README.txt 13 KB

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  1. Metatag
  2. -------
  3. This module allows you to automatically provide structured metadata, aka "meta
  4. tags", about your website and web pages.
  5. In the context of search engine optimization, providing an extensive set of
  6. meta tags may help improve your site's & pages' ranking, thus may aid with
  7. achieving a more prominent display of your content within search engine
  8. results. Additionally, using meta tags can help control the summary content
  9. that is used within social networks when visitors link to your site,
  10. particularly the Open Graph submodule for use with Facebook, LinkedIn, etc (see
  11. below).
  12. This version of the module only works with Drupal 7.28 and newer.
  13. Features
  14. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  15. The primary features include:
  16. * The current supported basic meta tags are ABSTRACT, DESCRIPTION, CANONICAL,
  17. GENERATOR, IMAGE_SRC, KEYWORDS, PUBLISHER, REVISIT-AFTER, RIGHTS, ROBOTS,
  18. SHORTLINK and the page's TITLE tag.
  19. * Multi-lingual support using the Entity Translation module.
  20. * Translation support using the Internationalization (i18n) module.
  21. * Full support for entity revisions and workflows based upon revision editing,
  22. e.g., Revisioning module.
  23. * Per-path control over meta tags using the "Metatag: Context" submodule
  24. (requires the Context module).
  25. * Integration with the Views module allowing meta tags to be controlled for
  26. individual Views pages, with each display in the view able to have different
  27. meta tags, by using the "Metatag: Views" submodule.
  28. * Integration with the Panels module allowing meta tags to be controlled for
  29. individual Panels pages, by using the "Metatag: Panels" submodule.
  30. * The fifteen Dublin Core Basic Element Set 1.1 meta tags may be added by
  31. enabling the "Metatag: Dublin Core" submodule.
  32. * The Open Graph Protocol meta tags, as used by Facebook, LinkedIn and other
  33. sites, may be added by enabling the "Metatag: Open Graph" submodule.
  34. * The Twitter Cards meta tags may be added by enabling the "Metatag: Twitter
  35. Cards" submodule.
  36. * Certain meta tags used by Google+ may be added by enabling the "Metatag:
  37. Google+" submodule.
  38. * Facebook's fb:app_id and fb:admins meta tags may be added by enabling the
  39. "Metatag: Facebook" submodule. These are useful for sites which are using
  40. Facebook widgets or are building custom integration with Facebook's APIs,
  41. but they are not needed by most sites and have no bearing on the Open Graph
  42. meta tags.
  43. * An API allowing for additional meta tags to be added, beyond what is provided
  44. by this module - see metatag.api.php for full details.
  45. * Support for the Migrate module for migrating data from another system - see
  46. metatag.migrate.inc for full details.
  47. * Support for the Feeds module for importing data from external data sources or
  48. file uploads.
  49. * Integrates with Devel_Generate, part of the Devel module, to automatically
  50. generate meta tags for generated nodes, via the Metatag:Devel submodule.
  51. * Integrates with Workbench Moderation (both v1 and v2) allowing meta tags on
  52. nodes to be managed through the workflow process.
  53. * The Transliteration and Imagecache Token modules (see below) are highly
  54. recommended when using image meta tags, e.g. og:image.
  55. * Several advanced options may be controlled via the Advanced Settings page.
  56. Configuration
  57. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  58. 1. On the People Permissions administration page ("Administer >> People
  59. >> Permissions") you need to assign:
  60. - The "Administer meta tags" permission to the roles that are allowed to
  61. access the meta tags admin pages to control the site defaults.
  62. - The "Edit meta tags" permission to the roles that are allowed to change
  63. meta tags on each individual page (node, term, etc).
  64. 2. The main administrative page controls the site-wide defaults, both global
  65. settings and defaults per entity (node, term, etc), in addition to those
  66. assigned specifically for the front page:
  67. admin/config/search/metatags
  68. 3. Each supported entity object (nodes, terms, users) will have a set of meta
  69. tag fields available for customization on their respective edit page, these
  70. will inherit their values from the defaults assigned in #2 above. Any
  71. values that are not overridden per object will automatically update should
  72. the defaults be updated.
