Categories are an integral part of page organization, seconded only to namespaces. By including a category link, the page will appear in the table of contents for the specified category.

Category Links

A linked category is noted on the page at the very bottom, regardless of where the actual link is placed. It is thus customary to put category links at the end of the page's markup text.

Link your page to a category by using the following syntax:

[[Category:Category Name]]

Linking to Multiple Categories

A page can be linked to any (reasonable) number of categories. Just include a separate call for each category you want the page included in:

[[Category:First Category]]

[[Category:Second Category]]

Duplicate Category Links on a Page

If a duplication of a category link is made on a page, it will only be processed once. Such cases may arise due to the use of templates and transcluding. For example:

[[Category:MyCategory]]

[[Category:MyCategory]]

[[Category:MyCategory]]

In a case such as the above, the link will only be shown once at the bottom of the page and the category's respective table of contents will only list the article once.

It has not been tested if different options (such as a Sort Key) are applied to only some of what would otherwise be duplicate category links.

Sort Keys

You can apply a Sort Key to a category. The Sort Key dictates how the article is placed in the respective category's table of contents. This is useful in cases where you want the alphabetical sorting and placement of the article to be based on something other than the article's title. By default, the Sort Key is the title of the page, including any non-standard namespace.

Syntax:

[[Category:Category Name|Sort Key]]

Examples:

[[Category:MyCategory]]

MyCategory Table of Contents will display "MyCategory" and sort the article by it's Page Name

[[Category:MyCategory|Page Name]]

Identical to [[Category:MyCategory]]

[[Category:MyCategory|z_Page Name]]

MyCategory Table of Contents will display "MyCategory" and sort the article by the key "z_Page Name". The article will be listed under the "Z" heading.

Using a sort key is most useful when adding a category link to a nonstandard namespace. For instance, all pages in the Help namespace have titles such as "Help:Categories", and by default will all be grouped under the "H" heading. By using a sort key ([[Category:Help|Categories]]) we can put the article under the "C" section in the Table of Contents. Note that in this scenario the "Help:" will not be removed from the article's listing in the table of contents.

Linking to a Category's Table of Contents

In order to create an internal link to a category's table of contents instead of adding the page to it's table of contents as a standard internal link syntax would do, it is necessary to prefix the link text with ":"

[[:Category:Category Name]]

The :Category portion tells the parser that you will be creating a link to the table of contents for the specified category name and will not add the page to that category's table of contents (unless of course there is the same markup less the preceeding ":" also included in the page).

An alternate method is to use an external link: http://www.utteraccess.com/wiki/Help:Categories, although this is generally less desirable than an internal link.

Undefined Category Table of Contents

When you navigate to a Category Table of Contents that does not yet "exist", you still get a listing of the pages contained in that Category, but you have not defined any text to be included in that TOC header. The Table of Contents exists, yet the definition of the page itself does not, and links pointing to the said category will appear in red.

By specifying text to go at the header of the Table of Contents, you effectively "create" the page.

Creating Subcategories

You can create a subcategory by navigating to the desired subcategory's Table of Contents and adding a Category Link to the Table of Contents page. For instance, if you wanted to make the category Cats a subcategory of Animals, you would navigate to the Cats Table of Contents ([[:Category:Cats]] or [http://somewiki.com/Category:Cats]), edit the Table of Contents page, and include the Category Link to the parent category ([[Category:Animals]]). This effectively marks the category Cats as being in the Animals category.

UA Wiki Core Categories

The UA Wiki has a few core categories that are used as central Tables of Contents for various pages. These include Articles (default), the Function Library, the Code Archive among a few others. These core categories are listed on the Main Page. Aside from having higher visibility due to promotion on the main page, they differ in no way from non-core categories.

For this reason, it is recommended that all standard pages include a call to the respective core category as well as any other relevant categories. Also, the Access Wiki Index ([[Category:Access Wiki Index]]) should be included in all pages.

The current core categories are as follows:

Core Category Template Inclusions

Forthcoming
As all category links are case sensitive and may be prone to typographical errors, templates will be constructed to make the calling syntax easier and less error prone. For instance, to include the page in the Main Table of Contents (as the majority are), the following needs to be typed exactly: [[Category:Table of Contents]]. This can be greatly simplified by using a template such as {{ARTICLE}}. As the template structures are completed the above table will be filled with the simplified syntax for including a page in a core category.

Viewing All Categories

You can view a list of all categories by clicking the "Special Pages" link in the left toolbox, then choosing "Categories". The Special Pages list also gives various other reports on categories and their current statuses.

External Help on Categories

Further information regarding categories, such as subcategories, category creation and organization of categories can be found in the following links:

• Wikipedia's Category Help Page
• WikiMedia's Category Help