Wikipedia talk:HotCat/Archive 2

Archive 1

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Archive 3

Archive 4

Issues with HotCat on IE7

I have enabled HotCat in my preferences and enjoy using it with IE 7 on my Windows XP machine, but am having a few issues:

• I do not see the "(−) (±)" links after red-linked categories.
• I do not see the "(+⁺)" link on any pages.

See Jocelyn Osorio for examples of both of these issues. Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 15:17, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing this so quickly! GoingBatty (talk) 19:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Chuckle. We didn't do anything. Probably just a spurious reload problem. Possibly your browser had still the old version of the gadget cached. To anybody: if you have any problem with HotCat, please first try reloading your browser's cache and see if the problem persists. If not, fine; otherwise, report it here. Lupo 22:08, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, i have similar issue - I do not see the "(−) (±)" links and also up and down links in any categories, on slovak wikipedia (only on sk. wiki, on enwiki it is working). It was working earlier (on sk wiki) but nowadays it is not. I tried any browser, clearing cache, reloading page but the problem persists, however i experienced that sometime in chromium based browser when i reloaded the page, it showed the missing links. Can anybody help? Thanks. --ra1n^★ 21:57, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, you will have to contact the maintainer of the sk wiki version. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:07, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks very much for answer, i will contact them. But can you specify the problem, what concretly is wrong? BTW: Good work with this gadget! :-) --ra1n^★ 14:43, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Your problem also shows up in Firefox at sk-Wiki. It's a configuration error in sk:MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js/local_defaults. Just remove the line

HotCat.category_regexp = '[Cc][Aa][Tt][Ee][Gg][Oo][Rr][Yy]|[Kk][Aa][Tt][Ee][Gg][Oo][Rr][Ii][Ee]';

First, that line isn't needed, since all WMF projects run a recent version of MediaWiki that allows HotCat to figure out the correct value of that expression itself. This line is only mandatory for MediaWiki versions 1.15 and earlier. Alternatively, correct the line to read

HotCat.category_regexp = '[Cc][Aa][Tt][Ee][Gg][Oo][Rr][Yy]|[Kk][Aa][Tt][Ee][Gg][Óó][Rr][Ii][Aa]';

(it's "Kategória" at sk-Wiki, not "Kategorie"). Lupo 19:47, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Well done! It seems to be working. Thank you very much. --ra1n^★ 21:43, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion for updating project page

On Wikipedia:HotCat#Search engines, there is a paragraph for the technically inclined that links to Category:Media with locations, which was deleted in 2008. Could you please replace this example with an existing category? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 19:20, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that should be done. The text was copied over from commons:Help:Gadget-HotCat. Either we'd need to find another category here on which the effect can be demonstrated, or use commons:Category:Media with locations. Or perhaps we could just point the whole page to commons:Help:Gadget-HotCat? Note: I haven't found yet a local replacement for the "Bláhnjúkur" example either, probably because there are no categories here that would have accents. Lupo 22:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Marking edits as minor

Apparently HotCat marks its changes as minor? This would seem to contradict my understanding of the definition at Help:minor (which doesn't mention categories at all; and as noted at Help_talk:Minor_edit#Is_add.2Fmodifying_Categories_minor.3F it should). HotCat and Help:Minor ought not to contradict each other; what should we do? Rd232 ^talk 22:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

This has got nothing to do with the recent changes; HotCat always did that. If desired, we can make that configurable and define the configuration here such that it doesn't mark single category changes as "minor". (Multi-changes don't have the "minor" flag set unless the user has the "mark all my edits as minor" option set in his or her preferences.) Lupo 22:24, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't know about any recent changes; just came across this as an issue. I think it should be configurable and off by default. Rd232 ^talk 20:55, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

 Done Flag added and set to false (i.e., single-category changes are not "minor") here at the English Wikipedia.[1] Users can override this configuration; see commons:Help:Gadget-HotCat#User configuration.

