The time has come to inform the eZ community about interesting stuff currently in development in eZ Tags extension and to give a current overview of the project.
About the extension
The following is a short intro for readers who just came across this extension for the first time. eZ Tags is an eZ Publish extension for taxonomy management and easier classification of content objects. We basically took the standard ezkeyword datatype and enhanced it to the next level by:
- organizing tags (keywords) in a tree
- developing a “sexy” looking tag input interface
- implementing a management interface for creating/deleting/renaming/merging tags
- inventing tag suggestion powered by eZ Find
- adding tag view for web interface
- adding extended attribute filter for content list/tree fetch
The result is an extension which is not only able to replace the ezkeyword datatype, but can be used for all taxonomies, including:
- closed classifications which are usually predefined
- open classifications like user tags (usually referred to as “folksonomy”)
- combination of both
What to do with it
Here are some examples on what you can do with eZ Tags:
- replace the ezkeyword datatype. Migration should be straightforward as database schema is very similar. You will get the hierarchy and management which is missing in ezkeyword.
- replace the closed classification based on ezselection or ezobjectrelation(s) datatype. You will get much easier input interface, easier management & maintenance, better performance
- be able to change from open to closed and vice versa when ever you need
- provide a better user experience to your editors
- create dynamic pages based on tagged content
Project status
It was recently decided that eZ Tags will be available in upcoming eZ Market as a certified extension. The exact date of release will depend on the certification process. You can, of course, already grab the source code from https://github.com/ezsystems/eztags and start using it. Besides the mentioned features, there are a few more interesting capabilities:
- tag synonyms
- tag merging in management interface
- tag search in management interface
- limiting eztags attributes to particular tag tree
- a tag cloud (provided by Internethic)
These features will soon be tagged as stable and ready for certification
If you encounter any issues, please use the issue tracker on GitHub.
If you want to discuss about features or you have questions, please post your thoughts on http://projects.ez.no/eztags. A separate blog post about installation and common usage will be published soon.
Follow #eztags on twitter to be in the loop.