Categories in Articles

Is there a way to setup Categories within Articles and to have it generate a list of categories that I can embed on my blog?

It was the first request my client mentioned when I showed him Articles and a working demo. Personally, I think Tags do the job just fine but he has a point that while there may only be 15 Categories, he will have 100s of tags.

I think he's been sucking the WordPress juice for too long but it'd be a great feature.

Categories are not currently an option, but will be in the future.

One work-around is to use a TV that's powered by a @SELECT binding. You could create a page folder with a series of pages -- each one corresponding to a "category". Then you'd create either a dropdown or a multi-select TV, and use a @SELECT binding for its input options, e.g.



See http://rtfm.modx.com/display/revolution20/SELECT+Binding

This is a bit awkward because you'd have a series of pages that would be "off limits" to the client, but you get the idea... all pages listed under page 123 (in this example) would show up for selection. You could create some categories on the Elements tab and button-hole them for a similar purpose, you'd just have to modify your SQL query (e.g. to use the modx_categories table).

Has there been any progress on this, I've just set-up my first Articles section on my website and it's pretty awesome categories would be an added bonus.


Thanks
Aaron

Agreed. One of the only remaining things that keeps me tied to WordPress for even simple blogs (aside from image management which I need to research next) is that WP handles categories in a rather simple yet flexible way. I've built a rather large blog site using modx, which has been great, and plan to rebuild it in Revo very soon, and the biggest issue I have is that I can't put an article in more than one 'folder' without the use of weblinks. It'd be nicer to be able to just tick boxes for pre-defined categories just like WP.

With Articles - which is indeed very nice, a great extension for Revo - while many things have been done for me (comments, etc.) I can't help thinking that in the categories department it's actually a step back. It can be done but it's far more work for the site admin than anyone would realistically accept.

As it happens, this time, I believe cateogies aren't required. And even if they are, tags will probably do the job.

Is it not possible to do this with getResources?

I'm just asking 'cos I need categories for a blog as well.

I already have blog categories set up in Evo using Ditto, and I understood getResources did more or less what Ditto does.

I just use TagLister and AutoTag for categories (Or a checkbox TV with manually-defined categories). Just label it 'Categories' and then with tagLister, change the tagVar to 'cat' or 'category' so that it looks consistent. Works for me until we get something built-in.

Thought I was well on my way to meeting my clients requests... until they just asked me about categories. I wonder if ambaxter would be willing to elaborate more on the work around? Maybe once I work with Articles more it will become clear. I just started working with Articles for the first time 2 days ago.

I can do a write-up maybe next week with the specifics of how I handle this. The process is the same whether you're using 'Articles' or not. So, it should be helpful. I'll drop the link here once I get that blog entry done.

@ambaxter I like that idea, it's a great solution for the meantime. I've noticed that Article tags are at the Article Container level, which makes sense. So for example, clicking a tag link for 'modx' from an Article within News Article Container, links to a page showing other News Articles with the modx tag.
It does not however show Articles from within another Article Container.
I'm looking for a solution to allow categories to be global. Meaning a way to show any Articles with the same Category.