In your Higher Logic Vanilla (Vanilla) community, Categories are the high-level organizers of your discussions, and each discussion must be placed in a Category.
You can view your community's Categories by clicking Categories in the top navigation available on all community pages.
Managing a community's Categories involves, for example, creating them; setting their display layout and list order; assigning a type; and other management functions that are described in this article.
Access Categories in the Dashboard
All of your community's Categories are listed on the Manage Categories page in the admin Dashboard.
To access it, navigate to: Settings > Discussions > Categories.
From here, you can:
- Create categories
- Arrange the order in which categories display
- Edit and delete categories
- Add subcategories and sub-subcategories
- Enable following for categories
📝 NOTE: You can also access the Manage Categories page by appending /vanilla/settings/categories to the community URL.
Arrange how Categories display
From this Dashboard page, you can manage the order in which your categories, subcategories, and sub-subcategories display in your community's front end.
- Click and hold the hamburger icon of the Category that you want to move.
- Drag it to wherever in the hierarchy you want it to appear and drop it.
This change is automatically reflected in your community's front end.
Add a Category
Vanilla allows you to create an unlimited number of Categories, subcategories, and sub-subcategories.
On the Dashboard > Settings > Discussions > Categories page:
1. Click Add Category at the top of the page.
2. On the Add Category page, complete the fields to create a Category.
📝 NOTE: The fields that display depend on whether any Vanilla addons are enabled in the community.
📝 NOTE: Category and Category Url are required fields.
- Category - Specify a name for your new Category.
- Category Url - This automatically populates with the title of the community appended with /categories/. Click edit to customize this URL by appending to it. Note that this field requires valid URL syntax.
- Description - Provide a description (500 character limit) of your Category. This displays on the homepage or under the title on the categories page, depending on your theme.
- Css Class - Add a special CSS class that you can use in your theme to control its appearance. The specified text will be added as a class for the Category’s HTML wrapper. This makes it so that you can target it specifically when building a theme.
- Icon - Click Browse select an image for Category lists and widgets.
- Display As - Click the dropdown to choose a Category Type.
- Redirect URL - Instead of functioning as a Category, users will be navigated to the URL you enter here (this could be a discussion, another Category, or any valid URL).
- Idea Category - Turn this Category into an Idea Category.
- Hide discussions from Recent Discussions and Widgets - Click the toggle to turn this feature ON/OFF. If ON, posts in this Category will not appear on the Recent Discussions page or in Widgets.
- Featured category - Use the toggle to enable this.
- Banner Image - Click Browse select an image for the Category's banner and Category widgets.
3. Click Save to create the Category.
Additional Category options
Some settings and options are available only after creating a Category.
Additional Category-creation options
There are two other in-article options for creating a Category.
1. Under the Category's list of article titles, click either:
- Organize Categories and then click New Category on the Organize Categories page, or
- New Category.
2. In the dialog, specify a name for the Category and click Save.
Edit a Category
You can edit a Category, subcategory, or sub-subcategory by clicking its down arrow, selecting Edit, and completing the fields on the Edit Category page.
The editing options on the Edit Category page are the same as those on the Add Category page, described above in Add a Category.
Delete a Category
You can delete a Category, subcategory, or sub-subcategory by clicking its down arrow and selecting Delete.
🛑 WARNING: This action is irreversible; deleted Categories cannot be recovered.
📝 NOTE: You cannot delete a Category that has subcategories or a subcategory that has sub-subcategories. You must move or delete those "child" categories first.
If there is content in the item being deleted, a dialog prompts you to either:
- move the content (select a replacement) or
- delete the content (delete all threads and posts).
Alternative to deleting
Instead of deleting content, you can "archive" Categories by removing users' viewing and posting permissions. This is recommended because it prevents the accidental loss of threads.
Add a Subcategory
You can add a subcategory to a Category and a sub-subcategory to a subcategory by clicking the item's down arrow, selecting Add Subcategory, and completing the fields on the Add Category page (described above in Add a Category).
Restricted Content in Nested Categories
There is a caveat that you should be aware of if your community has a Nested Category that has multiple subcategories — each of which has its own permissions set — and custom layouts with the Last Post feature.
There may be instances when the last post is from a subcategory that a user does not have permission to view. In this case, a "Restricted Content" placeholder displays in the Last Post section.
To better understand this situation, review the following example.
⭐️ EXAMPLE: Assume the following Nested Category > Subcategories scenario:
Nested Category: Dogs (permission: visible to all)
- Subcategory 1: German Shepherds (permission: visible to all)
- Subcategory 2: Border Collies (permission: visible only to users with a specific Role)
In the Dogs Nested Category, the custom layout is configured to display the "Last Post" section, in which would be listed the last post or comment from that Nested Category’s subcategories.