Note that it'll take up to 30 days until all users of HotCat get the change. Reloading your browser's cache will give you the change right away. Lupo 08:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The way HotCat actually replaces the categories

When HotCat replaces a category, I think that the new category should go where the old category was, not at the end (as it is here, for example). Additionally, when removing a category from the middle of the list, the line should be removed, not emptied. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 18:32, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

That is what HotCat does. Note that HotCat changed drastically yesterday; we now use the version from the Commons. You made your comment originally a week ago before you unarchived it; current events have overtaken it by now. Lupo 19:34, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Afterthought: if HotCat doesn't do that for you yet, then either wait 30 days, and it will, or force a reload of your browser's cache to get the new HotCat version right away. Lupo 19:38, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

As a side note, I'm liking the new HotCat. A lot. It would be nice if it allowed users to choose to skip the edit screen, though - this extra step is a bit of a hassle and I'm not likely to catch any mistakes this way... --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 21:21, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

My CatBurn rewrite of HotCat supported this, but it is a full rewrite and the code between the two isn't compatible in any sort of way. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:48, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I won't make the script automatically submit multi-category changes. There are a few (admittedly rare and borderline) conditions under which the script may not have complete information, and may try to perform changes that might go wrong. Therefore I want people to at least take a quick look at the diff before submitting the edit if they used multi-change mode. (Personally, I must admit that I like seeing the diff before submitting. I find it reassuring to know that I have a chance to back out.) In single change mode, the script just throws an alert at the user if anything goes wrong. Lupo 09:09, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Blank edit summary warning on multi-category changes

I have a minor complaint. I have my preferences set to notify me when I leave the edit summary blank, and this somehow interferes when I use HotCat to add multiple categories. For example, in this edit, I added two categories using HotCat, which resulted in an automatic edit summary. Even so, it notifies me of a blank edit summary, despite the fact that the edit summary is very well not empty. Any idea why this is? — ξ^xplicit 06:07, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

 Done Fixed. Please reload your browser's chache to get the correction. Lupo 08:07, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Much better. Thanks! — ξ^xplicit 05:07, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

HotCat links missing from template pages

While I see the HotCat links on articles and talk pages, I don't see the HotCat links on template pages, such as Template:2010 Big East football standings. GoingBatty (talk) 17:22, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

HotCat is not enabled on template pages because there is essentially no way to figure out where to add categories. Some categories should go in <includeonly> sections; others in <noinclude> sections. Hence we can't do automated category additions there. Furthermore, many templates may construct their categories and/or sort keys using "magic" stuff like PAGENAME and other, even more complicated things. The net result is that categories on templates are just too irregular to be automatically modified by a general-purpose script. Lupo 07:42, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we have had broken templates and other nastiness the short period in which it was enabled on Templates. We should perhaps make a note in the documentation however. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:38, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I could see why you wouldn't want to allow HotCat to add categories to Templates based on Lupo's comments above. However, it seems like it could be used to replace or delete existing categories. A note in the documentation would be great, as I went there first before creating this section. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 16:21, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Remove Categories comment

When adding one or more categories using HotCat, could HotCat also automatically remove the <!--- Categories ---> comment, since that would no longer be necessary? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 05:02, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Add categories before stub templates and interlanguage links

Could you please change HotCat so it adds categories before stub templates and interlanguage links, per MOS:APPENDIX? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 05:50, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Check Wikipedia_talk:HotCat/Archive_1#On_the_placement_of_categories..._again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:57, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Still happening... see here. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:19, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Stub categories

Further to Wikipedia talk:HotCat/Archive 1#Stub categories, it seems that HotCat still permits this, see here. This is not the only case I've seen in the last few weeks, but is one of the most recent. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:49, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

If you can tell me which of these categories are added by which templates, I think we could configure HotCat to add/remove the template. Lupo 17:34, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

There are thousands of them, and there isn't a one-to-one relationship. A simple case is Category:Merchant ship stubs which is only brought in by {{Merchantship-stub}}, and that stub template brings in just that one category. More complicated cases are quite common: {{Macau-struct-stub}} categorises the page in both Category:Asian building and structure stubs and Category:Macau geography stubs. The latter category can also be brought in by {{Macau-geo-stub}}, but no less than 24 different stub templates can categorise an article into Category:Asian building and structure stubs.

Correctly-constructed stub templates should consist entirely of the {{asbox}} template and nothing else. This has a mandatory |category= parameter and two optional |category1= and |category2= parameters, each of which has a dual purpose. The primary purpose is to categorise the article; the secondary purpose is to place the template itself into said cats, sorted at the head. This should make it easier to determine the stub templates relating to a category, although as demonstrated earlier, there may well be more than one. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:17, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, sounds too irregular to treat correctly in all cases. Guess I'll have to add a blacklist (again). Lupo 10:39, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

•  Done Blacklist added and configured in MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js/local defaults to disable adding any category ending in "stub" or "stubs". Lupo 07:54, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Arrows on Safari (Mac OS)

