Categories to Text

Developer

Shoe Shine Design & Development

3rd Party (Free)

355 downloads (last 90 days)

MIT License Download v0.9.6

EE Version Support

  • ExpressionEngine 2

Compatibility

If an item is crossed out, it might be untested, not applicable or incompatible. Contact the developer to be sure.

  • Updater
  • Multi Site Manager
  • Stand Alone Entry Form
  • Low Variables
  • Content Elements
  • Better Workflow
  • Matrix
  • Grid
  • Webservice
  • Publisher

Requirements

  • jQuery for the Control Panel

Add-On Type(s)

Extension

Tags

Save an entry's categories into a text channel field. Combine with EE's Search module to search category names. Combine with Low Search to search categories with weighted values.

Installation

     
  1. Copy /system/third_party/categories_to_text/ to /system/expressionengine/third_party/
  2.  
  3. Enable the extension from Add-ons » Extensions

Settings

Only Channels with an assigned category group AND a basic text fieldtype (text input, textarea) will appear.

     
  • Click “Add New Category-Field Pair” to define which category group to save to text field.
  •  
  • Category Group: For each entry in this channel, the selected categories (from this category group) will be saved to the selected Text Field as a comma-dilenated string.
  •  
  • Text-Field: Only the basic EE text input and textarea fields for this channel will appear as options.
  •  
  • Synonym Text Field: (Optional) If you have created a custom text field for the selected category group, it will appear. The string in that custom category field will be added to the selected Text Field along with the categories. This was initially created for adding search synonyms for specific categories.
  •  
  • Update Existing [channel name] Channel Entries: Check to have the extension update entries in the specific channel with the new data. Leave unchecked to leave entries as they are.

Usage

The settings saved in the extension will be applied to an entry (new or edited).

If you are using EE’s native Search module, you can use this extension to search categories via the Text Field.

Original purpose

We created this extension to combine with Low Search to search category names (and category synonyms) with weighted values. Instead of having Low Search index the categories themselves, we had it index the channel text field (which we hid from the client in the EE publish view). Many of the categories also had synonymous terms that needed to be equal to the main category name, which is why a selected custom category text field can be tacked on to the outputted string value to the channel text field. (With EE 2.7, Low Search will be updated to allow weighted category searching.)

We’d love hear how you’re using this extension and how we can make it work even better for you.

Download Categories to Text

EE Support Downloads Add-On Version Release Date
Not Specified Download 0.9.6 Aug 5, 2013

Categories to Text Links

Hooks Used

If the add-on is an extension, and ties into ExpressionEngine's core files, it will use ExpressionEngine hooks. We are listing any hooks the add-on uses for developers to have an easier time locating other add-ons that they can reference for their own work.

  1. entry_submission_end

This entry was created August 5, 2013, 9:35 am.
This entry was last updated July 30, 2014, 9:15 am.

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1 Review:

Zack Morgan 01.19.15

Zack Morgan
Rating - {addon_rating_average}

NIce straightforward solution to the recurring ‘why can’t I search entries by category name?’ issue.