  73. 4. As the meta tags are output using Tokens, it may be necessary to customize
  74. the token display for the site's entities (content types, vocabularies,
  75. etc). To do this go to e.g., admin/structure/types/manage/article/display,
  76. in the "Custom Display Settings" section ensure that "Tokens" is checked
  77. (save the form if necessary), then to customize the tokens go to:
  78. admin/structure/types/manage/article/display/token
  79. Internationalization: i18n.module
  80. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  81. All default configurations may be translated using the Internationalization
  82. (i18n) module. The custom strings that are assigned to e.g., the "Global: Front
  83. page" configuration will show up in the Translate Interface admin page
  84. (admin/config/regional/translate/translate) and may be customized per language.
  85. Fine Tuning
  86. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  87. All of these may be controlled from the advanced settings page:
  88. admin/config/search/metatags/settings
  89. * It is possible to "disable" the meta tags provided by Drupal core, i.e.
  90. "generator", "canonical URL" and "shortlink", though it may not be completely
  91. obvious. Metatag takes over the display of these tags, thus any changes made
  92. to them in Metatag will supercede Drupal's normal output. To hide a tag, all
  93. that is necessary is to clear the default value for that tag, e.g. on the
  94. global settings for nodes, which will result in the tag not being output for
  95. those pages.
  96. * By default Metatag will load the global default values for all pages that do
  97. not have meta tags assigned via the normal entity display or via Metatag
  98. Context. This may be disabled by setting the variable 'metatag_load_all_pages'
  99. to FALSE through one of the following methods:
  100. * Use Drush to set the value:
  101. drush vset metatag_load_all_pages FALSE
  102. * Hardcode the value in the site's settings.php file:
  103. $conf['metatag_load_all_pages'] = FALSE;
  104. To re-enable this option simply set the value to TRUE.
  105. * By default users will be able to edit meta tags on forms based on the 'Edit
  106. meta tags' permission. The 'metatag_extended_permissions' variable may be set
  107. to TRUE to give each individual meta tag a separate permission. This allows
  108. fine-tuning of the site's editorial control, and for rarely-used fields to be
  109. hidden from most users. Note: The 'Edit meta tags' permission is still
  110. required otherwise none of the meta tag fields will display at all. The
  111. functionality may be disabled again by either removing the variable or
  112. setting it to FALSE.
  113. * It's possible to disable Metatag integration for certain entity types or
  114. bundles using variables. To disable an entity just assigning a variable
  115. 'metatag_enable_{$entity_type}' or 'metatag_enable_{$entity_type}__{$bundle}'
  116. the value FALSE, e.g.:
  117. // Disable metatags for file_entity.
  118. $conf['metatag_enable_file'] = FALSE;
  119. // Disable metatags for carousel nodes.
  120. $conf['metatag_enable_node__carousel'] = FALSE;
  121. To enable the entity and/or bundle simply set the value to TRUE or remove the
  122. settings.php line. Note that the Metatag cache will need to be cleared after
  123. changing these settings, specifically the 'info' records, e.g., 'info:en'; a
  124. quick version of doing this is to clear the site caches using either Drush,
  125. Admin Menu (flush all caches), or the "Clear all caches" button on
  126. admin/config/development/performance.
  127. * By default Metatag will not display meta tags on admin pages. To enable meta
  128. tags on admin pages simply set the 'metatag_tag_admin_pages' variable to TRUE
  129. through one of the following methods:
  130. * Use Drush to set the value:
  131. drush vset metatag_tag_admin_pages TRUE
  132. * Hardcode the value in the site's settings.php file:
  133. $conf['metatag_tag_admin_pages'] = TRUE;
  134. To re-enable this option simply set the value to FALSE or delete the
  135. settings.php line.
  136. * When loading an entity with multiple languages for a specific language the
  137. meta tag values saved for that language will be used if they exist, otherwise
  138. values assigned to the entity's default language will be used. This
  139. may be disabled using the enabling the "Don't load entity's default language
  140. values if no languages match" option on the Advanced Settings page, which will
  141. cause default values to be used should there not be any values assigned for
  142. the current requested language.
  143. Developers
  144. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  145. Full API documentation is available in metatag.api.php.
  146. To enable Metatag support in custom entities, add 'metatag' => TRUE to either
  147. the entity or bundle definition in hook_entity_info(); see metatag.api.php for
  148. further details and example code.