I've added the javascript code to my vector.js file (and, just to be certain, on User:Nlu/monobook.js) and still I can't get the arrows to show up. (I am running Safari 5.0.3 on Mac OS 10.6.6.) Anyone got any idea what's happening? --Nlu (talk) 22:38, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Did you remember to WP:BYPASS your cache? --Redrose64 (talk) 22:49, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and also tried to empty the cache and quit Safari and restart. None of these things seem to have any effect. --Nlu (talk) 22:51, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

For whatever it's worth, the arrows work for me on Chinese Wikipedia, just not here. Do they conflict with the code to have the links underlined? (I have that here on English Wikipedia, but not on Chinese.) --Nlu (talk) 22:56, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

• Correct Javascript would be "var hotcat_use_category_links = true;", not "yes". "yes" is an undefined variable, so hotcat_use_category_links ends up undefined, which evaluates to false. Lupo 10:38, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, that fixed it. Thanks! (Will fix the description on the HotCat instructions.) --Nlu (talk) 16:26, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I spoke too early; the arrows appeared for one article, and then disappeared again. Additional thoughts? --Nlu (talk) 16:28, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

It's now inconsistent whether arrows will appear or not. I guess it's better than their simply not working... (I emptied the cache, too.) Will see if this is a "gradually beginning to work" situation. --Nlu (talk) 16:31, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Appears to be a load order problem on Safari. (And probably also in Chrome.) Will take some time to fix. Lupo 08:27, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

A quick hack (1 sec delay on Safari) seems to be good enough to fix this. Done. Lupo 08:50, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. --Nlu (talk) 22:47, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

remove unneeded cat

I made this edit by hand, because in the edit before Hotcat doesn't removed the "hidden maintenance category": Year of introduction missing. Can HotCat do this automatically? mabdul 12:02, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Where to put a HotCat request?

Could someone add to the project page (=the manual) the page where I can put a HotCat request, or a template? -DePiep (talk) 12:31, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Suggested categories feature

When I look for categories for an article, I open up each linked item in the article and look at the categories for the linked page and consider adding them to the article. I then look at the talk page of those same linked items to find WikiProjects to add to the talk page. I recently did this for the article and talk page of the Transmission electron microscopy DNA sequencing article. Is it possible to modify HotCats to compile a list of categories from the linked pages in an article to propose them as categories for the article? Thanks. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 07:49, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Nearly anything is possible. A search engine doing this could be programmed, but I doubt the results would be meaningful or helpful at all. Consider what categories such a search engine would return, for instance for the page you mentioned: for Transmission electron microscopy DNA sequencing, we'd get these categories. Additionally, if there are many links and categories on the linked pages, we might not even get all categories with this query. So: I rather think this should not be done. Lupo 07:47, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

HotCat has started replacing instead of adding categories when the latter is what is asked of it.

In this edit, you'll notice that the edit summary says that I am adding the category "Women artists"; however HotCat instead replaced the existing category "Chinese artists" with Women artists. I only wanted to add a category, not replace. I noticed this behavior earlier on a different article with entirely different categories as well. LadyofShalott 06:10, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Even more bizarrely, here it removes two existing categories when I only asked it to add one. LadyofShalott 06:19, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Are you using IE? Refresh your browser's cache; this is caused by an unfortunate interaction between IE's local request caching and the query used to make the edit. It was fixed already, but apparently your browser still has an uncorrected version of HotCat in its cache. Lupo 07:23, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... I closed the browser and used Internet Cleanup to clear the cache completely, but the problem persists as here. Any further suggestions? LadyofShalott 03:56, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, now to be even weirder: I just used it again (automatically, not thinking about having been having problems), and it worked fine. LadyofShalott 04:13, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

IE sometimes has trouble really clearing its cache. But if the script works fine again for you, your browser now has the corrected version. (This was with IE, right?) Lupo 07:47, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the belated reply, but for the record, yes, it was. Thanks! LadyofShalott 22:36, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

• This has been happening to me today using Chrome on WinXP. DuncanHill (talk) 16:34, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

  Also after refreshing your browser's cache? Lupo 21:10, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

HotCat does not work

Hello, I can not install HotCat, tried both activating from Gadgets tab and adding the script manually, I add the script and save the page and bypassed the cache but I have no + and - signs in Categories, here is my skin JavaScript page. Thanks Nima1024 (talk) 21:41, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

No idea. Just tried it in vector, and it works for me. Lupo 13:41, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

