Help:Category
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This page in a nutshell: Saintapedia allows you to categorize pages by appending one or more Category tags to the page. Adding these tags makes links at the bottom of the article which take you to the list of all pages in that category. This makes it easy to browse related articles. |
Categories are intended to group together pages on similar subjects by adding one or more Category tags. Adding these tags makes links at the bottom of the article which take you to the list of all pages in that category. This makes it easy to browse related articles. Categories are essentially a taxonomy that describe and bundle the articles in Saintapedia.
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Adding categories
Adding categories using Visual Editor
To edit categories in Visual editor, on the "Page options" menu, click the "Categories" item. Clicking on "Categories" opens a dialog that lists existing categories and allows you to add new ones, and to delete existing categories.
You also have the option of setting or changing the general (default) sorting key, which determines where the page appears when listed with other pages in the same category. |
Adding an article to a category using Enhanced editor
To add an article to a category using Enhanced editor, you create an internal link to the category just as you would when linking to any other page. By way of example, to add an article to the Parishes category, you would click the Edit tab for the article and add [[Category:Parishes]] at the end of the edit window. (While categories will work when placed anywhere in an article, Saintapedia practice is to always place them at the end of articles.)
Adding a file to a category
Adding categories for files works just like adding a category to an article.
- Visual Editor
- Enhanced editor - From the file page, click the edit tab and add a category, such as
[[Category:Images]].
See Category:Files for a list of categories commonly used for files.
Linking to a category
Since the MediaWiki software treats a category link differently from standard wiki links, a slightly different format is needed to force the software to link to the category rather than adding the article to the category. The syntax that allows a link to the category follows the format [[:Category:<category name>|<how you want the link to look>]]. The key difference is the leading colon just after the brackets.
Examples showing links to categories
- For Visual Editor, use the linking tool search to find the category and add a colon in front of it (see the image to the right)
- Enhanced editor
[[:Category:Parishes]]results in Category:Parishes[[:Category:Parishes|This is a link to the Parishes Category]]results in This is a link to the Parishes Category
Subcategories
Categories themselves can be assigned to broader categories. For instance, Category:Photos is a subcategory of Category:Images, which is a subcategory of Category:Files. Any article, file, or category can be assigned to one or more categories, and any category may have one or more subcategories.
The subcategorization feature makes it possible to organize categories into tree-like structures to aid navigation. Category tree can be useful in viewing categories with subcategories.
Creating subcategories
Simply add the parent category to the sub-category page. For example Category:Maps is a subcategory of Category:Images because it has [[Category:Images]] in the page.
Best Practices
Naming Categories
The general practice within Saintapedia is make category names plural, since they by definition are designed to bundle together a series of articles and subcategories.
When to add subcategories
In general, the best practice is to only add the lowest-level category from the branches of the tree that are appropriate for that article. This helps keep each level of the category from becoming too cluttered. As a general guideline, as more articles are added to a category, consider creating new subcategories when the total list in any one category exceeds 50 articles. This will help further organize the content.
Where to place categories in an the edit window
Standard practice is to place the categories at the end of the article as the very last entries in the edit window. This makes them easy to find as they work slightly differently from a normal link and prevents them from cluttering the main edit window.
Category tree
Extension:CategoryTree 
can be used in three ways:
- directly on the category pages,
- as a "custom tag" (or "parser function") to show a category structure in-line on a wiki page,
- Example -
<categorytree mode=pages>Manual</categorytree>
- See Extension:CategoryTree#The <categorytree> tag
for more information
- Example -
- and as a special page.
The CategoryTree extension adds ► "expand" widgets to the subcategories listed on category pages.
Tips and tricks
To see all categories on Saintapedia, go to Special:Categories and increase the limit to a large numbers, such 5000, or just follow the All Categories link.
Dynamic Page List
Dynamic Page List can create a dynamic listings of pages based on various parameters, such as page titles, namespaces, membership in a category, template inclusion, and more.
Hiding categories
In cases where, for technical reasons, administration categories appear directly on articles rather than talk pages, they should be made into hidden categories, so that they are not displayed to readers. This rule does not apply to stub categories or "uncategorized article" categories – these types are not hidden.
To hide a category, add the template {{Wikipedia category|hidden=yes}} to the category page (the template uses the magic word __HIDDENCAT__). This also places the page in Category:Hidden categories.
A logged-in user may elect to view all hidden categories, by checking "Show hidden categories" on the "Appearance" tab of Preferences. Notice that "hidden" parent categories are never in fact hidden on category pages (although they are listed separately).
Hidden categories are listed at the bottom when previewing. All users of the desktop version can see hidden categories for a page by clicking "Page information" under "Tools" in the left pane, or by editing the whole page with the source editor.
Related
External links
- Wikipedia's Help:Category contains a complete list of information on using Categories.
- a Video tutorial about categories
- Help:Category
