Category Tree Field Type

From ResourceSpace Documentation Wiki

The Category Tree field type is a special type that allows selection of metadata keywords from a large nested tree.

If a node is selected then the parent nodes all the way back to the root are selected. This is therefore useful for classification (e.g. taxonomy on library systems such as Dewey Decimal).

To set up a category tree, add a new field and set the type to Category Tree.

Under 'options', the nodes are specified in the following format:

1,0,Top Level A
2,0,Top Level B
3,0,Top Level C
4,1,Sub Level A
5,1,Sub Level B
6,4,Deepest Level A
7,4,Deepest Level B
8,3,Sub Level from Top Level C

Each node exists on it's own line. On each line are three values separated by commas. The first value is the node number, which is sequential. The second value is the number of the parent node for that item, with zero being used for top level items. Finally the third column is the name of the node.

In the above example there are three top level nodes, the first of which has two sub level nodes. Of the two sub level nodes, the first node also has two further sub nodes. Finally a sub node has been added to the third top level node. The result is shown in the screen shot at the top of this page.

The order of the nodes does not matter and therefore new nodes can be added at the end of the list regardless of it's position within the tree.

When a node is selected, all the parent nodes are also selected and these then are also indexed and become searchable.

When searching using advanced search, the user is presented with the same tree selection interface and can select nodes and subnodes.