System categories

Using Categories

Managing Categories

System categories are defined like any other record. Each category can have a parent, making a tree-like structure.

The Items tab shows all related records, for example all records that have been marked as belonging to this category.

Adding categories to a table

Categories can be added to a table by defining a TCA field of the TCA column type category. While using this type, TYPO3 takes care of generating the necessary TCA configuration and also adds the database column automatically. Developers only have to configure the TCA column and add it to the desired record types:

$GLOBALS['TCA'][$myTable]['columns']['categories'] = [
   'config' => [
      'type' => 'category'
   ]
];

\TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\ExtensionManagementUtility::addToAllTCAtypes(
   $myTable,
   'categories'
);

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Using categories in FlexForms

It is possible to create relations to categories also in FlexForms.

Due to some limitations in FlexForm, the property relationship manyToMany is not supported. Therefore, the default value for this property is oneToMany.

<T3DataStructure>
    <ROOT>
        <TCEforms>
            <sheetTitle>aTitle</sheetTitle>
        </TCEforms>
        <type>array</type>
        <el>
            <categories>
                <TCEforms>
                    <config>
                        <type>category</type>
                    </config>
                </TCEforms>
            </categories>
        </el>
    </ROOT>
</T3DataStructure>

System categories API

Category Collections

The \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Category\Collection\CategoryCollection class provides the API for retrieving records related to a given category. It is extended by class \TYPO3\CMS\Frontend\Category\Collection\CategoryCollection which does the same job but in the frontend, i.e. respecting all enable fields and performing version and language overlays.

The main method is load() which will return a traversable list of items related to the given category. Here is an example usage, taken from the RECORDS content object:

$collection = \TYPO3\CMS\Frontend\Category\Collection\CategoryCollection::load(
   $aCategory,
   true,
   $table,
   $relationField
);
if ($collection->count() > 0) {
   // Add items to the collection of records for the current table
   foreach ($collection as $item) {
      $tableRecords[$item['uid']] = $item;
      // Keep track of all categories a given item belongs to
      if (!isset($categoriesPerRecord[$item['uid']])) {
         $categoriesPerRecord[$item['uid']] = [];
      }
      $categoriesPerRecord[$item['uid']][] = $aCategory;
   }
}

As all collection classes in the TYPO3 Core implement the Iterator interface, it is also possible to use expected methods like next(), rewind(), etc. Note that methods such as add() will only add items to the collection temporarily. The relations are not persisted in the database.

Usage with TypoScript

In the frontend, it is possible to get collections of categorized records loaded into a RECORDS content object for rendering. Check out the categories property.

The HMENU object also has a "categories" special type to display a menu based on categorized pages.

User permissions for system categories

In most aspects, system categories are treated like any other record. They can be viewed or edited by editors if they are stored in a folder where the editor has access to and if the table sys_category is allowed in the field Tables (listing) and Tables (modify) in the tab Access Lists of the user group.

Additionally it is possible to set Mounts and Workspaces > Category Mounts in the user group. If at least one category is set in the category mounts only the chosen categories are allowed to be attached to records.