[development] Taxonomy2 [Was: Formapi formalter]

[Jeremy Epstein]

Hi Mark,

The category module (http://drupal.org/node/39683) has been in
development for some time now, and is already being used on live sites
by some users. I would strongly suggest that you take a look at
category, before going off and writing a 'Taxonomy2' module. You may
find that the category module already has many of the improvements
that you're looking for.

The category module's API is not much different to that of taxonomy,
and could certainly use some improvement. Please contact me if you're
interested in helping out with this, and have a look at
http://category.greenash.net.au/howtohelp.

Cheers,
Jaza.

On 3/29/06, Mark Fredrickson <mfredrickson at ppmns.org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Before I begin, please view all these comments in the context of "Let's get
> 4.7 out first, then...."
>
> I think Robert's and Ber's frustrations are symptoms of a larger problem
> with taxonomy: it is not designed to be used programmatically, by modules.
>
> Taxonomy works very well for classifying nodes via the node form, but it
> does not have an API that modules can access to achieve similar results.
> There has been some work to have modules "own" vocabularies, but taxonomy
> does not honor this ownership. If a module wishes to control and display a
> vocabulary differently than the default taxonomy.module way, it must go to a
> lot of work - either complicated form_alters or custom patching of the
> taxonomy code (I'm not ashamed to say that I've done it!).
>
> I think it is time for Taxonomy2. I would like to form a working group to
> assess the current short comings of taxonomy, sketch out a design of a
> replacement system, and provide a DEP for the larger community to consider ,
> modify, and (I would hope) implement.
>
> The benefits of this work will be a common system that many modules can use
> to mark nodes (organic groups and workflow, for example, both must keep
> their own data structures to duplicate what taxonomy does).
>
> I have been coding for Drupal for roughly 6 months now, and while I am happy
> to volunteer my limited time, I would appreciate the assistance of more
> experienced individuals.
>
> Please contact me off-list if you would like to help. I will follow up with
> the devel list as appropriate.
>
> Cheers,
> -Mark Fredrickson
>
>