You tried the whole code or just the HotCat line? Nima1024 (talk) 07:59, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Whole code, but with HotCat as a gadget instead of directly importing it. Shouldn't make a difference though. Lupo 08:35, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure whether it is the cause or not (long no brain moment), however, I have added a line to the script to remind it how to load. I would also suggest that you force a hard reload of the page to see if that pushes some action. By the way, which browser and version are you using, and when you look at the raw code of the page, do a search for HotCat and see what results you get for either script load or class. I would be expecting to see some like …

<script type="text/javascript">if ( window.mediaWiki ) {
             ... "ext.gadget.HotCat",

billinghurst sDrewth 09:06, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Chrome 10.0.648.151 on Mac OS X 10.6.2. HotCat works like a charm. (Though your change in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition forced me to reload the browser cache.) Lupo 12:32, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Question was more aimed at Nima1024. Apologies about forcing the reload, the addition of the line to the script was what was advised by some of the MW hackers as how to crossload gadgets. billinghurst sDrewth 01:08, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

The change in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition now unfortunately means that everybody has to refresh their browser's cache(s). Whoever suggested this didn't think it through. Oh well... just don't change it back now, and whenever someone complains about HotCat not working at all, just tell them to refresh their browser's cache. See also Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#HotCat. Lupo 08:44, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

The new way of loading HotCat apparently also caused the loading problem described below. Lupo 10:20, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I use Firefox 4.0 Final (x86) on x64 Windows 7 Ultimate SP1, I tried all the ways, including bypassing cache; What should I do now guys with this issue? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nima1024 (talk • contribs) 09:12, 23 March 2011

I believe that Firefox 4.0 is still in beta, so is not yet a stable product. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:28, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it was released yesterday. I'll try it out soon. Lupo 13:59, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, yes. Usually, when a new version is released, I get a popup informing me, none has appeared for 4.0 yet. I see that the release notes pages for earlier versions now show a "Firefox 4 Free Download" link as a green box upper right, including those for v 3.6.11 and v 3.6.12 which at 12:38 yesterday were definitely still showing "Firefox 3.6 Free Download" in that position. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

What should I do now ?! There is no one really here to check ans support this script ??????? Very shame for the authur. Nima1024 (talk) 16:33, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

It would behoove you well to treat the author well, or he might lose any interest in checking things out. Just be patient. Somebody just broke the script loading (the resource loader; see bugzilla:28215), which doesn't help at all; and I don't have a Win-7 machine sitting on my desk. I'll first have to get access to one to even be able to take a look at what happens. Lupo 08:45, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

All right. I tried it with Firefox 4.0 (final) on a 64bit (i3) Win 7 machine, and HotCat works just fine out of the box in both the vector and the monobook skin. I cannot reproduce the problem you describe. Perhaps something is amiss on your computer. Lupo 17:32, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you all, Problem is solved now. Nima1024 (talk) 15:39, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Strange problem

Hi there, the strange problem that I have with HotCat is that it only works for me after I have edited the page first. What I mean is that I go to any article and and HotCat doesn't work for me, even if I bypass my cache and so on. But then if I edit the page and save it, when the page reloads, suddenly HotCat works for me and I have the (+), (-) and so on. I've tried uninstalling and then reinstalling in my gadgets and also adding the code thing to my js and I've emptied my cache about a million times when trying all these things. Any suggestions of what it could be/how I could fix it? Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 20:35, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Which web browser/OS you are using? mabdul 20:39, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Right, should have mentioned that. I'm using Safari Version 5.0.4 on Mac OS X Version 10.6.6. Jenks24 (talk) 20:45, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... I guess I'll have to revisit the problem mentioned above. Tomorrow... Lupo 20:51, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for your prompt response. I will await further developments :) Jenks24 (talk) 20:56, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

This was somehow caused by the change in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition mentioned above. HotCat still relied on importScript and importScriptURI being available to load its configuration. However, with the new way of loading HotCat as part of a resource set ("ext.gadget.HotCat") that User:Billinghurst set up (see the section just above), these functions are not available anymore at the time HotCat needed them; at least on Safari 5.0.4.

