Difference between revisions of "Category Tutorial"

Revision as of 00:38, 3 July 2014

What Are Categories

Categories are tags and keywords the Wiki uses to classify pages. Using the Dynamic Page List code (more on this later), it is trivially easy to create lists based on categories. For example, to list all characters currently enlisted in the Union, one could list all pages containing the Characters, Union and Enlisted categories.

How To Use Categories

To use categories, all you have to do is put them in double brackets in your pages-- anywhere on the pages, but at the end is better to find them easily. For example: [[Category:Characters]] or [[Category:Union]].

Can I Use More Than One?

YES! In fact, you SHOULD! Characters should at the very least have two-- Characters and their appropriate faction. They can have three or four-- for their rank, and if they get dropped. They can have five, six, seven, for if people create their own categories for groups!

How Do I Make My Own?

Insert your custom category in your character or group page. There, you're done! It's created automatically.

Available Categories

Misc

News File is the category for the MUSH's rules and such. You shouldn't be using it unless you're staff.
Index is for things like the Character Index.
Tutorial is for... tutorials! Roleplay Logs is for roleplay logs. Cutscenes is for cutscenes. Miscellaneous is for random pages. Stuff like TP supplementals or whatever fits no other category.

Characters

Characters is the main category for all characters.
Union, Confederacy, Syndicate and Unaffiliated cover factions.
Dropped and Fired are for former characters.
Fachead, Enlisted, Last Chancer, Last Chancer XO and Ally cover ranks.

Themes

Themelists is the main category for all themelists.
Themes is for themes that are from existing media. Put Retired Theme instead if it's old.
Original Theme is for themes that are player-created. Put Retired Original Theme instead if it's old.
Theme Name Here is for each individual themelist.
Theme Supplemental is for info files and extra pages.

Groups

Groups is the main category for player groups.
UnionGroup, ConfederacyGroup, UnaffiliatedGroup and SyndicateGroup mark factional belonging.
DisbandedGroup and CurrentGroup mark the state of the group.
Group Name Here is for each individual group.

TPs (TinyPlots)

TPs is the main category for all TinyPlots.
MinorTP, MajorTP and GlobalTP cover scale.
CurrentTP and FinishedTP cover whether or not it's still running.

Other Categories

Many people may create their own categories. For example, groups would tend to have their own categories-- for example, [[Category:Heaven or Hell]] in order for their group pages to be able to easily create a membership list based on who is using the category. These will not be listed here, though, due to their player-created nature.

Dynamic Page List

For the full tutorial, go here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:DynamicPageList_(Wikimedia)

Dynamic Page List is the code extension we use to create automatically updating lists of pages with certain categories, as made obvious in the Character Index. The way it works is like this:

<DynamicPageList>
category = Characters
category = Union
notcategory = Dropped
</DynamicPageList>

The above code would create a list of all Union Characters that are not Dropped. There are many many more flags which can be used to create lists, available on the full tutorial page.