<p>Been rolling around with this for the last 36hrs trying to decide most useful option. The dilemma is how to preserve a structure and use categories - or not. Below is my structure:</p>

<p>Food (section structure)</p>

<ul>
<li><p>fruit (branch parent)</p>

<ul>
<li>apples (entry)</li>
<li>pears</li>
<li>oranges</li>
</ul></li>
<li><p>Bread (branch parent)</p>

<ul>
<li>wholemeal</li>
<li>white</li>
<li>bloomer</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

<p>Goal:
Part of the goal here is to use the structure in the admin panel so that entrie are reflected like the above.</p>

<p>The branch parent contains contains a description of that branches content. So 'fruit' and 'bread' are what i call branch parents ( possibly even root parents etc)
The branch parent content can be either stored as its own entry type at the top of the branch in the structure, and preserve the admin structural view. Or I can store the branch description as a field in the category for the entries in the section.</p>

<p>If I store the branch description as an entry type at the top of the branch structure, I cant use the category urls because they will conflict with the branch:
e..g category url = 'food/fruit'
entry type url 'food/fruit-1'</p>

<p>But if I ditch the top of the branch parent entry type then the admin for that section is just a flat list - it loses is hierarchical structure and a little bit of its meaning and find-ability for admins.</p>

<p>So I could just turn off the category urls and render the structure in templates without categories but it doesn't feel right.</p>

<p>How have others solved / implemented this?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-06T12:10:38.167Z
Not worth an answer but something you could keep in mind: remember your structure might become "confusing" as soon as there is a certain amount of entries. When you have many children  (80+) in one of your "branch parents" the client has to scroll all the way down until he can see the "Bread" structure. For "not so many" entries I would prefer a structured section, for many entries I would prefer the relation to categories
Robin Schambach
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-06T18:22:20.237Z
perhaps your categories don't need to have urls. You could use the food/fruit entry url to display all the category data.
Marion Newlevant
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-06T20:29:11.260Z
Thanks - that was just the prompt i needed. I think many entries in structure would be unmanageable in control panel. So gonna stick with the entry type approach
joomkit
<categories><structure>
Structure parent root - entry type or category urls?
# Structure parent root - entry type or category urls?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-03-06)

Been rolling around with this for the last 36hrs trying to decide most useful option. The dilemma is how to preserve a structure and use categories - or not. Below is my structure:

Food (section structure)

* fruit (branch parent)

  + apples (entry)
  + pears
  + oranges
* Bread (branch parent)

  + wholemeal
  + white
  + bloomer

Goal:
Part of the goal here is to use the structure in the admin panel so that entrie are reflected like the above.

The branch parent contains contains a description of that branches content. So 'fruit' and 'bread' are what i call branch parents ( possibly even root parents etc)
The branch parent content can be either stored as its own entry type at the top of the branch in the structure, and preserve the admin structural view. Or I can store the branch description as a field in the category for the entries in the section.

If I store the branch description as an entry type at the top of the branch structure, I cant use the category urls because they will conflict with the branch:
e..g category url = 'food/fruit'
entry type url 'food/fruit-1'

But if I ditch the top of the branch parent entry type then the admin for that section is just a flat list - it loses is hierarchical structure and a little bit of its meaning and find-ability for admins.

So I could just turn off the category urls and render the structure in templates without categories but it doesn't feel right.

How have others solved / implemented this?

**Tags:** categories, structure

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Not worth an answer but something you could keep in mind: remember your structure might become "confusing" as soon as there is a certain amount of entries. When you have many children  (80+) in one of your "branch parents" the client has to scroll all the way down until he can see the "Bread" structure. For "not so many" entries I would prefer a structured section, for many entries I would prefer the relation to categories  
> **username_2**: perhaps your categories don't need to have urls. You could use the food/fruit entry url to display all the category data.  
> **username_0**: Thanks - that was just the prompt i needed. I think many entries in structure would be unmanageable in control panel. So gonna stick with the entry type approach  

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## 0 answers

