There are a few ways to go about customizing ODP:

• template root: By modifying the root property of a directory template you can specify one or more categories as new top level categories. The new root just applies the directory template and is a powerful feature in that the structure of ODP is dynamically modified to reflect the new organization. For example see also links will disappear if they are not included in the content set, category paths on category pages and search result pages will change to reflect the new top-level categories, etc..
• category filter: You can specify category paths that you wish to exclude from the ODP import process. For example if you specify: Regional/North America/United States this category will be excluded at import and wont be available in any directory templates.
• directory root: The default directory root is 1 by default which indicates that the entire ODP directory is to be imported and used as part of templates. Changing this to a one or more category id's will make NRS filter out all content but that specified at the next ODP import.

In this tutorial we will explore the latter directory root option.

Step 1: Modify Directory Root

In admin, click on the 'Directory' tab. The Directory root currently says '1'. In this tutorial we will change the directory root to include the categories for : Top/Computers/Virtual Reality , AND Top/Science/Technology/Nanotechnology.

We need to lookup the category id's for these categories. Click on 'Directory|category list' and enter 'virtual reality' in the filter and press enter. The ID of 41178 shows for the category we want, the one with the most URLs. For nanotechnology we get an ID of 326.

Back under the 'Directory tab' we now enter a value for Directory root(s): 41178,326 and press update.

When the directory root is changed it not only affects what is next imported from ODP, it also affects the content displayed on the default directory template. You can see how it will look after import by selecting the 'directory' template under the 'Templates' tab.

Step 2: Re-import ODP

Under the 'Directory' tab, click 'Start' next to directory update. NRS will download the latest RDF files from http://rdf.dmoz.org/rdf/ and this time filter out unwanted categories and sites. You will be left with a much smaller database.

Step 3: Next steps

This concludes the tutorial. You might want to setup a collection at this point to crawl and index your new content set. You can also build an application that, like the demo application, features news, search, directory, and mail.

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