Difference between revisions of "Help:Categories"

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MediaWiki allows you to categorize pages by adding one or more category tags to the text.  Adding these tags create links at the bottom of the article which take you to the list of all pages in that category, which makes it easy to browse related articles.
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{{PD Help Page}}
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Categories, a software feature of MediaWiki, provide automatic indexes that are useful as tables of contents.
  
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== How to add categories ==
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You can categorize pages and files by adding one or more '''Category''' {{#ifeq:Category|{{ns:category}}||'''({{ns:category}})'''}} tags to the content text. These tags create links at the bottom of the page that take you to the list of all pages in that category, which makes it easy to browse related articles.
  
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To add an article to a category put the following at the end of the page you are editing...
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== Summary ==
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Each of the pages in the '''Category''' [[Help:Namespace|namespace]] represents a so-called '''category''', a grouping of related pages, and contain an index for the pages of its category. For example, this page belongs to "[[:Category:Help]]". If you open the "[[:Category:Help]]" page, you will see a link to this page there.
  
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<nowiki>[[Category:NAME]]</nowiki>
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When a page belongs to one or more categories, these categories appears at the bottom of the page (or in the upper-right corner, depending on the [[Help:Preferences|skin]] being used).
  
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where NAME is the name of the category you want to add it to.  Any number of category tags may be added to the page - the page will be listed in all of them.
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The category pages themselves contain 2 parts :
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* at their beginning, an optional part may contain text that can be edited, like any other page,
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* at their end, an ever present, automatically generated, alphabetical list of all pages in that category, in the form of links. (In fact, in ASCII order. See [[Help:Special page]]).
  
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You can also specify an additional SORT parameter that dictates where the page will appear, alphabetically, within the category. This is achieved by using the following markup:
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To assign a category to a page, simply add the link "<nowiki>[[</nowiki>Category:''Category name'']]" to the page's wikitext. The usual place to add it is at the botton of the page.
  
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  <nowiki>[[Category:NAME|SORT]]</nowiki>
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To link a category page within a page as a normal wiki link (without adding the page to the category), prefix the link name with a colon. For example: <nowiki>[[</nowiki>:Category:Not in this category]]
  
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So for example, to add this page to the 'Help' category, you would use:
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New categories can be [[Help:Starting a new page|created]] before assigning any page to it, in the same way as any other regular page.
  
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<nowiki>[[Category:Help|Categories]]</nowiki>
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Individual wikis may have their own top-level categories, such as [[w:Category:Contents]] in Wikipedia.
  
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Note that we used 'Categories' as the sort parameter.  Without this the page would be listed under 'H' for 'Help:Categories',  instead of under 'C', which is more useful.  Other situations where you might want to use the sort parameter is when you have articles about people that are titled as <code>FirstName LastName</code> but within the category you want them listed as <code>LastName, FirstName</code>.
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For a complete list of all categories which have at least one page, see [[Special:Categories]].
  
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Another way to sort the article in the correct letter without the namespace is
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For a complete list of all categories, including the ones that don't have any page, see [[Special:Allpages/Category:]] (note the colon at the end).
  
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<nowiki>[[Category:Help|{{SUBPAGENAME}}]]</nowiki>
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==Adding a page to a category==
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To add a page or uploaded file to a category, simply edit the page and add the following text (where '''''Name''''' is the name of the category you want to add it to).
  
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This is extremely helpful when using templates which include a category tag. ...
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<nowiki>[[</nowiki>{{ns:category}}:'''''Name''''']]
  
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''Note: the SORT parameter does '''not''' affect how the page title is displayed within the category listing, just how it is ordered.  In the above example, the link to this page will still be 'Help:Categories', and not 'Categories' as you might expect!''
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Any number of {{ns:category}} tags may be added to the page and the page will be listed in all of them. {{ns:category}} tags are usually added at the very bottom of the page for the convenience of other editors.
  
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== Linking to Category Pages ==
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===Sort key===
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By default, a page is sorted under the first letter of its full name ''including the namespace''. Also, MediaWiki groups accented characters separately from their unaccented version, so pages starting by À, Á, Ä, will be listed under separate headings, instead of under heading A.
  
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To create a link to a category page:
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A ''sort key'' specifies under which letter heading, and where in the category list, the page will appear. You can add a sort key by placing it inside the tag after a pipe character. For example, the tag below will add the page under heading "S".
  
