Extension:CrossCat

This extension is under development and should not be used in a production environment.

The CrossCat extension allows user to navigate through categories and categories intersections and to create an article in an intersection of categories. It implements some of the features requested in en:Wikipedia:Category_intersection. It has be designed to be compatible with the Extension:CategoryTree extension, although the purpose of CrossCat is to change the way category pages are used and displayed in MediaWikis.

Article
Unsing CrossCat, The "categorylinks" panel at the bottom of the article pages provides now checkboxes that allows user to select or unselect a category in the intersection of categories which contains the article. Press the "Exlore" button and you will be directed to the intersection page.

Category page
A category page doesn't show articles anymore (unless you use an option for forcing it). You can create a subcategory : just fill a text box and click the button.

A category page provides also a link to the corresponding intersection page.

Intersection page
An intersection page looks like a category page, but the purpose is different. It displays the articles, and not subcategories (unless you want to do the transition). You can create an article that is subcategorized in all the categories, just filling a text box. As in article pages, you can use check boxes to view a new intersection. You can also navigate in parent(s) or children of the categories, or add a category to intersect with the others.

To access directly an intersection page, just type : "Intersection:Cat1::Cat2::Cat3" in the search box.

Download instructions

 * Download the latest release from sourceforge
 * Extract to temporary folder
 * Read installation instructions in section below

Installation
To install this extension, add the following to LocalSettings.php:

Note: $IP stands for the root directory of your MediaWiki installation, the same directory that holds LocalSettings.php.

Put the  file in the   directory.

Put the  directory in the   directory.

In your preferences, choose the CCVector skin.

Problems
The CrossCat extension does not support hierarchy of categories. That means "Intersection:Works by Émile Zola::Books adapted into films" won't give you the pages that are in sub-categories "Novels by Émile Zola" and "Novels adapted into films" (e.g. L'assommoir).

This extension do not check for previous categorization before adding some categories in the edit box.

This extension is currently designed only for the Vector skin (actually : CCVector skin).