Extension:Multi-Category Search

MediaWiki extensions manual - list

Multi-Category Search Release status: stable
Implementation	Search, Special page, Data extraction
Description	Extension introduces a new special page Special:MultiCategorySearch, that allows users to find pages that are included in several specified categories at once.
Author(s)	Iaroslav Vassiliev (CodeMonktalk)
Last version	1.65  (2013-05-31)
MediaWiki	MediaWiki 1.8 or higher
License	GPL
Download	1.65 1.64 1.63 1.62 1.5 1.4
Example	1 (English Version) 2 (German Version) 3 (Russian version)
Check usage and version matrix; Search stats

Extension allows users to find pages that are included in several specified categories at once (pages that intersect multiple categories). By default a user can specify up to 5 categories to intersect, and optionally up to 3 categories to be completely excluded from search. Upon many requests, drop-down lists were introduced in version 1.3, and since version 1.5 it's now possible to fill drop-down lists automatically with subcategories of some parent category. Extension was first released on January 23, 2008‎.

Purpose and usage

The extension is indispensable, if you need, for example, to find all articles about american comedy movies released in 1990 on your cinema-related wiki. In this case you just need to go to [[Special:MultiCategorySearch]] special page, specify three categories there: "USA films", "Comedy films" and "1990 films", and click on search button. That's it - you get the list of movies.

Installation

1. Download the extension .zip file.
2. Unzip and save the source code files in a MultiCategorySearch subdirectory of your wiki's extensions directory.
3. Change your wiki's LocalSettings.php file to include the line:

require_once("$IP/extensions/MultiCategorySearch/MultiCategorySearch.php");

Configuration

General configuration settings are set in five variables in the beginning of MultiCategorySearch_body.php file. Here are sample settings and their description.

Maximum number of categories that user can search for:

var $inCategoriesNumber = 5;

Maximum number of categories that user can exclude from search:

var $exCategoriesNumber = 3;

When set to true, drop-down lists with predefined categories are shown on the search form. Categories for drop-down lists must be predefined in showDropdownLists() function in the end of MultiCategorySearch_body.php file.

var $useDropdownLists = false;

When set to true, inserts MediaWiki:Edittools at the bottom of the search form. Edittools allow user to insert special characters in an easy way. Remember, that EditTools require Extension:CharInsert to be installed and AJAX to be enabled (global $wgUseAjax variable must be set to true in LocalSettings.php file).

var $insertEditTools = false;

Default HTTP method of passing parameters. Change it to 'get' if required.

var $paramsPassMethod = 'post';

Transclusion

By transclusion the multi-category search results could be dynamically shown on some other page. Transclusion format is: {{Special:MultiCategorySearch/include=Category 1/include=Category 2/exclude=Category 3}}

Version history

• 1.65 — Update to suit MediaWiki 1.21.
• 1.64 — Multiple transclusions on one page have been enabled.
• 1.63 — Update to suit MediaWiki 1.19. Drop-down lists configuration system has been simplified.
• 1.62 — Update to suit MediaWiki 1.18.
• 1.61 — Minor bugfix.
• 1.6 — Localized messages caching system has been updated.
• 1.5 — An option to fill drop-down lists automatically with subcategories of some parent category has been added. Minor bugfix.
• 1.4 — A patch by William Moore has been applied, allowing Special:MultiCategorySearch page to be transcluded.
• 1.38 — Minor bugfix.
• 1.37 — Minor changes.
• 1.36 — Minor bugfixes.
• 1.35 — Minor internal improvements.
• 1.34 — Minor internal improvements.
• 1.33 — Listing of articles, which are not included in specified categories, is now available even if no category was selected to search for.
• 1.31 — Minor bugfix.
• 1.3 — Optional drop-down list selection was added.
• 1.21 — Edittools file has been added; database table prefixes recognition was enabled.
• 1.01 — Minor bugfix.

Localization

• Spanish messages by José Zarco
• German messages by Astrid Kuhr
• French messages by Thierry Giroux Veilleux
• Dutch messages by Nanda Jansen
• Russian messages by Iaroslav Vassiliev
• Turkish messages by Helmut Oberdiek
• Hebrew messages by Avner Pinchover
• Polish messages by Dawid Kamola
• Italian messages by Cristian Filagrossi
• Japanese messages by Kouichi Nishizawa
• Czech messages by Vojtěch Zlámal

Contacts

If you would like to report a bug, request a feature, or if you could help with localization (extension messages translation), please, send me a letter to codedriller@gmail.com. By the way, if you need advanced bot functionality for your wiki, take a look at free DotNetWikiBot Framework, that I maintain.

See also

• Extension:News Channel