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  <nowiki>[[:Category:NAME]]</nowiki>
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  <nowiki>[[</nowiki>{{ns:category}}:'''''Name'''''|'''''Sort''''']]
  
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If you were linking to the Category Page for Help on MediaWiki, the link would look like this: [[:Category:Help]]
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Sort keys are case-sensitive, and spaces and other characters are also valid. The order of the sections within a category follows the Unicode sort order. The sort key does not change the page title displayed in the category.
  
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If you want to display alternate text for the link:
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==Creating a category page==
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Categories exist even if their page has not been created, but these categories are isolated from others and serve little purpose for organization or navigation.
  
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<nowiki>[[:Category:NAME|TEXT]]</nowiki>
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A category is created by creating a page in the '''''Category:''''' namespace. A category page can be created the same way as other wiki pages (see [[Help:Starting a new page]]); just add "<code>{{ns:category}}:</code>" before the page title.
  
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Here is an example of the same link to the Category Page for Help on MediaWiki as above, but with alternative text: [[:Category:Help|MediaWiki Help Index]]
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To avoid extra work, try searching within your wiki before creating a new category. The list of all categories can be found in "{{int:specialpages}}" in the "{{lcfirst:{{int:toolbox}}}}" box of the [[Help:Navigation#Sidebar|sidebar]].
  
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== Categorize Categories==
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Unlike other wiki pages, it is not possible to rename (move) a category. It is necessary to create a new category and change the {{ns:category}} tag on every page. The new category will not have the older category's page history, which is undesirable if there are many revisions.
  
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Categories themselves and other uploaded files like Pictures can be categorized exactly like normal pages. It is useful to connect the article-categories with categories already in place to establish connections and hierarchies. To this end, after saving the article, follow the category links at the end of the page to see, if the category is already in place and if not, categorize them until you connect them with an existing category.
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==Managing the category hierarchy== 
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Categories may belong to other categories in a hierarchy. Since category pages are much like any other page, a {{ns:category}} tag may be added to the bottom of a category page.  
  
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==Moving categories==
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It is a good idea to organize all categories into a hierarchy with a single top level category. The category structure can take the form of a tree with separate branches, but more often will have a graph structure. Generally, there should be a contiguous chain of parent-child links between each category and the top level category.  
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Categories cannot be easily moved [[Help:Moving a page|like other pages]]. For this reason, category names should be chosen carefully.
 
  
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The easiest way (for those with admin privileges) is to create the new page, delete the old one, and then change the tags in each member of the category (manually or with a bot). However, this loses the page history - not a huge problem when categories are used only for navigation, but when a wiki is structured differently and the category pages contain significant amounts of text, this is undesirable.
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==Hidden categories==
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The categories that a page is in are normally listed at the bottom of the page. A category can be hidden from this list by adding the [[Help:Magic words|magic word]] "<code><nowiki>__HIDDENCAT__</nowiki></code>" to the category page. Hidden categories are not hidden from category pages ({{bugzilla|15550}}).
  
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=== Moving with revision history ===
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Users can choose to see hidden categories in a separate "{{int:hidden-categories}}" list, by checking "{{int:tog-showhiddencats}}" in the "{{int:prefs-rendering}}" section of [[Special:Preferences]].
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However, category pages ''can'' be moved together with the full revision history, with some effort, by using the [[Special:Export]] and [[Special:Import]] functions.
 
  
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Hidden categories are automatically added to [[:Category:{{mediawiki:hidden-category-category}}]]. This category is specified in the system message [[MediaWiki:Hidden-category-category]].
  
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==Linking to a category==
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To create a link to a category, use a leading colon before the category name (without this colon, the current page would be added to the category):
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:<code><nowiki>[[</nowiki>:{{ns:category}}:Help]]</code> &rarr; '''[[:{{ns:category}}:Help]]'''
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To change the link text, write the text inside the link tag after a pipe:
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:<code><nowiki>[[</nowiki>:{{ns:category}}:Help|Help category]]</code> &rarr; '''[[:{{ns:category}}:Help|Help category]]'''
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[[Help:Redirects|Redirect pages]] that redirect to categories must also use the colon, otherwise they will be added to the category instead of redirecting.
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==Redirecting a category==
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Like normal wiki pages, category pages can be redirected to other normal or category pages.
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{{Languages}}
 
[[Category:Help|Categories]]
 
[[Category:Help|Categories]]

Latest revision as of 02:16, 7 December 2010

PD Important note: When you edit this page, you agree to release your contribution into the public domain. If you don't want this or can't do this because of license restrictions, please don't edit. This page is one of the Public Domain Help Pages, which can be freely copied into fresh wiki installations and/or distributed with MediaWiki software; see Help:Contents for an overview of all pages. See Project:PD help/Copying for instructions. PD

Categories, a software feature of MediaWiki, provide automatic indexes that are useful as tables of contents.

