Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/19697 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: taxonomy.module Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: Morbus Iff Reported by: Morbus Iff Updated by: Jaza Status: patch +1 from me for this patch. The interface is so simple - just one text box - and yet so powerful. Being able to add terms at node creation is a critical feature for the next release, IMO, but I never envisioned it being implemented so cleanly and intuitively. Great work, Morbus! However, three problems/shortcomings that I found with the patch: 1. You cannot create new sub-terms using free tagging (yet). Say I have an existing term called 'sporting news', and I am writing an article about soccer and baseball. The term 'soccer' already exists as a subterm of 'sporting news'. I have no existing term for baseball. I would like to be able to enter into the text box: "sporting news->soccer, sporting news->baseball" And it would create 'baseball' as a new subterm (and assign the existing term 'soccer'). With the current patch, the only way to do this is to create the terms with free tagging, and then to go into the admin interface and make them subterms. 2. I don't like the new "view terms" link. I prefer having my vocabs and terms all listed together. In fact, when I made my first term using free tagging, I went into the admin interface, and couldn't work out where my term was, until I saw the "view terms" link. So this is a usability issue - Drupal admins are accustomed to the current layout of the categories page, and may find the change cumbersome. Perhaps make this a setting? 3. The free tagging text box should IMO be displayed AS WELL AS, not instead of, the regular 'select term(s)' list box. Surely users will want to select an existing term, rather than typing it? And if they do type it, they should be able to check (as they type) that they're spelling it correctly. Also, users should be able to see what existing terms there are, so that they don't create new terms that are virtually duplicates. I also agree (with the person that already said it) that new permissions are needed as part of this patch. Jaza Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 31, 2005 - 01:16 : Morbus Iff Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/taxonomy_all.patch (19.53 KB) This patch adds folksonomy support to Drupal (named internally as "Free tagging"). In a nutshell, the core difference is the input method: unlike normal taxonomies which are administratively controlled, a "free tagging" vocabulary allows tag creation when the node is submitted. It does this through an text input box, as opposed to a dropdown or selectbox. This patch: Removes the useless "Preview form" of a vocabulary. Alters the vocabulary table to include a new "tags" column. Adds a new "Free tagging" preference on vocabulary creation/editing. Modifies the vocabulary overview to support pagers for free tagging vocabs. The new code integrates tightly with the existing taxonomy code. The only additional processing occurs on node save and edit, where we parse through the tags associated with a node. All other display (and thus, code) remains the same. The following screenshots illustrate the changes, integration, and workflow: Create/edit vocabulary screen. [1] Create/edit a node. [2] Result of previous screen. [3] The new admin/taxonomy. [4] Clicking on \"view terms\". [5] These patches were made during the exploration and customization of Drupal by http://www.NHPR.org. In loving support of open source software, http://www.NHPR.org will continue to contribute patches they feel the community will benefit from. Questions about this patch should be directed to morbus@disobey.com. [1] http://disobey.com/detergent/2005/drupal_folkdef.jpg [2] http://disobey.com/detergent/2005/drupal_folknodeedit.jpg [3] http://disobey.com/detergent/2005/drupal_folknodesubmit.jpg [4] http://disobey.com/detergent/2005/drupal_folkpager1.jpg [5] http://disobey.com/detergent/2005/drupal_folkpager2.jpg ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 31, 2005 - 01:38 : Morbus Iff Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/taxonomy_all_0.patch (19.52 KB) Updated patch to fix some errors in the update.inc change. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 1, 2005 - 01:27 : Morbus Iff Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/taxonomy_all_1.patch (19.54 KB) New patch for check_plain and HEAD. Also removed the term indent under vocabularies - there was an extra-space issue in regards to _taxonomy_depth, and I felt it was better to just remove the (non-standard, non-semantic) indent I originally added during the move to tablular display. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 1, 2005 - 04:19 : Anonymous A big +1 from me! This patch is going to be *extremely* useful for modules like "image" that involve frequent creation of new taxonomy terms. I've been testing this patch extensively for a couple of days. I love the fact that it is totally non-intrusive onto existing sites if the admin doesn't want to use it when creating vocabularies, and that the free-tagged terms become "ordinary terms" in the database structure, with no special-case table. Morbus Iff has done a great job of adding a powerful feature without breaking anything, as far as I can tell. I can see lots of ways in which this can evolve in the future, such as more fine-grained security so that some users can add a given node type without being able to add new free-tagged terms (i.e., that class of users would have to pick from existing terms only, even if the vocabulary allows higher-privileged users to add free terms). I can also see a place for user-owned free-tag vocabularies that are dedicated to their personal image albums. But these features could be added in a future release and still be backward-compatible with what Morbus has done now. That being the case, I suggest that this patch be accepted into core. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 1, 2005 - 04:20 : syscrusher Comment #3 was from me (syscrusher). Sorry I forgot to login first. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 1, 2005 - 06:12 : Dries I'll commit this patch to core as soon CVS HEAD is opened up for development. For now, I'm awaiting feedback from the usability folks. I'm also left wondering how this would affect taxonomy-based permissions -- I don't think that should be a problem but it is somewhat mind-boggling. I haven't tested the patch yet, but I glanced at the code quickly: 1. Don't use the word 'node' in user output. Use 'post'. 