I have updated HotCat to account for this, and it now works again. It should work now if you enable the gadget and then possibly clear your browser's cache. Verified with Safari 5.0.4 and Chrome 10.0.648.151 on Mac OS X 10.6.7 in the monobook and vector skins. Lupo 10:19, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks so much for fixing this so quickly, it works beautifully now. Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 10:24, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Not working with Monobook skin

I use Firefox (latest version) with the Monobook skin, which is my preferred appearance. Hotcat has stopped working. I use the tickbox option in my preferences rather than a script. If I use the Vector skin it will work. Is this a bug? Should I load a script to get it to work in Monobook? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:21, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Just refresh your browser's cache and it should work also in monobook. See the two sections above. Lupo 21:02, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I thought I had tried that but nowm that I have tried it again it has started working. Ta. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:09, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

ResourceLoader is currently broken

See bugzilla:28215, which, for me has the effect that HotCat isn't loaded at all, and NavigationPopups is missing its CSS. See also Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Did something happen to popups?. I have therefore reverted the change to MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition so that HotCat is not loaded through the resource loader for the time being. Lupo 08:49, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Using Hotcat to delete duplicate categories?

I'm working on deleting duplicate categories for WP:Check Wikipedia and was wondering if there is any way to use Hotcat to accomplish it. Lets say that a page has [[category:foo]][[category:bar]][[category:foo]]. I know going to the page that foo is duplicated, but there doesn't appear to be any way to use it to delete one of the instances. It only shows foo once in the categories at the end (just like without hotcat), but if I delete category:foo, it deletes both of them. Any ideas?Naraht (talk) 05:14, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

You can't use HotCat to do this. MediaWiki already collapses several occurrences of the same category in the wikitext to one single entry in the category bar. To properly remove a category from a page, Hotcat therefore has to remove all occurrences in the wikitext. That's just the way it is.

If you do this kind of cleanup you'll have to decide anyway which particular instance to keep (they might have different sortkeys...) Your script will have to edit the page itself, possibly prompting the user which instance should be kept. Lupo 16:06, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

See also: Wikipedia:AWB/FR#Enhance_logic_for_removing_duplicated_categories. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:37, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

HotCat overwriting the last edit made on the page before adding categories

Twice I've had an issue with HotCat, most recently at A Regular Frankie Fan. In both cases, I've been doing maintenance on the page and then adding categories with HotCat.

Apparently I've been too quick on the trigger with HotCat, because when it goes to post the categories, it's like it goes one edit back. In the case of today's edit, it wiped out the {{Multiple issues}} template I put at the top of the article a minute before. (Note: I did add the DEFAULTSORT myself manually.)

Any ideas what's causing this glitch? —C.Fred (talk) 19:32, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like several previous threads (particularly this one) on this page where using HotCat twice to add two categories would strip the first one during the second addition. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:38, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, I think I've blown browser-specificity of the bug out of the water with my report. I use Firefox (3.6.16) under Mac OS X (10.6.7). —C.Fred (talk) 20:13, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Just happened to me with Ron Hutchinson (screenwriter)--and I confirmed from the history summary that it wasn't simply a cache problem and that the edits were in fact reverted. Aristophanes68 (talk) 01:10, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm starting to wonder if this is related to bugzilla:27891... Lupo 12:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Hey, I've had this problem too! In this edit to Piazza della Rotonda, I removed a couple of stray brackets in a citation, and then a minute later with this edit using HotCat I added a category -- you'll notice that HotCat put the brackets right back in. (I'm using Firefox 4 and Windows Vista.)  Glenfarclas  (talk) 19:39, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

This must be either bugzilla:27891, or you made the first edit in one tab, and then the second edit in another tab or window on which you still had the previous version. MediaWiki does not generate edit conflicts with oneself. I could probably try to guard against the second case in the code, but I cannot do anything if it's bugzilla:27891. Lupo 09:41, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Watchlist

Is there a way to stop HotCat from adding articles to my watchlist? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:41, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

It shouldn't do that unless you have the "Add pages I edit to my watchlist" option in your preferences set. If so, uncheck it. Lupo 19:29, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes I do, and I want to keep that, but not add pages just because I categorised them. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:46, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Why did I have the feeling that you might just say that? ;-) Oh well... Put the following line into your common.js:

window.hotcat_dont_add_to_watchlist = true;

That should do it. Lupo 11:00, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Localization problem

