Creating your category structure

Creating your category structure

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Your visitors will interact with your directory, and view the listings in your database by one of 2 means: Either by searching for keywords from a search box, or by navigating your category structure.

A properly designed category structure is a hierarchical tree of related categories. For example:

   Sports
     |_ Baseball
     |   |_ Little League
     |   |    |_ Coaching Resources
     |   |    |_ Tournament Info
     |   |
     |   |_ Minor Leagues
     |   |    |_ Teams
     |   |        |_ Toledo Mud Hens
     |   |
     |   |_ Major Leagues
     |        |_ Teams
     |            |_ Seattle Mariners
     |            |_ Philadelphia Phillies
     |
     |_ Football
         |_ PopWarner League
         |    |_ Coaching Resources
         |    |_ Tournament Info
         |
         |_ College
         |    |_ Teams
         |        |_ Michigan State
         |
         |_ National Football League
              |_ Teams
                  |_ Seattle Seahawks
                  |_ Philadelphia Eagles

Here, we have 1 Top level category (Sports), with 2 Sub categories (Baseball and Football), each with their own set of sub categories, and so on. This is a good example of a well organized category structure, where we've take a broad subject, and systematically broken it down into smaller and smaller chunks, each of which is suitable of standing alone as a sub category.

Using the example category layout above, let's take a look at how to physically create this structure with the ds/X admin center. First, load the ds/X admin center, by clicking its icon in the programs frame. In the main frame, you'll be presented with the main ds/X admin options. There are 2 ways to work on your category structure:

1. Navigate to Categories, and click on the "Category Manager" link.
This will open the category manager in basic mode in the work frame

2. Hit the "directory" link.
This will open the search engine in admin mode, where you will see the links in each category, as well as have access to the category admin options.

Whichever method you choose, you'll have the same basic screen in the work frame. In the left portion of the screen, you'll see your current category tree (if you have one ... for this example, we'll assume that you do not), as well as a row of options across the top of the frame.

When you load the category manager for the first time, the only link in the category tree will be "Top", which is a hidden/system category. What we need to do, is create the "Sports" top level category. To do this, follow these steps:

·	Click on the "Top" link (just to make sure you're really at the "Top" level).

·	Click on the "Add Subcategory" link.

·	In the form that is shown, enter in the category data, using the following as your guide:

Category ID
Filled in for you by the system, you can ignore this

Parent Category ID
Again, filled in for you by the system, ignore this as well.

Teaser
Enter a "1" if this category is a front page "teaser" or "0" if it is not. On the directory home page, the system will draw the parent category (Sports), and beneath it, links to any sub categories that you have identified as "Teasers". You have control via the Internal Templates on how these categories and teasers are drawn on the home page.

Category Name
Enter the name of the category, for this example, you would enter "Sports". When working with sub categories, you only need to enter in the actual name of the category. For example, when you are creating the Sports->Baseball->Minor Leagues category, you would simply enter "Minor Leagues".

Full Name
This is filled in for you by the system. The engine will pre-pend the full name with the full category tree when you save the category. The full name of the category is used by the system when it builds your static html pages.

META Title
When the system draws the HTML for the category the user is currently viewing, you may optionally have the system generate your META tags for you. If you enable this option (a PLUGIN, discussed later in the documentation), then this is the <TITLE> tag that the system will draw for you, for this category.

META Description
Similar to the Title option, this is the meta tag data for the "Description"

META Keywords
Similar to the Title option, this is the meta tag data for the "Keywords". We recommend a maximum of 200 total characters here, with keywords and phrases separated by commas. Major search engines will use these to index your search engine content, so try and keep them relevant to the current category.

Description
You may optionally have the system display the category description below each category when the links are drawn. This is to give the user a better idea of what the category may contain. This differs from the META Description in that this will be shown to the user, not buried in the <HEAD> of your document. You can use the same settings, or perhaps, make this one a bit more "user friendly".

Page Content
You may also write a full article, or html code here, to be inserted into your category pages along with your links. This, too, is optional, and driven by a template PLUGIN. This is a nice way to make your directory more than just a bunch of links, but perhaps an information source in its own right.

Template
Discussed in greater detail in the Page Templates section of this documentation, you specify here either a specific template for this category to use when the program generates its HTML for the user, or leave it blank, to let the system decide on its own, using an internal algorithm.

Press the "Save Category" button to save this category to the database.

Once saved, the system will show you a summary of what you entered, and place you inside the category that you just created. (You can verify this by looking at the Category Tree). At this point, you have a number of options at the top of the screen:

Delete
Delete the current category

Add Subcategory
Add a subcategory below the current category

Edit Settings
Edit the category settings (the same form you just filled out)

Edit Moderators (ds/X Pro only)
Edit/Add moderators for this category

Links
Browse the database of links for this category.

To continue with the above example, you'd use the "Add Subcategory" link, and add the "Baseball" Category, using the same method as described above. Note that by adding a sub category, you are expanding the category tree one level. If you wanted to add a sub category on the same level as the one that you just created, you'd need to navigate (using the category tree) one level backwards, and then add the subcategory to that level, in effect, creating a "sister" category to any that are already on that category level.