You can use taxonomy filters to control whether a topic is included in a publication. For example, you could use them on a topic so that it is included when you publish a Mac version of a user guide, but excluded when you publish a Windows version.
Some Paligo users prefer to use taxonomy filters instead of the "regular" filters, see Filter Publications, as they are quick and easy to use. All you need to do is create your taxonomy tags, drag and drop them onto your topics and choose which tags to include when you publish. Taxonomy filters can be used in combination with Scoped Filtering.
Another benefit of taxonomy tags is that you can use them to create more complex filters, similar to Scoped Filtering. For this, you organize the tags into a hierarchy. You can then set Paligo to include all of the tags in a branch of the hierarchy, rather than one specific taxonomy tag.
For example, let's say you have set up the following taxonomy tag hierarchy:
1 is the tag that represents the type of filter you want to use, in this case, the filter is called "Market". This is known as the filter attribute.
2 are all tags for individual filter values. Note that the value tags can be organized into a hierarchy too. Here we have a value tag for the overall market, "USA", and then at a lower level, value tags for the different sub-markets. In this case, the sub-markets are states of the USA.
You can then set Paligo to use the hierarchy in different ways. For example, you can set Paligo to only include those topics that have the "Arizona" tag. Or you could set Paligo to include topics that have the "USA" tag and/or the "Arizona" tag.
Note
You only need to Add Filter Values for Taxonomy Tags and Set Up the Taxonomy Tags when you first set up taxonomy filtering or when you want to add a new filter or filter value.
Before you create taxonomy tags for filtering, you should add the filter values you need. Then, when you create your taxonomy filter tags, you can give them the same names as the filter tags. This is how Paligo recognizes the relationship between a taxonomy tag and a filter value - they have to have the same name.
Note
If your Paligo instance already contains the filter attributes and values that you need to use, ignore this procedure. Your next step is to Set Up the Taxonomy Tags.
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Select the Publish option for any publication or topic, and then edit the Profiling attributes.
When you select Edit, Paligo displays the Profiling attributes dialog, which contains a list of the filter attributes that are available. The filter attributes define the types of filter, for example, there is a Market attribute for filtering by different regions.
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Select the field for each profiling attribute to see what values are available.
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If you need to add values, create a new topic and select an element in it, such as a
paraelement. Then use the Element attributes section to add a new filter attribute, for example,xinfo:product. Paligo displays the Profiling values dialog and you can use that to add new values for the element.Repeat this step for each filter attribute and value that you need for your publication.
When Paligo has all of the filter values that you need, you can Set Up the Taxonomy Tags.
When you have added the filter values you need to Paligo, you Create Taxonomy Tags to mark your content for filtering.
You should create a taxonomy tag to represent:
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Each filter attribute that you want to use. The filter attributes define the type of filter, for example, PRODUCT.
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Each filter value that you want to use. The filter values define the condition, for example, ACME 1050 could be a condition for a PRODUCT filter.
The filter value tags have to be at a lower-level than the filter attribute tags in the taxonomy hierarchy.
The taxonomy tags you create need to have the same names as the filters and filter values that they represent.
For example, if you have a topic that is only relevant to an "ACME 1050" product, you could use an xinfo:product filter. For this, you would create a tag called "product" and then add a lower-level tag for "ACME 1050". (When setting the taxonomy tag names, do not include the xinfo prefix).
Note that the taxonomy tags for filter attributes should be named to match the filter attribute name.
To set up taxonomy tags for filtering:
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Select the Taxonomy Manager in the Content Manager to open the structure.
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Create Taxonomy Tags for the Filter Attributes and the filter values needed.
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For filter attribute tags, the tag name has to match the attribute name (but do not include any
xinfoprefix). For example, if you want a taxonomy filter for thexinfo:marketfilter attribute, create a tag named:market. -
For filter value tags, set the name to match the value. For example, if you have a
marketfilter with a value of "USA", the taxonomy tag for this should also be named "USA".
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Arrange the taxonomy tags, by drag and drop, into a logical hierarchy.
The filter attribute tags must be the "parent" and the value tags must be "children" in the hierarchy.
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Filter attribute tags are at the highest level (below the taxonomies tag, but above all other tags)
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Value tags are at a lower level than the filter attribute that they relate to.
In the image "Market" (1) is the filter attribute tag. All of the other tags are filter value tags (2). Note that you can have many levels of filter value tags, so that you can have greater control when filtering.
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Tip
When you have set up the taxonomy tags, you can Apply Taxonomy Tags to Topics.
When you have the appropriate tags and hierarchy in place, you can apply the taxonomy filter tags to your topics.
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Select the dotted menu ( ... ) for the Taxonomies tag in the Content Manager, and choose Taxonomy Floating Content Panel.
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In the Taxonomy Floating Content Panel, find the tag that you want to apply to a topic. Drag the tag onto the topic in the Content Manager.
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Repeat step 2 for each topic that you want to filter.
When you have applied the taxonomy tags to your topics, the next step is to choose how Paligo uses the taxonomy hierarchy when it applies the filters.
For taxonomy filters, Paligo gives you the option to choose a filter strategy. The strategy affects how Paligo matches the filters and determines what topics should be included or excluded from your publication.
To choose the taxonomy filter strategy:
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Select Layout in the top menu.
Paligo displays a list of Layouts. The list is empty if there are no custom Layouts in your Paligo instance.
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Select the Layout you want to update or Create a Layout.
Tip
You can copy the URL of the Layout Editor and paste it into a new tab in your browser. This can be useful if you frequently switch between your Paligo content and the Layout settings.