Hello. There seems to be a problem with HotCat's localized messages. These are sometimes shown in the local language, sometimes in English. One example: [2][3]. The edits were made by the same user in an identical way in two successive edits. There's no apparent reason why the tool would suddenly change its language between those edits. Any idea what might be causing this? Jafeluv (talk) 14:44, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what might be causing this. I can only speculate. Maybe loading the local defaults failed? Or just took very long, such that it wasn't loaded yet when the user clicked on the "(-)"? Lupo 09:52, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Or are the users where this occurs using a particular browser? Could you ask fi:User:Otrfan and fi:User:Ism ([4]) what browsers they're using, and which skin (vector, monobook, ...) they use? Lupo 22:59, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I get the same problem [5] with Firefox 4.0.1 and Vector. It happens seemingly randomly, sometimes in English, sometimes in Finnish. Someone pointed out in the Finnish village pump that the text "Categories:" at the bottom of a page appears in English if the page has no categories, and in Finnish otherwise. That's probably related to the same problem. Jafeluv (talk) 19:13, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Seems like async loading issue. When including scripts from another script, don't rely on them being present in any particular order or time. You will be fooled. I see no loop or anything that checks wether or not a translation and a configuration is actually done loading, so it is very likely that there are usecases where these are not done loading before the interface is initialized. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:32, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

So... Is there any way to fix this? Jafeluv (talk) 12:33, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

I could add a small timeout; that might help, but isn't really a solution. The most proper solution would be to make HotCat wait until localizations and local settings are loaded, but I don't think there's a 100% bulletproof cross-browser way to do this currently. (The best might be to load these local settings through script tags with onload/onreadystatechange events, but it's an ugly mess and AFAIK doesn't work reliably on various Internet Explorers. A special problem with this is that there might not be any local settings or localizations, and I don't really know what that mechanism would do if the script source doesn't exist. Hmm...)

@TheDJ: does the resource loader support loading a URI and specifying a callback function to be called once the load is done?

Lupo 21:22, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

I've implemented the onload/onreadystatechange mechanism in my development version at commons:User:Lupo/c2.js. Jafeluv, you might want to try that one. Just disable your HotCat gadget and include in your common.js that script directly. It seems to work fine and it should solve this problem. I tested it on IE6 and FF3.6.4; I guess it'll be OK on all moderately recent browsers as it uses the same method that jquery uses. Nevertheless, I'd very much appreciate it if you could test also in IE7,8,9. If you don't find any problems with it, I'll update the main version of the HotCat. Lupo 22:21, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Looks good now -- I tested it with Firefox 5.0 and IE 8.0 and didn't find any problems. Thanks for the correction! Jafeluv (talk) 23:19, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, so I'll update the main script at commons:MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js in a minute. I'll post again when that's done; then you can undo your test setup and re-enable the gadget again. Lupo 08:23, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

(←)  Done. HotCat now properly waits until localizations and local settings are loaded; commons:MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js updated. Tested additionally in FF3.6.18 and Safari 5.0.4 (6533.20.27) on Mac OS 10.6. Lupo 08:45, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Don't see "(↓)" and "(↑)" controls

Although I followed the instructions to add "var hotcat_use_category_links = true;" to my javascript page back in October, I've never seen the "(↓)" and "(↑)" controls. I'm using Internet Explorer 7 on Windows XP, and have tried multiple PCs. Any suggestions? GoingBatty (talk) 21:14, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Try =true; instead of =yes;? Jafeluv (talk) 21:58, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Well that solved the problem! Looks like the instructions said "yes" back in October 2010 when I originally edited my javascript page, but were changed in January 2011 to "true". Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 22:19, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Blacklist suggestion

I occasionally see a user adding one of the maintenance categories under Category:Wikipedia maintenance categories sorted by month using this program, instead of adding the appropriate maintenance template. If possible, it would be helpful for these categories to be on the blacklist. Anomie⚔ 03:49, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there's no easy way HotCat could reliably detect such cases. And the naming of these categories in general is too inconsistent to be excluded by a regular expression. Lupo 07:00, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

HotCat may be acting strangely

I wanted to bring this bug to your attention. If you take a look at this diff, you can see, I edited this article to remove some uncited analysis, and saved my changes. Then, I removed a category using HotCat, which, while removing the category, also reverted my previous edits. I have never seen it do that before, but it is the 2nd time this has happened to me in the last half hour. Do you have any idea why this is happening? Thanks. ---RepublicanJacobite_TheFortyFive 19:48, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Hotcat tried to do the same for me today - had to manually revise the edit before saving it. GoingBatty (talk) 20:05, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Sounds suspiciously similar to the reports above, i.e., that HotCat is somehow being served not the latest revision of the page but the one before. Possibly the caching problems identified in bugzilla:27891 have not been resolved completely? Lupo 10:17, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Blank sortkey bug?

