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Help:Gadget-Cat-a-lot/Open bugs & features

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See also: MediaWiki talk:Gadget-Cat-a-lot.js


Note: Add signature to entries below. -~~~
If nobody puts the issues into an issue tracker (phabricator, gitlab or github), I will create a new github repo just for the issues and put them there so they can be properly managed such as searched, found, and discussed invididually. I'm currently not able to help develop it however so it would be best if somebody who does can do so like @Zache, Perhelion, and Lucas Werkmeister: (?) Each issue has a type (bug or feature request etc) and a descriptive title as well as the info currently scattered across threads, pages, and replies. --Prototyperspective (talk) 09:15, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To make proper revision control usable it would require that code would be easily developed and tested without copying it to inwiki. Most likely this is not possible as WMF security rules blocks externally loaded javascripts. So external revision control would require also some thinking on how the actual development is done. However, the proper code review would be useful for code review as it would offer nicer diffs than mediawiki diff which doesn't work that well with the code. About bug tracker, my guess is that in wikimedia context, Phabricator would be a best platform even if it is rather slow (it would require beefier hardware afaik) as there it will integrate to other tickets and wikimedia users would not need to register new accounts to use it. --Zache (talk) 09:02, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting, haven't thought about that – so there is no debugging functionality with Wikimedia scripts? What do you think about creating an issue about changing that or does one about that already exist? Maybe one could add something to the beta wiki. I don't see how it directly relates to having an issue tracker or even revision control since it wouldn't be different than before: editors copy js to their userspace, edit it, test it, and then ask for it to be added to the main script. With revision control there only is the extra step of also writing the code to the external repo. Agree, phabricator would be best, mainly because Wikimedia users don't need to sign up or sign in (despite many people being less familiar with it than with GitHub issues). However, I don't know how to create a new phabricator project or something for that and it seems like currently issues are not tracked there. Could you set up something on phabricator? Prototyperspective (talk) 11:00, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is debugging functionality for scripts what you can load, but WMF's w:Content Security Policy blocks external scripts. One can disable / override CSP if he wants. (example) But this is one thing to tweak and least I would need to check what is proper way to it if I would like to move the development of gadgets to offwiki editing. (which would be the main reason to use the external revision control for me). About Phabricator projects. It works like that one asks first the project creation right by commenting to phab:T706. After that they can create and manage their own project in phab. Project in Phabricator is something like this with own workboards and subprojects. --Zache (talk) 11:31, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok thanks for the info. The main reason I think an issue tracker is needed is to enable properly organizing issues discussed in this page and the talk page. The plan now is: 1) wait for you to create something 2) wait for other people probably better suited for this, mainly the two pinged above, to create something for at least 1 week (likely longer) 3) request something on phabricator as you desscribed above 4) if that does not work out create a GitHub repo which also has its advantages (I think the issues are much more overseeable and have a better cleaner simpler UI). Prototyperspective (talk) 11:50, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Prototyperspective I will create tomorrow phabricator project for the Cat-a-lot to group the phab:T386714 tickets to it. --Zache (talk) 14:04, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds great, thanks. So will you also add the issues reported on this page here and the talk page? Prototyperspective (talk) 01:27, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Now there is project gadget-Cat-a-lot Zache (talk) 03:02, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And developer documentation page: Help:Gadget-Cat-a-lot/Developing --Zache (talk) 11:20, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Have all changes be marked "minor" unless the editor explicitly chooses otherwise. It is a real nuisance when one of our colleagues changes fifty or a hundred files that I have edited and I have to have them on my watch list. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 11:55, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
…and on Special:UncategorizedFiles. --XXN, 20:37, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cat-a-lot seems to add categories under stub templates (bad!) separating them from earlier categories (worse!) in the correct place above the stub tags (e.g., here) Grutness (talk) 08:22, 21 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • If I'm removing tons of images from one cat to another I get "Done! All pages are processed. The following X pages were skipped, because the old category could not be found:" and yet on the image that category is clearly there (See pic) so I guess I would say make the tool easier to pick up categories if that makes sense, Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 12:29, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Categorization is now done async for a while. This means after you request the categorization, the database still does not know it (for a short moment). It is considerably fast, but it takes, in my feeling, much more time than cat-a-lot takes. May this explain the observed behaviour for you? --Herzi Pinki (talk) 14:46, 10 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Usually, the problem is caused by invisible characters (marks) in the category link (the problem is mentioned above at least twice). Some tools and functions ignore them (i.e. the pages are displayed in the linked parent category), but other tools are blocked because they are not able to ignore such characters and recognize the linked category. There are not unified standards for interpretation of categorization links. In case of repeated attempt with identic page, delay of displaying of page content can be also a cause (the category page displays a content which was moved recently). --ŠJů (talk) 16:24, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • My most common use of Cat-a-lot is when moving categories. For example, a CFD resulted in the entire Category:Gothic revival architecture tree being moved to Category:Gothic Revival architecture (capital "Revival"). This being a common architectural style throughout the Western world, there are tons of categories to move, and each time I move a category, I then use Cat-a-lot to move the contents to the new title. Whenever I move a category that's in use, the old title gets put into Category:Non-empty category redirects, and so whenever I'm moving the contents to the new title, there's always a chance that I'll misclick and put the contents into this maintenance category. Therefore, my suggestion: instead of automatically giving the option to move contents to a parent or child category that's tagged with , have Cat-a-lot hide them and notify the user that hidden categories can also be used if the user specifically selects that option, so that two or three clicks, not one, are required for moving items into a hidden category. Nyttend (talk) 12:57, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Add option to ignore {{Uncategorized}} (to not remove it). Useful when copying files between maintenance categories. --XXN, 22:38, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @XXN ✓ Done -- User: Perhelion 03:05, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would like to select an article. I click at the link which point to it and my browser will first mark it and then go to it. I expect it will be the same as categories (which can be selected by clicking at link). Please fix this bug. --Martin Urbanec (talk) 16:45, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • see [3]: it seems that cat-a-lot does not remove {{Check categories}} any more (?). My settings show: Entferne {{Check categories}} und andere kleine Aufräumarbeiten, falls eine Kategorie verändert wird is checked. I called Cat-a-lot from a search result page. Any fast help as there are so many panoramio uploads pouring in? --Herzi Pinki (talk) 01:57, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
✓ Resolved by Zhuyifei1999.[4] --XXN, 13:41, 17 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have the same problem today! The tool does not appear. Cnbrb (talk) 12:05, 11 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
phab:T165031. Should be fixed soon. --XXN, 17:33, 11 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
thumb up That's brilliant, thanks for fixing it! Cnbrb (talk) 09:59, 12 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
✓ Done
additionally, the window increases height with every search! --Joschi71 (talk) 17:39, 14 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
✓ Fixed Sorry, this happened due the new (to less tested) draggable feature. I hope it's good. -- User: Perhelion 00:45, 15 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for fixing, works fine now! Grüße, --Joschi71 (talk) 15:13, 15 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Perhelion: sorry, [5] is such an example, my preferences are unchanged since months. Thanks for improving cat-a-lot. --Herzi Pinki (talk) 15:39, 25 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed Oh*, this edit should indeed remove the tag, but Special:Diff/269123633/next is a bug of HotCat too. -- User: Perhelion 16:58, 25 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
thanks, will test it.