  149. The meta tags for a given entity object (node, etc) can be obtained as follows:
  150. $metatags = metatags_get_entity_metatags($entity_id, $entity_type, $langcode);
  151. The result will be a nested array of meta tag structures ready for either output
  152. via drupal_render(), or examining to identify the actual text values.
  153. Troubleshooting / Known Issues
  154. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  155. * Image fields do not output very easily in meta tags, e.g. for og:image,
  156. without use of the Imagecache Token module (see below). This also provides a
  157. way of using an image style to resize the original images first, rather than
  158. requiring visitors download multi-megabyte original images.
  159. * When using custom page template files, e.g., page--front.tpl.php, it is
  160. important to ensure that the following code is present in the template file:
  161. <?php render($page['content']); ?>
  162. or
  163. <?php render($page['content']['metatags']); ?>
  164. Without one of these being present the meta tags will not be displayed.
  165. * Versions of Drupal older than v7.17 were missing necessary functionality for
  166. taxonomy term pages to work correctly.
  167. * Using Metatag with values assigned for the page title and the Page Title
  168. module simultaneously can cause conflicts and unexpected results.
  169. * When customizing the meta tags for user pages, it is strongly recommended to
  170. not use the [current-user] tokens, these pertain to the person *viewing* the
  171. page and not e.g., the person who authored a page.
  172. * Certain browser plugins, e.g., on Chrome, can cause the page title to be
  173. displayed with additional double quotes, e.g., instead of:
  174. <title>The page title | My cool site</title>
  175. it will show:
  176. <title>"The page title | My cool site"</title>
  177. The solution is to remove the browser plugin - the page's actual output is not
  178. affected, it is just a problem in the browser.
  179. * The core RDF module is known to cause validation problems for Open Graph meta
  180. tags output by the Metatag:OpenGraph module. Unless it is actually needed for
  181. the site, it may be worthwhile to disable the RDF module to avoid any
  182. possible problems for the Open Graph integration.
  183. * If the Administration Language (admin_language) module is installed, it is
  184. recommended to disable the "Force language neutral aliases" setting on the
  185. Admin Language settings page, i.e. set the "admin_language_force_neutral"
  186. variable to FALSE. Failing to do so can lead to data loss in Metatag.
  187. Related modules
  188. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  189. Some modules are available that extend Metatag with additional functionality:
  190. * Imagecache Token
  191. https://www.drupal.org/project/imagecache_token
  192. Provides additional tokens for image fields that can be used in e.g. the
  193. og:image meta tag; ultimately makes it possible to actually use image meta
  194. tags without writing custom code.
  195. * Transliteration
  196. https://drupal.org/project/transliteration
  197. Tidies up filenames for uploaded files, e.g. it can remove commas from
  198. filenames that could otherwise break certain meta tags.
  199. * Domain Meta Tags
  200. https://drupal.org/project/domain_meta
  201. Integrates with the Domain Access module, so each site of a multi-domain
  202. install can separately control their meta tags.
  203. * Select or Other
  204. https://drupal.org/project/select_or_other
  205. Enhances the user experience of the metatag_opengraph submodule by allowing
  206. the creation of custom Open Graph types.
  207. * Node Form Panes
  208. https://drupal.org/project/node_form_panes
  209. Create custom node-edit forms and control the location of the Metatag fields.
  210. * Textimage
  211. https://drupal.org/project/textimage
  212. Supports using Textimage's custom tokens in meta tag fields.
  213. Credits / Contact
  214. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  215. Currently maintained by Damien McKenna [1] and Dave Reid [2]; all initial
  216. development was by Dave Reid.
  217. Ongoing development is sponsored by Mediacurrent [3] and Palantir.net [4]. All
  218. initial development was sponsored by Acquia [5] and Palantir.net.
  219. The best way to contact the authors is to submit an issue, be it a support
  220. request, a feature request or a bug report, in the project issue queue:
  221. http://drupal.org/project/issues/metatag
  222. References
  223. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  224. 1: http://drupal.org/user/108450
  225. 2: http://drupal.org/user/53892
  226. 3: http://www.mediacurrent.com/
  227. 4: http://www.palantir.net/
  228. 5: http://www.acquia.com/