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Select Classes and attributes.
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Select Enable for Output taxonomies.
This setting has to be enabled for taxonomy filtering to work.
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Select Exact Value or Descendants for Taxonomy filtering strategy.
This setting is labelled as Taxonomy filtering on some layouts.
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Exact value
If you choose Exact value, Paligo will ignore the taxonomy hierarchy. When you publish and choose what filters to apply, Paligo will only include topics that:
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Have a taxonomy tag that matches the filter attribute and filter value that you set for the publication.
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Are not marked up to use the filter attribute that you set for the publication.
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Descendants
If you choose Descendants, Paligo will use the taxonomy hierarchy to determine which topics should be included or excluded.
When you publish and choose what filters to apply, Paligo will only include:
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Topics that have a taxonomy tag that matches the filter attribute and filter value. We will call this tag the "descendant" tag.
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Topics that have a tag that is a "parent" of the "descendant" tag in the taxonomy hierarchy. Note that Paligo includes not only the immediate "parent" tag, but also the "parent" of that tag and so on, until the top-level is reached.
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Topics that are not marked up to use the filter attribute that you set for the publication.
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Select Save.
When you have set a taxonomy strategy, you can publish your content and set the filters that you want it to use.
This example gives a detailed look at how the exact value and descendant value taxonomy strategies affect the results of a filter.
Example 7. Taxonomy strategy
Let's say you have the following hierarchy for a Product filter, and you filter the publication to include Product: ACME 1050. This is how the filtering strategies will work:
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Exact value filter strategy applied |
Descendants filter strategy applied |
The first image shows how the Exact value filter strategy works.
Paligo will ignore the structure of the taxonomy hierarchy. This means that the published output will include:
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Topics that have the "ACME 1050" tag. Note that it has to be a "child" of the "Product" tag.
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Topics that do not have any "Product" taxonomy tag
Paligo will exclude any topics that have a "Product" tag but with a different value to "ACME 1050".
The second image shows how the Descendants filter strategy works. Paligo uses the taxonomy hierarchy and includes topics that have the matching tag ("ACME 1050") or are "parents" of the matching tag. This means that the published output will contain:
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Topics that have the "ACME 1050" tag. Note that it has to be a "child" of the "Product" tag.
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Topics that have the "ACME 1000" tag or "ACME" tag, as these are "parent" tags of the "ACME 1050" tag in the taxonomy hierarchy.
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Topics that do not have any "Product" taxonomy tag
Paligo will exclude any topics that have a "Product" tag but with a different value to "ACME 1050".
When you publish your content, you can choose which Filter Attributes to apply to the output. There is a field for each profiling attribute and you can set one or more values. Note that filter attributes are also known as profiling attributes.
If you choose a single value, Paligo will:
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Include any content that has the filter attribute and the value you defined (for that filter attribute)
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Include any content that does not have the filter attribute
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Exclude any content that has the filter attribute, but with a different value.
If you choose multiple values, the filter works as an OR filter. Paligo will then filter like this:
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Include any content that has the filter attribute and any of the values you defined (for that filter attribute)
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Include any content that does not have the filter attribute
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Exclude any content that has the filter attribute, but with a different value to the ones you defined.
When you apply filtering, it is important to understand the "inclusive" filter behavior we have described. Also, be aware that each filter attribute is handled separately. Choosing a value for one filter attribute does not mean Paligo automatically applies the same value for other filter attributes. The example at the end of this article shows how you can include and exclude content with filters.
To apply publishing filters:
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Select the dotted menu (...) for the topic or publication in Content Manager.
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Select Publish.
Paligo displays the Publish document dialog.
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Select an Output type (PDF, HTML, HTML5, Word, XML, eLearning or SCORM).
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Set the Languages, Variables and Optional Parameters.
Tip
These are common publishing settings, see Publish Content.
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Select Edit in the Profiling attributes section.
The Profiling attributes dialog contains a field for each available filter attribute.
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Decide which filter attributes and values you want to apply to your publication. Then, for each filter that you want to use, select the profiling value from the menu.
To learn how to create more profiling values, see Create Profiling Values.
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Repeat steps 5 and 6 for each profiling attribute you want to apply.
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Select OK.
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Select Publish document to publish your content.
Example 8. Include and exclude content using an audience filter attribute
Let's say you have a publication with these topics:
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Install the shield app
This topic is only for IT admin users.
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Set your preferences
This topic is suitable for all users.
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Learning the basics
This topic is only for beginner users.
You want to publish a help center designed for IT admin users. For this, you need to include "Install the shield app" and "Set your preferences" but exclude "Learning the basics". To make this possible, you add the audience filter attribute to the section element in the appropriate topics, and set the values as follows:
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You give "Install the shield app" the
audienceattribute on thesectionelement. You set the attribute value to:IT admin(you add a value with this name). -
You leave "Set your preferences" with the default settings. It does not need an
audienceattribute as this content is suitable for all users. -
You give "Learning the basics" the
audienceattribute and set its value toNovice. Again, you add a value with this name and the attribute is on thesectionelement.
You then publish your content. In the publishing settings, you apply the audience filter and you choose the IT admin value.
When Paligo generates the output, it:
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Includes "Install the shield app" as it has audience:IT admin. You chose to use content that has the audience filter attribute with the admin value.
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Includes "Set your preferences" as this does not have the audience filter attribute. By default, Paligo includes any content that does not have the filter attributes you chose to use.
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Excludes "Learning the basics" as it has the filter attribute, but it does not have admin as the value. Instead it has novice, which does not match your filter criteria, and so the content is excluded.
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