Attempts to change [[Category:Foo| ]] to [[Category:Foo]] seem not to work. After deleting the last 2 chars and hitting OK, it reloads the same. (Firefox 7.0.1, MonoBook) jnestorius^(talk) 11:02, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Not a bug. Please see commons:Help:Gadget-HotCat#Sort_keys. (In short: input "Foo" preserves an already existing sort key. To remove it, enter "Foo|", i.e., with just a trailing bar.) Lupo 11:40, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I've explained that here. jnestorius^(talk) 15:02, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Rendering problem in IE9

Leave it to IE9 for HotCat not to work correctly. Just noticed today that when clicking the down arrow and displaying the input box, the text box is almost completely covered up by the "combined search" term, that should be above it. Thus, one cannot see what one is supposedly typing into the text field box. Firefox works fine, of course. I also tried IE9 with different resolutions, still can't get it to work. --Funandtrvl (talk) 18:28, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Crap. Does this problem persist after you refreshed your browser's cache? I tried to fix such a layout error on 2011-10-18, but made an error, which I corrected on 2011-10-19. Perhaps your browser has the version from the 18th cached; refreshing should make it get the (hopefully correct) version from the 19th. Lupo 18:37, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

At the German Wikipedia, somebody reported the same problem for IE8. I could track it down to a bug in IE8, which sets the height of the HTML element around the input field to zero. That's utter nonsense and screws up the layout. I could work around this IE8 bug by adding a &nbsp; after the input field, and I would hope that this also fixes the issue for IE9. Please refresh your browser's cache and please report back here whether or not the problem is solved. Lupo 20:33, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

You're right, when I purge the cache, it displays perfectly. Must be a lot of pgs out there that have the old cache. Thanks for fixing it. --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:49, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Recent changes

I hate to pester you with minor points about hotcat, but I figured this was feedback and you might want to hear it. It is this: I actually liked it better when if you were setting up adjustment of more than one category and one of the categories was to be deleted, a strikethrough line was placed through the category. Now, I think it just colors the link orange/red. I liked it better before just because it was a bit more striking/obvious that you were about to actually delete that particular category. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 21:10, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I didn't change anything. In fact, it still strikes through. If it doesn't for you, then there is some CSS rule somewhere outside HotCat that sets for instance "text-decoration: none; !important" on links. (Verified on FF3.6/monobook) What browser and skin are you using? Lupo 21:43, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, OK. I'm on Firefox 7 on an intel Mac and I use the Modern skin. It's possible it changed when I updated my Firefox though I don't remember precisely when it changed for me. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:47, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It looks like it does the same no matter what skin I use, so it must be the browser? Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:56, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It's not a browser issue. When I go to Paul Kane and open the HTML source, I see on line 26 the following:

<style type="text/css" media="all">a { text-decoration: underline !important; }
a.new, #quickbar a.new { color: #ba0000; }

</style>

That's the reason why it doesn't strike-through anymore. I have no idea where this comes from, but it seems to be configurable for each wiki. The German Wikipedia doesn't have that "text-decoration" in this script.

Anyway, I have implemented a work-around for this by making sure that HotCat overrides the text-decoration even if there is such a rogue CSS rule with "!important" somewhere. Should be fixed now. Please reload your browser's cache, re-try, and report back here whether or not the problem is solved for you. Lupo 07:00, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that fixed it for me! I'm now getting the strikethrough and the orange-ish background behind the text when I delete one. I do think that's better. Thanks! Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 08:24, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Fine. In case you're interested in technicalities, see WP:VPT#Where does this CSS come from? for the cause of this problem. Lupo 12:29, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Disabling for file pages?

Thanks for your help with the above, Lupo. One other thing I've been meaning to bring up for a little while—

Would it be worthwhile disabling hotcat for use on file pages in the same way that it is disabled on template pages? My reasoning is this: it has become fairly common for editors to mistakenly create WP pages of Commons mirror description pages by adding a category to the mirror page using hotcat. These WP pages then have to be speedily deleted per F2 and we have to go through the process of explaining to the editor why the WP page of the mirrored description page was deleted, and so forth. It's often very confusing for editors to understand what happened, and that they actually created a page by adding a category to it with hotcat. If an editor tries to create one of these pages via the normal method (not using hotcat), they receive a very noticeable pink warning page stating that they should not create this page unless they know what they are doing, etc. But of course in using hotcat they don't receive this warning.

