the graphic layout according to which contents are displayed. It is set automatically by the system, but can be changed if needed.

DEFAULT CONTENT SETTINGS

These settings are used to assign predefined values to content settings.
For example, if you wish to enable comments for all contents belonging to the "News" category, tick the "Enable comments" flag. This avoids having to set this flag for each single content.

Show share buttons	Toggles Social Network buttons display for category contents. Available Social Network buttons are set in Configuration - Website Information.
Activate comments	When ticked, category contents will have comments enabled by default.

Published on 13/03/2013 by Enrico Tozzi