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Community and *.tiki.org site organization

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    • Topic-centric, rather than feature-centric tikiwiki

    Posted by ripa posts: 4 ☆

    Hi,

    I was wondering whether there were any plans to make tiki facilities to allow for topic-centric information to be presented to the user, rather than module-centric information. At the moment (from what I can tell), tikiwiki provides an image gallery (for pictures), articles (for text), blogs, forums, directory (for external links), file galleries (for files). So you store your information in a location depending on its type.

    What I would like to do is organise information according to my classification. So if I was making a cookbook, I might have a 'soups' section, a 'vegetables' section, a 'deserts' section, etc. Each of those may then be further broken down if I wanted, making a tree-type structure.

    In the 'soup' section, I might have a recipe for celery soup which I typed in (article), a recipe for carrot soup as a pdf file which I scanned in (file), and a link to a site with a good potato soup (directory). I want these listed under one 'soups' heading.

    Currently, I'd have to search articles, directory, forums, blogs, and files looking for the recipe I wanted (I KNOW it's in there, but can't remember the format).

    There are ways of classifying information, including categories, freetags, types, and topics, but these only apply to a few of the data types; none cut across all data types.

    Ideally, I'd like to be able to have a tree structure that allows me to organise the information however I'd like as a tree, with each node able to contain various types of information, including other folders. Being able to add keywords or tags would be good too, so long as all data types support them.

    Anyone know of any plans???

    Thanks for any info.

    Regards

    Richard

    Reads: 991
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    Posted by Gary Cunningham-Lee posts: 4656 ☆ ☆ ☆ Japan

    I think Tiki's "Categories" function comes the closest to what you're describing. It covers the data types pretty completely. Have you tried using categories for a topic-centric approach as you describe and, if so, what were the specific shortcomings? This would be good to know so the feature can be improved. Actually tags have gotten more developer attention lately but categories have the benefit of being hierarchical.

    I don't know of specific plans to add tags to more items, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is on somebody's list.

    Currently, each feature doesn't need to be searched separately; the search function works (to the extent that it does) across all of them, pretty much.

    Are you aware of any web software that provides the kind of functionality you describe? It would be good to see other examples. There is a lot of new functionality coming for Tiki but I don't know of anything specific along these lines.

    -- Gary

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    Posted by ripa posts: 4 ☆

    Thanks Gary,
    I have tried to use Categories, but "Categories" in the Directory object is different from "Categories" elsewhere, so not really usefuk.
    Also, when you search within a category, it lists the subject and the type, but no date. For many types of information, the date is critical, as it is places the information currency within the user's mind (and is often a good sorting key). I imagine that other fields would be useful too.
    So yes, categories do get someway there with files and articles, but don't extend to directories. Not sure what other types categories don't work for...

    Cheers

    Richard

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    Posted by ripa posts: 4 ☆

    Thanks Gary,
    I have tried to use Categories, but "Categories" in the Directory object is different from "Categories" elsewhere, so not really usefuk.
    Also, when you search within a category, it lists the subject and the type, but no date. For many types of information, the date is critical, as it is places the information currency within the user's mind (and is often a good sorting key). I imagine that other fields would be useful too.
    So yes, categories do get someway there with files and articles, but don't extend to directories. Not sure what other types categories don't work for...

    Cheers

    Richard

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    Posted by Darren posts: 289 ☆ ☆ ☆ United States

    It would make sense to extend categories (and tags) to include the Directories feature. I think it would also make sense, to avoid confusion to relabel the "categories" in the directory feature as "folders" (as they already are in the MyTiki bookmark feature).

    It's a pity you can't use tags for directories as they probably are the most flexible and powerful way of organizing and structuring data. I have often been shot down by many individuals on the Internet (not TikiWiki related) when requesting hierarchical grouping structures. The response has always been, "use tags, tags can do anything that other organization structures can do". At first I was very skeptical, as I suppose it has always been ingrained in me to organize things hierarchically. However, I've experimented with tags a lot on a social bookmarking site and have come to conclude that they are indeed very powerful if used well and are a very welcome edition to TikiWiki. Now, we just need them across all features!

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