You can categorize pages and files by adding one or more Category tags to the content text. These tags create links at the bottom of the page that take you to the list of all pages in that category, which makes it easy to browse related articles.

Summary

Each of the pages in the Category namespace represents a so-called category, a grouping of related pages, and contain an index for the pages of its category. For example, this page belongs to "Category:Help". If you open the "Category:Help" page, you will see a link to this page there.

When a page belongs to one or more categories, these categories appears at the bottom of the page (or in the upper-right corner, depending on the skin being used).

The category pages themselves contain 2 parts :

  • at their beginning, an optional part may contain text that can be edited, like any other page,
  • at their end, an ever present, automatically generated, alphabetical list of all pages in that category, in the form of links. (In fact, in ASCII order. See Help:Special page).

To assign a category to a page, simply add the link "[[Category:Category name]]" to the page's wikitext. The usual place to add it is at the botton of the page.

To link a category page within a page as a normal wiki link (without adding the page to the category), prefix the link name with a colon. For example: [[:Category:Not in this category]]

New categories can be created before assigning any page to it, in the same way as any other regular page.

Individual wikis may have their own top-level categories, such as w:Category:Contents in Wikipedia.

For a complete list of all categories which have at least one page, see Special:Categories.

For a complete list of all categories, including the ones that don't have any page, see Special:Allpages/Category: (note the colon at the end).

Adding a page to a category

To add a page or uploaded file to a category, simply edit the page and add the following text (where Name is the name of the category you want to add it to). 

[[Category:Name]]

Any number of Category tags may be added to the page and the page will be listed in all of them. Category tags are usually added at the very bottom of the page for the convenience of other editors.

Sort key

By default, a page is sorted under the first letter of its full name including the namespace. Also, MediaWiki groups accented characters separately from their unaccented version, so pages starting by À, Á, Ä, will be listed under separate headings, instead of under heading A.

A sort key specifies under which letter heading, and where in the category list, the page will appear. You can add a sort key by placing it inside the tag after a pipe character. For example, the tag below will add the page under heading "S". 

[[Category:Name|Sort]]

Sort keys are case-sensitive, and spaces and other characters are also valid. The order of the sections within a category follows the Unicode sort order. The sort key does not change the page title displayed in the category.

Creating a category page

Categories exist even if their page has not been created, but these categories are isolated from others and serve little purpose for organization or navigation.

A category is created by creating a page in the Category: namespace. A category page can be created the same way as other wiki pages (see Help:Starting a new page); just add "Category:" before the page title.

To avoid extra work, try searching within your wiki before creating a new category. The list of all categories can be found in "Special pages" in the "tools" box of the sidebar.

Unlike other wiki pages, it is not possible to rename (move) a category. It is necessary to create a new category and change the Category tag on every page. The new category will not have the older category's page history, which is undesirable if there are many revisions.

Managing the category hierarchy

Categories may belong to other categories in a hierarchy. Since category pages are much like any other page, a Category tag may be added to the bottom of a category page.

It is a good idea to organize all categories into a hierarchy with a single top level category. The category structure can take the form of a tree with separate branches, but more often will have a graph structure. Generally, there should be a contiguous chain of parent-child links between each category and the top level category.

Hidden categories

The categories that a page is in are normally listed at the bottom of the page. A category can be hidden from this list by adding the magic word "__HIDDENCAT__" to the category page. Hidden categories are not hidden from category pages (bug 15550).

Users can choose to see hidden categories in a separate "Hidden categories" list, by checking "Show hidden categories" in the "Appearance" section of Special:Preferences.

Hidden categories are automatically added to Category:Hidden categories. This category is specified in the system message MediaWiki:Hidden-category-category.

Linking to a category

To create a link to a category, use a leading colon before the category name (without this colon, the current page would be added to the category):

[[:Category:Help]] → Category:Help

To change the link text, write the text inside the link tag after a pipe:

[[:Category:Help|Help category]] → Help category

Redirect pages that redirect to categories must also use the colon, otherwise they will be added to the category instead of redirecting.

Redirecting a category

Like normal wiki pages, category pages can be redirected to other normal or category pages.

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