Using the example above, I view the Nested Category:
- If the last post was in German Shepherds, that last post will display for me.
- If the last post was in Border Collies, which has visibility limitations:
- if I have the specific Role permission for the Border Collies subcategory, that last post will display for me.
- if I do not have the specific Role permission for the Border Collies subcategory, that last post will not display for me. Instead, the "Restricted Content" placeholder will display.
Workarounds
You can avoid this situation in either of two ways.
- Do not “nest” any Categories that have content that you want “permissions-gated.”
- Do not apply permissions-based restrictions on Nested Categories; remove any current permissions-based restrictions on Nested Categories.
Enable Category following
You can enable Category Following so that all users can:
- subscribe to a category and
- choose a notification type.
📝 NOTE: This feature replaces the Advanced Notifications option, which was limited to Admins and Moderators.
To enable Category Following:
1. On the Dashboard > Settings > Discussions > Categories page, click the settings icon at the top of the page.
2. Slide the toggle to the right.
3. Click Save.
To learn about Category Following, see:
Choose a Categories page layout
When your community users click Categories in your community's navigation bar, they are taken to the Categories page.
Administrators can customize this page in two ways:
Create & apply a custom layout
Using our latest theme, Foundation, you can create custom layouts for your Categories page using Layout Editor. To learn how to build custom layouts for this and other pages, check out the article below:
Select a default layout
In addition to custom layouts, your Vanilla community includes several out-of-the-box pre-configured layouts that are available to everyone.
To choose a layout in the Dashboard:
1. Navigate to Appearance > Categories Page > Legacy Layouts.
- The current layout has a blue border and the Current flag.
- The layouts are described in Layout Settings.
- You can edit Tiled Layout.
2. Choose a layout by hovering on it and clicking Apply.
The layout is immediately applied to your Categories list page.
Category Types
A Category's Type affects how it is viewed in the community. You can click a Category's down arrow and choose one of the following types from the Display As section.
📝 NOTE: Changing a Category's type critically changes how the Category behaves.
- Discussions - The default type. It allows users to post discussions.
- Nested - This type is a high-level placeholder for other Categories. It cannot directly host discussions.
- Flat - This type is a paginated directory structure. It can handle thousands of categories.
- Heading - This type is exclusively for organizing. It cannot host content.
For a comprehensive look at the Category Types, see:
Other settings
Archive
This removes the Category from the main index and prevents threads in the Category from coming up in the site-based search. Archived Categories are still indexed by search engines and can prevent broken links.
Ideation
If you have the Ideation addon included in your plan and enabled, you will also see the option to make it an Idea Category.
Maximum Category Display Depth
This setting is located in the Appearance section of the Dashboard > Posting Settings page (vanilla/settings/posting).
The default setting is No Limit, but you can choose a level at which nested categories will be placed in a comma-delimited list.
📝 NOTE: The subcategories display as hyperlinks under their root Category when viewing the forum index.
Custom permissions
On the Manage Categories page in your Dashboard, click the down arrow for the Category for which you would like to enable custom permissions, and select Edit.
Scroll down to This category has custom permissions and slide the toggle to the right (ON) to enable this option.
New options display below, where you can check the boxes to:
- enable discussion types
- allow file uploads
You can also set a variety of activity permissions for each role.
- If you have an addon (e.g., Q&A) enabled, you can use these options to choose where your users can create those threads.
- You can disable polls and file uploads if they don't suit the Category.
- You can restrict who can view, post in, and perform moderation actions in Categories.
✔️ TIP: Disable (uncheck) all View permissions for a role to hide the Category that you're editing from that role.
✔️ TIP: To set a Category as "read-only", uncheck the Discussions > Add and/or Comments > Add permissions.
📝 NOTE: Only trusted roles should have Announce, Close, Delete, Edit, and Sink permissions because these allow users to manage and moderate content.
Be sure to click Save at the bottom of the page to preserve your settings.
To learn more about these permissions, see:
Category selector
The New Discussion page includes a Category selector for users to choose which Category they want to post their discussion in:
When starting a new post from within a specific Category, that Category will already be showing so the Category selector will not appear. The Category selector will only appear on the new discussion page when starting a post from a core page (Recent Discussions, Home, or Categories).
Now, when you select a Category from the dropdown, the Category name and description are loaded into the page to provide users with additional info about the Category they're posting to.
📝 NOTE: This new Category picker is enabled by default in Foundation themes and can be optionally integrated into custom or legacy themes.
Category following
Additional resources
Click the link below to access a video expanding on what you learned in this article.
