Problem/Motivation
Since Entity reference module patch went in the taxonomy reference field, duplicates functionality already provided by entity reference.
Proposed resolution
Turn existing taxonomy reference fields into entity reference ones and remove the taxonomy reference field.
The patch has been authored by the Entity Reference maintainers (@amitaibu and @amateescu) and has signoff from the Taxonomy module maintainer (@xjm). @Dries also approved the direction of the patch in #195 (as of November 2014, during the beta phase). Since it introduces significant disruption, it has an upgrade path deadline.
Beta phase evaluation
| Issue category | Task because there is no functional bug. |
|---|---|
| Issue priority | Major because it:
|
| Prioritized changes | The main goal of this issue is usability. The patch also improves maintainability by removing what is essentially a second code path for the same functionality (diffstat: 373 insertions, 2042 deletions). |
| Disruption | The patch introduces significant disruption:
|
Remaining tasks
- Address usability issue with presenting "Term reference" field selection on two different steps of the Add field workflow (see #261). To be addressed in #2458777: [PP-1] Improve the user experience for the "preconfigured field options" concept.
- A possible beta-to-beta migration path will be provided in #2456419: Upgrade to Drupal 8 and provide a beta2beta submodule.
- A labeling inconsistency in the field UI between adding and managing fields will be addressed in #2458127: Show target type of ER field on manage field page..
User interface changes
The taxonomy field storage and field settings are replaced by the entity reference ones.
API changes
The 'taxonomy_term_reference' field type is removed, including widgets, formatters, the taxonomy autocomplete controller, etc. All functionality is replaced with Entity Reference functionality.
Related issues
- #1953444: Make 'target bundles' required on the Entity reference instance settings form
- #1953832: Replace 'target type' on entity reference field settings with something clearer
- #1818560: Convert taxonomy entities to the new Entity Field API
- #1120144: Term Reference Autocomplete widget - add option to match only start of term and expose settings (size, match) (for 8.x) is waiting on this
- #1847590: Fix UX of entity reference field type selection
- #680546: Add a custom 'number of values' for 'multiple / multi-value' field. (e.g. nodereference, imagefield)
- #1953568: Make the bundle settings for entity reference fields more visible.
- #1953770: Move the field-specific settings form elements at the top of the form
- (waiting on usability testing) #1953438: Don't expose the term 'Entity' to users
- #889378: Create taxonomy fields from the taxonomy administration page
- #394482: Users should be able to enable a vocabularly from the content type configuration page
- #1963340: Change field UI so that adding a field is a separate task
- #2412569: Target bundle for auto-created entity references with multiple target bundles
Original report by Amitaibu
That's kind of the whole purpose of #1801304: Add Entity reference field :)