Use categories

You use categories to filter content. By clicking different categories from the treeview displayed on the webpage, you can filter the content of the page. By using hierarchy of categories, you can filter content items according to more general or more specific criteria. You can apply categories both to built-in types, such as news and events, as well as to dynamic types – types that you have created.

You manage categories on the Categories page.
To open the Categories page, in the main navigation, click Content » Categories.
The Categories page appears, displaying a list of all created categories together with actions you can perform on them.

EXAMPLE: You can have a list of events categorized according to their location. Some of the events are held in Europe, some in Asia. Some of the European events are held in Italy, some in France. If you have added category Italy to the Italian events and category France to the French and you have created those two categories as child categories of category Europe, then by adding a Categories widget to your page, you give the users the opportunity to filter all European events by clicking category Europe, which include both French events and Italian event, but also to go in depth and filter events with more specific locations, such as events held in France, by clicking France category.

To display list of categories on your website, you must use the Categories widget and you must configure it.
For more information, see Categories widget.
For more information about adding widgets on your page, see Add widgets on pages and templates.

To create a category:

1. In Sitefinity CMS backend, navigate to Content » Categories.
   
2. On the Categories page, click Create a category.
   
3. Enter a unique name for the new category.
4. Optionally, you can change the default URL of the category by clicking  (Edit) button and entering the preferred URL.
5. Select one of the following:
   
   • On top level
     
   • Under parent
     Choose the parent category.
     
6. Click Create.

You view and manage categories on the Categories page.

To open the Categories page, in the main navigation, click Content » Categories.
The Categories page appears, displaying a hierarchy of all created categories, together with actions that you can perform on them. They are listed in the hierarchy in the order of creation. For each category you can view the following:

• The category NAME
  
• The category URL
  
• The items that the category is APPLIED TO
  In this column you see a number of items or pages that are tagged with this particular category.
  If you click the number icon, a list of items belonging to the selected category appears.
  

NOTE: If you have more than one languages configured on the website, you can also see TRANSLATIONS column.

To sort categories, on Categories page, click  (Filter categories) button. 
In the Sort categories dropdown box, select one of the following:

• By title (A-Z) or By title (Z-A)
  Sorts the categories alphabetically ascending or descending.
  
• Most used or Least used
  Sorts the categories according to the number of items tagged with a category.
  
• Last modified on top
  Sorts categories in descending order according to time of modification.

NOTE: You can also sort by clicking the column headers. You can sort by column NAME and column APPLIED TO, which orders the list by most or least used categories.

To filter categories, on Categories page, click  (Filter categories) button. 

If your website is translated in more than one languages, you can also filter the categories, based on the language that they exist in, using the Languages dropdown box.

To edit the properties of a category, on Categories page, click a category.
You can edit or enter the following:

1. To change the name of the category, overwrite the existing one.
   
2. To edit the URL of the category, click  (Edit), change the URL, and press ENTER.
   
3. You can change the parent of the category.
4. In the Advanced options section, you can do the following:
   
   • Add a Description for the category.
     
   • Enter Synonyms for the category so that you can filter content items by the category name or its synonyms.
     
5. When you are finished, click Save changes.

You can edit the name, the URL name, and the synonyms of all categories at the same time.

1. On the Categories page, select the categories that you want tot edit.
2. Click Bulk actions » Properties (bulk).
   The Bulk edit of categories properties page opens, displaying a list of all categories, together with their URLs and synonyms.   
   
3. For each category, edit its name, URL, or synonyms as needed.
   
4. Save your changes.

In addition to merging, you can also move items from one or more categories to another category. The operation moves all items of the selected categories and assigns them another category.

To move items, perform the following:

1. On Categories page, select one or more categories whose items you want to migrate.
   
2. Expand Bulk actions and click Move items to another category.
   
3. Select the new category, which you want to categorize items with.
   
4. Click Move.

If you are working with categories, you can reorder the items or change their parent, using drag-and-drop.

1. To reorder items, open the Categories page.
   
2. In the toolbar, click Reorder.
   
3. User drag-and-drop.
   
4. Click Save changes.

If you have more than one language translations of your website, you may want to translate not only items and pages, but also the categories that they are tagged with. 

If you have more than one languages configured on your website, on the Categories page, you can see an additional column TRANSLATIONS. In this column, the system displays the icons of the languages. The darker icons represent languages, which a particular category is translated in.

To translate a category in another language, on Categories page, click the respective language icon of the category.
For example, if you want to translate a category in Spanish, in column TRANSLATIONS click ES.
You translate the following:

• Translate the category itself
  
• Add a different URL
  
• Add language specific Description
  
• Add language specific Synonyms