[pmwiki-users] Generate a list of categories, when some category pages don't exist

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Tue, Mar 20, 2007 at 09:13:17AM -0400, the Other michael wrote:
> On 3/19/07, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
> >On Mon, Mar 19, 2007 at 10:39:22PM -0400, the Other michael wrote:
> >> But if the pagelist (referencing the cat-tagged pages) is included in
> >> the header or footer, that would mean we've got an auto-created empty
> >> page.
> >
> >I don't quite understand this last comment.
> 
> If I'm understanding AutoCreate, it automatically creates (ahem) a
> page when first referenced -- but it doesn't fill it with anything.

It only creates pages that match the pattern given by the key, thus

    $AutoCreate['/^Category\./'] = array('ctime' => $Now);

only creates pages in the Category group.

> If the only content given to the bulk of category pages is created by
> the group footer (a pagelist directive listing references, one of the
> suggestions on http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/Categories
> 
> Then AutoCreate will be creating an empty page.

Yes.  However, it doesn't have to create an empty page -- 
the administrator can set:

    $AutoCreate['/^Category\./'] = 
      array('ctime' => $Now,
            'text' => "Automatically created by AutoCreate\n");

and the page won't be empty.  

Or, perhaps even better, one can set $AutoCreate to be:

    $AutoCreate['/^Category\./'] =
      array('ctime' => $Now,
            'text' => '(:pagelist link=Category.{$Name} list=normal:)');

Now each new category page is automatically created with the
pagelist command needed to display the pages in the category,
and it's no longer necessary to put the (:pagelist:) command 
into Category.GroupFooter.
   
> But
> 1) if pages are auto-created when a tag is clicked, what happens when
> the category tag is changed or removed? Although this tag has ceased
> to exist/be used (is there a difference?), it will still appear on a
> pagelist of  group Category pages.

Yes, that's correct.  Having a wiki does require some maintenance.
However, eventually we'll have an solid "find orphans" capability
working again, and the unreferenced Category pages would show up
as orphans.

> 2) general itchiness at empty pages serving as placeholders just for a
> listing of categories. It seems like WikiBloat.

Well, the pages don't have to be empty.  :-)  And we will eventually
have a way of finding all of the categories without actually having
to create pages for them.

> I guess that's why people can turn things on and off.

Absolutely.  :-)

Pm