Is there any way of specifying a default category for a category field?

Question

I've set up a channel using categories to distinguish between different blog post types. The majority will probably be in one category, so it would be great to be able to specify a default category. However, as far as I can see the Category field type (unlike, say, the Drop Down field type) doesn't give you the option to set a default... Is there any way of doing this?

Answer 1

You could output the categories in a way that makes them look like they are from a specific category when they don't have any categories assigned to them.

When you're outputting any of the entries, just add a custom link if there isn't a category assigned:

{% if entry.categories|length %}
    {% for category in entry.categories %}
        <a href="/blog/category/{{ category.url }}">{{ category.title }}</a>
    {% endfor %}
{% else %}
    <a href="/blog/category/default-category-slug">Default Category Title</a>
{% endif %}

Create a route that points "/blog/category/default-category-slug" to your filtered listing template (/blog/index, /blog/category etc.).

On the filtered listing template check if the default category slug is in the URL:

{% if craft.request.getSegment(3) == 'default-category-slug' %}

If that evaluates to true, you can now get the entries without any categories assigned to them and loop through them, see this question: How to find entries with no category:

{% set uncategorized = craft.entries.section('blog').search('-categories:*') %}
{% for entry in uncategorized %}
    {# show entry #}
{% endfor %}

---

Any other times you need to get the entries that "have" the default category, to loop through them, use .relatedTo on etc., instead of using:

{% set entriesWithDefaultCategory = craft.entries.section('blog').relatedTo('the-default-category') %}

Use this like on the filtered listing above:

{% set uncategorized = craft.entries.section('blog').search('-categories:*') %}

Answer 2

Not with the out-of-the-box field types. You could create a field type that is category+default. The Default Color plugin might be a good place to start.