Template:Catlst/doc

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This is a documentation subpage for Template:Catlst (see that page for the template itself).
It contains usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.
This is a documentation subpage for Template:Catlst (see that page for the template itself).
It contains usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.


Similar templates at English sister projects [edit]
mta Meta-wiki Catlst/doc
wpd Wikipedia Catlst/doc
cms Commons Catlst/doc
wbk Wikibooks Catlst/doc
wsp Wikispecies Catlst/doc
wvy Wikiversity Catlst/doc

Contents

en:Template:Catlst/doc

This page is a combined usage page compliant with doc page pattern for {{catlst}} or {{catlist}} based templates as well as the various filter and typing-aid templates that act as front-end templates to them. 'catlst' produces bullet delimited output and 'catlist', comma delimited output, and both act as the flexible rear end or working utility template for one of the following (easier to use) front end variants:

Message designed for parents and grandparent up-links:

  1. {{Catlist-up}} -- Always implemented as a redirect on and to the local sister project (Help:Magic word 'SITENAME') prefixed name '{XXX-catlist-up}' in the following.

    This naming variant is primarily intended for use on administrative category pages, where a list of cross-links to the Commons or Wikipedia would not be appropriate.

    In subject space category pages, generally both the local site and the commons categories are useful.

    Due to the many interwiki's on Wikipedia's category system and articles, using cross links on The Commons to en.wikipedia categories leaves both the category schemes navigable for users in all languages.

  2. {{Cms-catlist}} & {{Cms-catlist-up}} -- Always shows categories on Mediawiki Commons
  3. {{Mta-catlist}} & {{Mta-catlist-up}} -- Always shows categories on Meta
  4. {{Wbk-catlist}} & {{Wbk-catlist-up}} -- Alwyas shows categories on Wikibooks
  5. {{Wpd-catlist}} & {{Wpd-catlist-up}} -- Always shows categories on Wikipedia
  6. {{Wsp-catlist}} & {{Wsp-catlist-up}} -- Always shows categories on Wikispecies
  7. {{Wvy-catlist}} & {{Wvy-catlist-up}} -- Always shows categories on Wikiversity

Such up-link templates are extremely useful on the head end of categories of any length as they show more of the category structure, give more clues as to where one needs to navigate towards, and overcomes the perennial problem with the default page skin—that categories are all but invisible down on the page bottom, which is especially problematic for any long category, and doubly problematic when editing such a page.

Convention: paste in parent categories from page bottom (assuming default skin). To the right of that, paste in the parents of the leftmost parent category, then the second from left's parents, then the third, until the rightmost parent and its parents have joined the list. If properly named, most grandparents will be identifiable as to which parent category they belong to, and vice versa, and the farther out the list, the higher one is on the category scheme with respect to the current page. }} }}
</includeonly>

[edit] Usage

displays a list of category links as a 'Bullet separated list'
with a editor selectable label. If no label is given, defaults to 'Categories:' 'list of links...'
  • Up to 110 parameters are permitted: only the first is mandatory.
  • The list is dynamically generated so that a ", and " is always placed between the final two entries.
  • If more than 110 entries are supplied, a message will be displayed pointing out the run-over problem with the occurence of the 111st.
  • The template is interwiki capable: Defining the perameter |SISTER=Commons:| or |SISTER=Wikiquote:| will generate a cross-wiki list of categories on SISTER. In either local mode or cross-wiki, this allows the heads of categories to display parents and grandparents for navigation, within and without, with a custom message.

Example use:
     {{Catlst|LABEL=something sensible| Category Name_1 | optionalCategory Name_2 | optionalCategory Name_nn | ... | optionalCategory Name_40}}

Caution
Bad formatting: no newlines are permitted else the article links will be broken.


[edit] Filter utilities

The several filter utilities call catlst to do the work:

  1. They provide a proper link prefix which enables the utility to output the same result on any sister site and server. This is adaptable to interlingual link formation as well.
  2. The filter templates also provide standard boilerplate text.
1) '{{Cms-catlist-up}}/{{Wpd-catlist-up}}' are designed to tag the tops of categories with upper level links to parent and grandparent categories located on the Commons/Wikipedia sister projects, respectively.
Its message is: The Commons parent and upper level categories:

A) {{Cms-catlist-up}} is constructed from catlst by calls of the form:
{{catlst|SISTER={{CMS}}|LABEL=<br>''<b>The Commons parent and upper level categories:</b>'' :|Nature| Geomorphology| Landmarks| Landscapes}}
B) Example use is:


The Commons parent and upper level categories:
Nature  · Geomorphology  · Landmarks  · Landscapes  · Places  · Geography  · Landforms  · Geography  · Topics  · Earth sciences  and Social sciences





C) The equivilent catlst call would be:
{{catlst|SISTER=w:|LABEL=<br>''<b>The Commons parent and upper level categories:</b>'' : |Nature | Geomorphology | Landmarks | Landscapes | Places | Geography | Landforms | Geography | Topics | Earth sciences | Social sciences }}

2) {{Wpd-catlist-up}} is designed to tag the tops of categories with upper level links to parent and grandparent categories located on Wikipedia.
Its message is: en.Wikipedia parent and upper level categories:

A) '{{Wpd-catlist-up}}' is constructed from catlst by calls of the form:
{{catlst|LABEL=''<b>en.Wikipedia parent and upper level categories:</b>'' : |Nature| Geomorphology| Landmarks| Landscapes}}
B) Example use is:
en.Wikipedia parent and upper level categories:
Nature  · Geomorphology  · Landmarks  · Landscapes  · Places  · Geography  · Landforms  · Geography  · Topics  · Earth sciences  and Social sciences


C) The equivilent catlst call would be:
<nowiki>{{catlst |SISTER=w: |LABEL=''<b>en.Wikipedia parent and upper level categories:</b>'' : | Physical geography | Geomorphology | Nature | Topography |{{{5|}}}|{{{6|}}}|{{{7|}}}| ... |{{{40|}}}|{{{41|}}}}} and etc.

