taxonaut
Taxonaut replaces Drupal's default taxonomy list with a fast, interactive tree view — drag-and-drop, inline editing, search, undo, snapshots, and CSV import for managing large vocabularies easily.
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### Features
Drupal's built-in taxonomy term list works fine for small vocabularies, but becomes unmanageable once you have hundreds or thousands of terms across multiple levels. Taxonaut solves this by providing a modern, interactive tree view purpose-built for working with large hierarchical taxonomies.
**Core functionality:**
- **Interactive tree view** — collapsible hierarchy with lazy-loaded children, so even vocabularies with 100,000+ terms load instantly
- **Drag-and-drop reordering** — reorder terms within a level or move them to a new parent with visual confirmation
- **Inline editing** — double-click any term to rename it in place, no page reload needed
- **Add terms from the tree** — create child terms directly where you need them without leaving the page
**Organization tools:**
- **Term merging** — merge duplicate terms with automatic entity reference reassignment across all content
- **Bulk operations** — select multiple terms to publish, unpublish, or delete at once
- **Duplicate detection** — automatically find terms with identical names across your vocabulary
- **Weight normalization** — clean up fragmented term weights to sequential 0, 1, 2, 3...
**Safety and recovery:**
- **Undo/Redo** — Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z with a full operation history, so mistakes are never permanent
- **Snapshots** — save a named backup of your vocabulary hierarchy before making big changes, restore with one click
**Search and navigation:**
- **Server-side search** — real-time search across all terms with full ancestry path display (Electronics > Smartphones > Apple)
- **Navigate to result** — click a search result and the tree expands the entire path to that term automatically
**Import and export:**
- **CSV import** — bulk import terms from spreadsheets with automatic parent matching by name
- **JSON import** — import structured term data
- **CSV/JSON export** — export your entire vocabulary for backup or migration
**Statistics:**
- Total terms, root terms, published/unpublished counts
- Depth analysis
- Duplicate term finder
**Keyboard shortcuts:**
- `/` — focus search
- `Escape` — clear search
- `Ctrl+Z` — undo
- `Ctrl+Shift+Z` — redo
- `Enter`/`Space` — expand or collapse the focused term
**When to use Taxonaut:**
- You manage product catalogs with hundreds of categories and subcategories
- You maintain geographic or organizational hierarchies
- You need to clean up taxonomy data imported from another system
- You regularly reorganize term structures and need undo safety
- You want to merge duplicate terms without losing content references
- Your vocabularies are too large for Drupal's default list view to handle
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### Post-Installation
After enabling Taxonaut, no additional configuration is needed. Access the tree view from any of these entry points:
1. **Taxonomy admin page** (`/admin/structure/taxonomy`) — each vocabulary now has a **Tree View** link in its operations dropdown menu
2. **Vocabulary tabs** — when viewing any vocabulary's term list, a new **Tree View** tab appears alongside the existing List and Edit tabs
3. **Direct URL** — go to `/admin/structure/taxonomy/{vocabulary-machine-name}/tree`
All operations require the core **Administer taxonomy** permission. For more granular control, Taxonaut provides per-vocabulary permissions: **Taxonaut: Manage terms in {vocabulary name}**. Assign these at `/admin/people/permissions`.
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### Additional Requirements
- Drupal 10.3 or higher, or Drupal 11
- PHP 8.1 or higher
- Core Taxonomy module (ships with Drupal)
No additional contributed modules are required. Taxonaut ships with SortableJS (MIT license) bundled in the module for drag-and-drop functionality — no external library installation needed.
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### Recommended modules/libraries
Taxonaut works with any Drupal admin theme. It has been tested with:
- **Claro** (core default admin theme) — full support
- **Gin** (popular contributed admin theme) — full support
For large-scale taxonomy imports, consider pairing Taxonaut with:
- **Feeds** — for automated, recurring imports from external sources
- **Migrate** — for one-time migrations from other systems
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### Similar projects
- **[Taxonomy Manager](https://www.drupal.org/project/taxonomy_manager)** — the long-standing taxonomy management module. Provides a dual-tree interface for moving terms between vocabularies. Taxonaut differs by focusing on single-vocabulary management with lazy loading for performance, a modern UI with inline editing, undo/redo, snapshots, and CSV import/export.
- **[Enhanced Taxonomy Manager (ETM)](https://www.drupal.org/project/etm)** — a newer module with tree view and AI features. Taxonaut is a simpler, lighter alternative focused on core taxonomy management without additional dependencies. Taxonaut includes CSV/JSON import/export which ETM does not.
- **[Taxonomy Manager Lite](https://www.drupal.org/project/taxonomy_manager_lite)** — a minimal module for cleaning up unassigned terms. Taxonaut provides a more complete management solution with full CRUD, hierarchy editing, and bulk operations.
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### Supporting this Module
Taxonaut is free and open source. If you find it useful, you can support development by:
- Reporting bugs and feature requests in the [issue queue](https://www.drupal.org/project/issues/taxonaut)
- Contributing code improvements via merge requests
- Sharing the module with other Drupal site builders
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### Community Documentation
- **Demo site:** http://64.225.59.149:8080/ (admin / Synica2026!) — pre-loaded with Product Categories (3 levels, 45 terms), Locations (3 levels, 25 terms), and Skills (flat, with intentional duplicates for testing the merge feature). Go to Structure > Taxonomy > Product Categories > Tree View.
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