2. The words 'term' and 'tags' are both used in user output. This might be confusing, but I don't see an easy way around it. The way it is used makes sense, so it might be a non-issue. 3. Some extra documentation might be in order. The explanation of 'free tagging' is quite technical. For example, I don't understand the following bit: "Allows the creation of a vocabulary during content creation, as well as through the normal administrative means.". I'd rather see it explain the difference/advantage/drawbacks to help me decide whether to enable 'free tagging' or not. Make the documentation more task-minded. 4. I don't like the way you manipulate the pager's global variables. The paging code is a bit of a hack, it seems. 5. Spacing: we write 'foreach (' not 'foreach('. 6. We usually write code comments above the code, not after the code on the same line. This is really minor as I'm sure we don't do this consistently. Some code comments are rather cryptic and didn't help me much. Maybe give your code comments some love. That's all for now. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 1, 2005 - 06:19 : FactoryJoe@civicspacelabs.org Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/drupal_folkdef.png (21.7 KB) In setting up the folksonomy, you present far too many options to the user. I tried to cut these extraneous options out but then decided to redo the whole Vocabulary creation workflow. :) Go figure. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 1, 2005 - 06:27 : Morbus Iff I'll address what I can. A new patch will be forthcoming. #2: I agree - I previously wanted to keep everything as "term", and spent a good bit of time on #drupal getting jbond (who has since disappeared from all discussion) to agree that "term == tag" and the only difference between the two was their method of input. Eventually, I felt that "tag" was not only a "term" (and term), but also an action. I'm not "terming a node", but I'm "tagging it", which is a common sorta phrase in other folksonomy implementations. Thus, the mixing of the two. #4: Yeah, I know it's a hack. I had a comment in there (since removed due to moshe's suggestion) that I knew it was a hack, and that integrating with the existing pager code would be uber-difficult based on hierarchies and the recursive nature of the taxonomy_get_tree. #6: Heh, heh. Boy oh boy. Wrong thing to say. I often find myself overdoing it on comments (for example [6]), and the patch as is was a concentrated effort to /reduce/ the amount of comments I had originally put in there (see also [7]). I'll take another look at 'em. [6] http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/amphetadesk/AmphetaDesk/lib/AmphetaDes... [7] http://lists.drupal.org/archives/drupal-devel/2005-03/msg01010.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 1, 2005 - 06:36 : Morbus Iff Regarding #7, it appears factoryjoe wants a far grander rewrite of the taxonomy UI than this patch purports to do. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 1, 2005 - 06:59 : Dries If you can take on such rewrite (or parts thereof) based on Chris' suggestions, by all means. Depending on the required UI changes, such overhaul might automagically deal with the pager implementation issues (if the pagers get nuked that is). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 1, 2005 - 07:19 : Morbus Iff Not in this patch. His plans are for 4.7, and include wizards, removing most all of the checkboxes on that page, and so on and so forth. Likewise, he's only about 30% of the way there (per #drupal) in his UI mockups, so not to be considered with this folksonomy patch at all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 1, 2005 - 07:22 : Morbus Iff (Er.. which isn't to say that I think this folksonomy patch is for 4.6 - I know 4.7 will be its earliest release. But, he's just not ready with the workflow in his head yet for me to address any of his issues. And, based on discussion in #drupal, I'm not sure /I/ want to be the one implementing the changes, much less agreeing with them, he has planned [g]). No offense to him, of course - he's (admittedly) too early in his thinking to take on all affronts.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 1, 2005 - 07:23 : Bèr Kessels Cris's ideas are great, but should IMO not be confused with this folksonomy isseu. Can we not focus on getting folksonomy in, be it with a less-then-perfect-UI, and then open a new issue to improve the UI of taxonomy? Bèr ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 1, 2005 - 07:44 : Uwe Hermann +1 from me. While I haven't tested the patch, yet, it looks very good and I'd really love to see this in 4.6. I hope it's not too late to get it in... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 1, 2005 - 08:31 : grohk I will add my +1 to the pile. This patch is working well for me. I like Chris' mockup, but I also agree with Morbus that his taxonomy UI ideas are probably beyond the scope of this patch. I actually like that Morbus has added this functionality without drastically altering the taxonomy admin interface. Bravo. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 1, 2005 - 08:58 : FactoryJoe@civicspacelabs.org As far as my workflow changes, yeah, they won't be ready for 4.6. I do think that getting this into the next release is important though, so that we have the general functionality. I have concerns about "multi-select" and related terms though. I mean, those shouldn't be user options -- those should be allowed by default. Also, I talked to Drumm at lunch about flat-lists vs tree-hierarchy and we seem to agree that it's a needless distinction. It's better to have a "tree-like hierarchy" (or controlled vocabulary/outline list) and "free tagging" as the main distinctions. Because it might make sense to make your flat-list a hierarchy later on, but not so much your tags. (even though Morbus tends to see a use for making a hierarchy out of free tags.) But this later discussion probably belongs somewhere else... So I'm pretty much okay with this moving forward with the understanding that the categories UI needs a wizard-like overhaul for 4.7.