Categories and Tags as Content?

#1

This question is in relation to using Categories and Tags as linkable pages, not just meta info supporting supposed articles/events. I know Kirby3 was just released and it is amazing as I hadnā€™t used Kirby since v1, so Iā€™m brushing up on my knowledge of how the system works. While grokkiing the Tags and Authors Cookbooks, I stopped for a minute with a genuinely curious question.

I know that one of the main benefits of having a DB-less site means that everything is transportable, as I understand it, but Iā€™m curious to hear from people about the benefits/problems of using Tags and Categories that are hardcoded site content (that have actual /content/category/news/ or site.com/tags/travel/)pages instead of page entry attributes (that only live in the article.txt file of a page and are only available via the hyphenated site.com/tags:travel url).

If the /content/ structure of any site were to be truly portable, wouldnā€™t this directory include all content of the site? Again, many sites donā€™t have linked Tags on their site, but unlinked Tags seem like a near useless gesture.

Iā€™m asking this mostly to get more information about using the Panel in Kirby3 to do what I and my clients want, without hampering future transportability of the content (but I broadly understand the problem of flexibility vs simplicity: As soon as you make it more portable, it makes it harder to maintain with a Panel style tool).

#2

Using tags etc. in the content gives you a lot more flexibility and prevents having to duplicate content that belongs in more than one category. You can still have URLs with those categorories, tags etc., by leveraging the power of routes.

#3

Yes, true, @texnixe. It might be a broader question than what Iā€™m specifically asking. Manage the Tags and Categories in text files, or manage them with the panel, either way to hopefully not create broken links.
In the case Iā€™m working on, as usual, it will depend on the requirements of the client and whether theyā€™re okay with Kirby used in this way. In their view perhaps a ā€˜flat-fileā€™ website does not match up with this interpretation of flat files.
Again, gain ā€œsmart site data managementā€, but lose ā€œtrue flat file contentā€ (specifically tag and category pages), or lose ā€œsmart site data managementā€ and gain ā€œtrue flat file contentā€. Itā€™s a trade off.

#4

Whatā€™s interesting in browsing around sites that are created with Kirby is discovering how others are solving problems or finding solutions.
The one way I just discovered working with Tags or Categories is using them as search term links on article pages. Clicking them would return a search results page. Not ideal either, but usable.

#5

IMO, Categories as real pages can make sense, especially, if there are many pages and a tree structure is better than just a big folder with a flat structure.

But tags as real pages? Maybe not, or only if they do not have subpage content but just serve to filter pages.

Thatā€™s in fact very often done, alternative to parameter based filtering: https://getkirby.com/docs/cookbook/content/filter-via-route

Why do you think it is that not ideal?