[edit] Key Innards

take note in particular the position of the parameters
PRE, LABEL POST and END... The whole is an series of If-Then-Else conditionals, one following on the heels of, or (most all) within, the Else body of the one preceding. Once the logic finds a FALSE condition, it executes the last Else and Exits.
  1. The 'LABEL=' is a title, such as for example: Parent Categories, Key Grand-daughter categories, and the like.
  2. The 'PRE=' is for a print effect command such as coloration, {{indent}}ation, Bolding, or such like <div style="border:#bfb1a3 solid 1px; Margin=0.5em; Padding=1.5em; background:#f2e0ce; ">
  3. The 'POST=' can be used to force a newline and begin an indentation, add or cancel bold or italics, and such.
  4. The 'END=' is to undo whatever either the PRE or POST or both put into effect.

Since passing a whole template into another template containing meta-characters is problematic, this breakage into three sections allows a lot of flexibility.


[edit] Purpose

{{Catlst}} is used for small to large sets of see also information at the end of text headers on category pages to give cross-links to category names locally.

Unlike {{cat see also}}, this list utility takes a Programmable argument, the parameter LABEL which over rides the generic list message, for example: 'LABEL=These are some map categories (two category layers down), might be given to better show a categorization scheme, highlighting the actual categories it it desired to list pages within, rather than the current skeleton category that should only contatain other categories in the categorization scheme.

This format allows the maximum flexibility in crafting messages and providing links on a theme which is satisfied by the list.

This is particularly valuable at major nexus points, where several categorization schemes intersect such as a major nation-state, or city.

A couple of see also lists can display category names by the scheme's respective theme, down several levels if necessary, giving the browsing reader a much broader and deeper look at the options and paths available, or the overall structure and direction the information they seek may lay.

This also aids in editor work adding or adjusting categories, as one may not know a scheme exists grouping vertical or cross links of related names looking at one little slice on that nexus. For the working editor, or the browsing reader having a peek into sub-categories, and seeing a group of organized lists can aid greatly in deciding where the appropriate direction to hunt, or level of categorisation may be.

Placing such groupings where category schemes fork with respect to en.wikipedia vs. the Commons, or to galleries, or to higher level categories might be excellent alternatives that should be considered in many circumstances. Such should be devised with the student in mind as aids to understanding the direction the normal category tree may take the user.

  • Program and format by perameter, {{Catlst|...}}
  • 'Clean' Links are presented an auto-pipetricked (nice) form of [[:Category:Category Name|Category Name]].
  • If non-English wikipedians create a hard redirect in 'Category:Name In English' to the equivalent in their language, the links should also work interwiki across languages.

[edit] Other list templates

See also:

  • Front end templates
  • -- Use for 'same level' cross connections in category schemes
  • -- Use to display parent and grandparents cross wiki's, and esp. on own pages to make up deficiencies in default skins for navigation.
  • Rear end templates:
    • {{Catlist}} -- 'Comma' delimited general category listing utility version
    • {{catlst}} -- 'Bullet' delimited general category listing utility version

  • {{See also}} — Note: The commons template {{see also}} is interlingual and has nothing to do with lists of pages in namespaces per se.
    {{See also}} primarily used to forms links to main (article/gallery/book) namespace in Comma separated list format. It has some capability of displaying categories, but needs both the colon as a prefix and namespace to form the string ':Category:', and requires painstakingly careful input devoid of extra spaces. Such uses cause an occasional technical problem with parsing within the template due to the colon prefix needed, so cat see also below was developed to eliminate those problems and save typing as well.
  • {{see Also}} -- [Commons version] Same template, interwiki Name case alternative when prior use / naming collisions have occured on some sister projects. Other sister projects should implement as a redirect.
  • {{see also commons}} — interwiki version of the see also template to category namespace in en.wikipedia giving links of the form: [[commons:category:Name|Name]].
  • {{see also Wikipedia}} — interwiki version of the see also template to Wikipedia article space.
  • {{Cat see also}} — Smaller grand-parent to 'catlst'. Similar to the 'see also' templates to main space but with the prefix meaning see also these Categories. Like 'catlst', it has been updated to allow links internally, or across SISTER projects. Builds a shorter comma delimited list of categories of up to fifteen names cross-linking to categories, up, down, or across as needed. Unlike 'catlst' it always wraps to a newline, indents, and does not allow the flexible formating parameters PRE, POST, LABEL, or END. It has the standard header message "See also categories:" (or category).
  • The two complimentary filter templates using {{cat see also}} as an output stage are:
  • {{Catlst commons}} meaning See also on Mediawiki Commons the Categories: ...
Each are a 'front end' filter template (or typing-aid) using the {{Catlst}} template as an output stage. Each uses a fixed 'SISTER=' parameter.
  • {{Template list}} — essentially the above template with the namespace category replaced by the namespace template.


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