Category collection / popup in Jekyll

Netlify CMS
,
1

Is it possible to have a ‘collection’ of categories (for taxonomy) which I can add/edit/delete, and then have those populate a popup when creating a post, rather than free text entry?

I’m confused because this list of categories would not be files … just an array of strings. Where would that get “stored”?

Thanks!

2

Have a look at the relation widget. You can set multiple to true or use it in combination with a list widget

1 Like
3

Yes, I looked at those … but not clear how to combine relation with a collection – since collections are only file or folder. Should I create a folder of ‘dummy’ files which have the names of the categories? I want it to be like Wordpress, where in one place you define/edit a list of categories, and then those populate the options of a select widget. thanks

4

You could create a Settings file collection, with a categories list:

collections:
  - name: settings
    label: Settings
    editor:
      preview: false
    files: 
      - name: blog_settings
        label: Blog settings
        file: data/blog_settings.yml
        fields: 
          - name: categories
            widget: list
            summary: '{{fields.name}}'
            fields:
              - {name: name}

Which you can then target in your post collection:

collections:
  - ...

  - name: posts
    label: Posts
    folder: data/posts/
    create: true
    slug: '{{title}}'
    editor:
      preview: false
    fields:
      - {label: Title, name: title, widget: string}
      - label: Category
        name: category
        widget: relation
        collection: settings
        file: blog_settings
        value_field: categories.*.name
        search_fields: [categories.*.name]
        display_fields: [categories.*.name]

The biggest advantage of this approach is that if you have multiple of these relation widgets (say… tags, authors, etc), you can all put them in one file together.

5

Very cool! That worked.
I think you have a typo… file: blog__settings should have just 1 underscore, i.e., file: blog_settings

FWIW … My proposed solution of using a folder collection with files also worked:

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image2016×702 48 KB

with the advantage that I don’t have to dig into Settings > Blog Settings.

It comes from files in this folder:

categories/map-category-cat1.md
categories/map-category-cat3.md
categories/map-category-reviews.md

Just wondering where the map-category- prefix comes from when I create a new category? Could the generated file just be the category name + .md ?

My config:

collections:
...
  - name: categories
    label: Categories
    folder: categories
    create: true
    fields:
      - widget: string
        name: category
        label: Category
        required: true
...
    fields: 
...
      - label: "Categories"
        name: "categories"
        widget: "relation"
        required: false
        multiple: true
        collection: categories
        value_field: category
        search_fields: ['name']
6

Yes, that certainly would work. I was under the impression that you were trying to avoid a file per category kinda set-up.

Anyway: Not sure why that map prefix occurs, but try setting a slug or alternatively an identifier field for your categories collection:

  - name: categories
    label: Categories
    folder: categories
    identifier_field: category
    slug: "{{fields.category}}"
    create: true
    fields:
      - widget: string
        name: category
        label: Category
        required: true

You can learn more about all the different configuration settings for collections here: