I have a project that I need to work on which I am thinking may require me to create thousands of K2 items with possibly hundreds of tags all published within potentially only one category. I am open to advice on the best way to do this and will explain now why I am thinking the way I am in case you all have some better advice for me.

We are gathering information on Scientific Studies where we will be summarizing the studies. They will all be related to disease conditions and lifestyle.

So, I was thinking to make a Category and Subcategory that would include Parent and child categories.

For example this could be some of the disease conditions:

Cancer
Lung Cancer
Breast Cancer
Prostate Cancer
etc...

Unfortunately there are some studies that will refer to more than one type of cancer. So, then I thought to use Tags instead of child categories.

At the same time there are other variables that I had also thought to use tags for. These are for things that can also relate to the disease conditions but are not disease conditions.

For example this could be some of the lifestyle conditions:

Exercise
Red Meat
Processed Meats
Pesticides
etc...

These Disease Items and Lifestyle Items really have a many to many relationship.

The Items will be very short in nature generally composing a very long title, a very short summary paragraph and then links the sources for more information about the studies.

How many items can I reasonably put within a K2 Category?

I have been considering only having ONE category and doing all the organizing with tags only. Is this a reasonable idea?

Is there a better way that I should be going instead of doing this through K2?

Thank you very much for any of your advice and suggestions!

Sean Carney

Since you have many to many relationships, tags are a good idea.
There is no limit in how many items a category can have.

I have seen sites with 500k+ items which work like a charm.

Thank you very much for the reply. I also noted that somebody had created a Multiple Categories for K2 add on. I wonder how that would work? although, my preference is to use as add ons as little as possible. That said, the reviews are all glowing for that product. I really would prefer to put my items into multiple categories and also use tags. :-)

Actually, I see that there are a few K2 Multiple categories options so I am anxious to hear from anybody that has used them. :-)

@Sean Carney

The best way to get an opinion about an extension is read what people have to say. The Additional Categories for K2 is a quite popular extension. You can try it to see if it fits your needs.

@lefteris,

Thank you for your reply. I had read the reviews on both Additional Categories for K2 and also on Inceptive Multiple Categories for K2. They both have good reviews. Although I don't put as much stock in the JED reviews due to the fact that so many of the reviews are written by people who have just bought and implemented the products. So, I like to ask people who use these tools for a living and have had experience over the long haul.

in this case I see that Inceptive Multiple Categories for K2 makes a pretty big deal about the fact that their software does not hack the K2 core. That is interesting. I am concerned not to get a solution that makes it harder for me to update K2. So, I would love to know if anybody know if Additional Categories for K2 does indeed modify the K2 core and if updating K2 would then write over those changes again!

On the other side of this coin, I want to be able to have joomla display lists of the categories using the K2 Content module and it seems like the 'hack' may have been done in order to achieve this. So, possibly Inceptive does not do the 'hack' but also can't display the data?

I was hoping to hear from somebody who might already have tried some of the options and has experience to share.

Thanks again for your comment!

Sean Carney

I don't think that "Additional categories for K2" requires hacking K2. However you can always check this out at the developer website.

I have never used any of those extensions, so i cannot suggest any of them.

Maybe some other users of the forum have an experience and can share it.

@SeanCarney This is so crazy, I was just taking notes on this very same matter this morning.

I have a serious need to publish content into multiple categories. I recently explored the option of utilizing tags to keep everything K2 core, hence my post (see below). I quickly realized, that I need the fully feature of categories to properly present my content.

K2 Tags vs Categories
www.joomlaworks.net/forum/k2-en/44148-k2-tags-vs-categories

Currently, I am using Additional Categories for K2. It seems to be working well on the frontend, but I am not able to see items when I filter using an additional category (works fine for primary category sorting). I posted my issue to the Netpin support forum - awaiting a response:
www.netpin.gr/forum/2-support/241-view-additional-cat-items-in-backend-item-list

Note: I did have to modify a file or two, documentation and downloadable files are available on the Netpin website:
www.netpin.gr/documentation/item/2-k2-additional-categories

I compiled the following list of requirements:

* Performance (can anyone tell me how either plugins impact performance?)
* Backend Item List Filtering
* K2 2.7 and v3 Compatibility
* Minimal Hacks
* Support

I am now considering trying Inceptive Multiple Categories for K2, as it is a paid extension (which I prefer) and would assume provides better support. I also like the developer has multiple K2-related extensions. This makes me feel as though they are fully invested into K2.

Now the question is which plugin should I utilize? I am open to any suggestions.

Note: I did send the Netpin developer a donation as way of saying thank you for their contribution to the K2 Ecosystem :)

@Joe Campbell,

Thanks for your comments. I had found the page that describes the hacks and played with a couple that did work for me. But, I reverted back to being non-hacked and hope I can stay that way. :-) I sure wish that K2 tags would allow for nesting and reordering. :-)

I am also VERY interested to hear how your experience with Inceptive Multiple Categories for K2 as I also love the ability to get support. I wonder if they or anybody else has extended the TAGs so that they can be nested like the regular Joomla tags. If I could have Multiple Categories AND Nested Tags I would be very pleased. Apparently that can be done in straight Joomla, without using K2 by using the software CW Multicategories: extensions.joomla.org/extension/cw-multicategories
They also apparently have some Tag extending software but I have not found a description of what those extensions are. :-)

Sean

PS. Please keep me informed about what you find from Inceptive! :-)