What is a Category Table?

A Category Table is a table that can include drop-down menus, checkboxes, radio buttons, and text fields. It makes it easy to provide keywords to categorize a topic.

For example, if a TWiki web is devoted to technical support, wiki topics might be incident reports. The Category Table can prompt the writer to select the operating system, the software product, and the version for this report. For the operating system category, checkboxes can be displayed for OsSolaris, OsSunOS, OsHPUX and OsWin.

Using a Category Table

It is possible to add a category table to a TWiki web. This permits storing and searching for more structured information. Editing a topic shows a HTML form with the usual text area and a table with selectors, checkboxes, radio buttons and text fields. The category table is shown at the end of a topic. The format of the category table can be defined per TWiki web.

If you want to add a Category Table in a TWiki web you need to place the following three files into the twiki/templates/{Yourweb} directory:

Format of category definition template twikicatitems.tmpl

Valid lines: 

select|{name}|{selSize}|{val1}|{val2}|{val3}...
checkbox|{name}|{checkFlag}|{itemsPerLine}|{val1}|{val2}|{val3}...
radio|{name}|{itemsPerLine}|{val1}|{val2}|{val3}...
text|{name}|{charSize}
# comments start with a # character

Explanation: 

  {name}             name of tag
  {selSize}          vertical size of SELECT tag
  {val1}|{val2}...   values
  {checkFlag}        set to true for [Set] [Clear] buttons, else set to false
  {itemsPerLine}     input items per line before wrap around, 0 if no wrap around
  {charSize}         number of characters for text fields

Remark: Line radio|UseCategory|0|Yes|No has a special meaning. If present, it is possible to choose in "edit" if the category table is included in the topic or not

Example file: 

radio|UseCategory|0|Yes|No, delete this category table
select|TopicClassification|1|Select one...|NoDisclosure|PublicSupported|PublicFAQ
checkbox|OperatingSystem|true|5|OsSolaris|OsSunOS|OsHPUX|OsWin
text|OsVersion|16

Format of twikicatedit.tmpl and twikicatview.tmpl

Use the example below and customize if needed. twikicatedit.tmpl and twikicatview.tmpl can be identical, but they do not have to be.

Attention: <!--TWikiCat--> is needed at the beginning and end as markers. Do not delete them!

Example: 

<!--TWikiCat--> <h4> TWikiCategory </h4>
<table border="2" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1">
%REPEAT%<tr>
<td valign="top" align="right"> %CATNAME%:  <br>%CATMODIFIER%</td><td>  %CATVALUE% </td>
</tr>%REPEAT%
</table><!--TWikiCat-->

Above template files will result in the following category table when viewing a topic:

TWikiCategory

TopicClassification:
PublicFAQ
OperatingSystem:
OsSolaris
OsVersion:
2.5 

Above template files will result in the following table when editing a topic:

TWikiCategory

UseCategory :
Yes    No, delete this category table   
TopicClassification :
OperatingSystem :
   
OsSolaris    OsSunOS    OsHPUX    OsWin   
OsVersion :

Note: It is possible to force the values of a category table when creating a new topic. This is useful to create new topics using a form for the topic name. The default values of the category table can be specified as hidden fields if needed, i.e. <input type="hidden" name="someCategory" value="someValue">

Example (edit this page to see the source) :

-- PeterThoeny? - 21 Apr 2000