Don't see a bug in HotCat, it's a feature. You add a cat and {{Uncategorized}} is removed. This should be the case even when the target category Category:Xxxxx does not exist. I usually first add the category to files and create it afterwards. I use the Xxxxx temporarily to just get rid of the marker (there is no way with Cat-a-lot to just remove the marker). This works because of window.HotCatAutoRemoveCheckCat = true; in my common.js. --Herzi Pinki (talk) 17:26, 25 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Perhelion: , tested and ok. ✓ Done --Herzi Pinki (talk) 19:26, 25 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am using Cat-a-Lot on en.wp with the newest version of Firefox and NoScript. The first time I brought up the interface to actually clear out a category it worked just fine but now the panel won't go away, even when I click the "x". So now when I interact with categories on en.wp, I cannot click on subcategories or articles to actually view them because Cat-a-Lot is trying to hi-lite them. Can anyone help me here? —Justin (koavf)TCM 18:32, 18 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Cat-a-lot bug
  • Cat-a-lot can't remove Category:Media from YouTube. Possibly this is because this is a hidden category? The gadget knows the file is on the pages, it shows in the list, but when I select some files and press the "-" next to the category, it reports that it can't find the old category on the page. --GRuban (talk) 15:12, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Perhelion: What to do if the Cat-a-lot box is too big? I recently increase the size of text on my computer (so I could see better) and now the Cat-a-lot box is huge. I can't get to the top. I have decreased the number of cats shown to the least allowed. But once I enter the designated cat, Cat-a-lot adds a huge number of cats back. Thanks, Kalbbes (talk) 19:49, 10 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bug: Cat-a-lot seems to not work on categories whose names contain the letter ç (c with cedilla). I noticed that a lot of the files in Category:Illustrations of Jean de La Fontaine's fables by François Chauveau are also in its parent category Category:François Chauveau and tried to fix it, but Cat-a-lot failed". I tried to do this in two ways: 1) I selected all in the child category and clicked [-] next to the parent category (which failed on all, not just those it should've failed on), and 2) I went to the parent category, selected those files that were also in the child category (easily identifiable due to the consistent filenames), and clicked [→] next to the child category, expecting them to end up saying "removed from" the parent category because they were already in the child category. Instead, both attempts failed, with Cat-a-lot saying that "the old category could not be found". (If the first method had succeeded, I wouldn't have attempted the second method, or, at least, I would have expected that failure.) In case anybody else feels like removing them from the parent category by some other method before Cat-a-lot becomes capable of doing it, the files to move are Chauveau - Fables de La Fontaine - 01-01.png to Chauveau - Fables de La Fontaine - Armoiries.png (a total of 80 files). PointyOintmentt & c 20:23, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    This seems to be working currently. Can somebody confirm if this still broken? --Zache (talk) 12:26, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Request: Please make Cat-a-lot display its progress and outcome summary in its panel rather than modally. If there are errors, then that can be displayed as "N files had errors" in the panel, which the user can click to see details, and/or the errors can be shown below the individual files themselves like successes are. PointyOintmentt & c 20:37, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Request: Please add at least one of the following:
    • An option in the preferences (or in the panel) to not deselect files automatically after operating on them (and, come to think of it, maybe they should never be deselected automatically if the operation failed).
    • An option like HotCat has to prepare multiple changes without actually executing them, and then execute them all at once, once they're all set up. This could be a "multiple category changes" checkbox in the panel, and a "submit" button that only appears when it's checked.
Either of these would help with situations where I want to take a file or multiple files and move/add it to multiple other categories. The latter would be preferable, because then the changes all get combined into one edit per file, so it'll probably be faster. PointyOintmentt & c 20:43, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Request: Would it be possible to make Cat-a-lot able to select items from results of the new Mediasearch? I find Being able to select from the older Special:Search can be so useful. (phab:T315117 filed for this, but I was told to bring it here instead.) Jheald (talk) 21:15, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question: I turned on Cat-a-lot in my preferences quite a while ago (probably years) but I never see the floating box at lower right that is supposed to let me access the tool. No obscure browser or such: Firefox, & I keep it up to date. - Jmabel ! talk 01:35, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]