Managing Categories

Introduction

As part of your knowledge base you will need to create some categories that the articles will be listed under. AutoKB supports unlimited categories and sub-categories, and each category can contain an unlimited number of articles. This document will cover aspects of creating and managing categories.

Adding A Category

If you do not yet have any categories created, you must do this before you can begin adding articles to the database. To add a category, click on the Manage Categories link in the control panel interface. If there are no categories defined, you will be taken directly to the page where you can add a category. However, if you already have some categories defined you will be taken to the category management interface. From there you can press the Add a Category button to access the category addition page.

Once you are on the category creation page you will see a form that you will need to fill in. Each of the form fields is described below.

Category Name - This is the category name as you want it to appear in your knowledge base
Parent Category - If you want this category to be a sub-category of another category, select the parent category from the drop down list. The first time you create a category you will not have any options, the first category must have no parent.
Position - This value specifies the order in which the categories will be displayed relative to the other categories with the same parent. Categories that have a low number for their position will appear before categories that have a high number. For example, if you create two categories with the same parent, the category with position 1 will be displayed before the gallery with position 2.

Once you have filled in each of the form fields with appropriate values, press the Add Category button. AutoKB will add the new category to the database and you can now create articles in that category. You will be able to manage all of the categories you create through the category management interface, which is explained in detail in this document.

Viewing Your Categories

To see all of the categories that currently exist in the database, click on the Manage Categories link in the control panel interface. The page that comes up will show you, in order, all of the categories available. They will be displayed in a tree format, with sub-categories offset from their parents. From this interface you can edit, delete, and view information about each category. Each of the columns is described below.

Category Name - This is the name category name as it appears in your knowledge base
Tip: click on the category name to quickly add a sub-category. The category creation form will automatically select the category you clicked as the parent.
Position - This is the position value assigned to the category
Articles - This is the number of approved and visible articles currently in this category
Actions - These are actions that can be performed on the category.
Click on the icon to delete the category.
Click on the icon to edit the category.

Editing a Category

To edit one of the categories, click on it's icon. AutoKB will load a page where you can edit the category name, it's parent category, and the category position. Once you have made the changes that you want, press the Update Category button to save the changes. You will be returned to the category management interface where the changes will be visible.

Deleting a Category

To delete one of the categories, click on it's icon. A javascript confirmation window will pop-up asking you if you are sure that you want to delete the category. Press the ok button to confirm that you want to delete the category. AutoKB will remove the category, all of it's sub-categories, and all of the articles contained within the deleted categories from the database.

Warning! You should be careful when you use this function, as it can delete a large amount of data if you are not careful. Remember that you will not only delete this category, you will also delete all of it's sub-categories and all of the arcticles within all of the deleted categories.

Deleting All Categories

If for some reason you want to start over with your knowledge base, deleting all of the categories is a good way to do it. When you delete all of the categories you will also be deleting all of the article and comments from the database as well. You should use extreme caution when running this function, as it will basically wipe out your database entirely.

To delete all categories simply press the Delete All Categories button near the top of the page. A javascript confirmation window will pop up asking you if you are sure that you want to delete all of the categories in the database. Press the ok button to confirm that you want to delete all categories.