It's not a huge deal, but disabling hotcat for use on file pages would reduce the work of going back and deleting these pages that are created this way. And it wouldn't be a huge loss, as non-Commons file pages on WP are not extensively categorized by hand anyway. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 21:31, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Sounds sensible. It probably makes sense not to enable it on non-existing file pages. If there are cases where one would want to add local categories for a file that resides at the Commons, I presume they'd be rare and the categories could just as well be added manually by creating the page normally. Done. It'll take some 30 days until all users' browsers' caches will have automatically updated, but if you refresh your browser's cache manually and then visit a non-existing file page (such as File:Malaysian Fruits (10).JPG, file is at the Commons), you'll see that there's no category bar anymore. However, on existing file pages such as File:Draug.jpg, HotCat is still active. Lupo 07:10, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Sounds great. Categories are legitimately added on mirror pages when an image has won a WP award or appeared on DYK, but from what I've seen those are always added manually with an edit summary explaining why it is being done, not with hotcat. Thanks. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 07:23, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Similar tool for stub sorting?

Would anyone be interested in creating a similar tool for stub sorting? For example, the user would be able to use navigation similar to HotCat to drill down from Category:Music stubs → Category:Musical group stubs → Category:United States musical group stubs, which would replace {{music-stub}} with {{US-band-stub}}? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 16:25, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Hotcat putting cats in wrong place (below not above stub)

Hallo, when I pointed out to an editor that s/he'd put a category after a {{stub}} (which is wrong - see WP:FOOTERS - stub tags go after everything except inter-language links), they blamed HotCat and said that was where it had put the category. The same editor puts DEFAULTSORT after categories not before - not sure whether this is also a HotCat problem. Could someone check whether HotCat is actually sticking to the rules and preserving the order specified in WP:FOOTERS? PamD 17:07, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

HotCat places categories wherever there are categories. If there are none yet, it places the new categories above the interlanguage links. If there are no interlanguage links, it places new categories at the end of the wikitext.

HotCat does not have any special treatment for special templates and other stuff, and it is unlikely to get any. If this project wants HotCat to deal with that, somebody at this project will have to write a handler for that, intercepting the edit HotCat makes, and then place the categories wherever you guys like. (You could even order them alphabetically...)

Frankly said, the sense of having a policy that says that specific templates must be in specific places eludes me completely. Especially if the requirement is to have particular templates before or after the categories. It doesn't matter at all. Both categories and interlanguage links are removed from normal page flow and displayed in special areas, so wherever you place the templates at the end of the wikitext, they'll end up being shown at the bottom of the visible page. I'd say it's time to rewrite WP:FOOTERS to reflect that: place stub templates anywhere after item 8 in the list given at WP:ORDER.

Lupo 21:58, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

(Visitor from WP:WSS) There are two reasons (I have seen) for putting stubs below cats. Firstly, this puts the stub categories after the 'real' categories in the articles category list, rather than before. Secondly, to maintain a standard footer order which makes the footer sections easier for editors to find. Of items 7-12 at WP:FOOTERS, stubs are the only one that appear in the article, so (other than category order and the double spacing before a stub, assuming coords=title) there is no visual change to anything you do with this section. But when these items are in an unexpected order, I think it slows down editing of these sections and may make it more likely for editors to not notice/not find a template and hence make a mistake (such as duplicating a template). For that reason I would think having a WP:ORDER guide to try and stick to is beneficial. And if are having an order, my first reason suggests stubs go after cats, and common sense (to me) puts defaultsort directly before cats. I don't know the reasoning for the placement of the other 3 invisible footers at WP:ORDER, but when I'm editing lots of cats, stubs, navboxes, etc, I'm glad we have it (and mostly stick to it). --Qetuth (talk) 00:28, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Same bug I reported before

I reported this October, but not recall the response. After making an edit, saving, and then removing a category using HotCat, the previous edit I made is reversed, as can be seen in this diff. Does anyone have any idea why this happens, and, more importantly, how it can be corrected? Thanks! ---RepublicanJacobite_TheFortyFive 22:00, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Same answer as in October (at #HotCat may be acting strangely above): I see no way that could happen in HotCat unless it was bugzilla:27891. It also appears to occur very, very rarely, otherwise there'd be many more complaints about this, which may indicate that the problem is not with HotCat but with something else. Each wiki page is served containing a unique ID called wgCurRevisionId that tells which particular version one is looking at. HotCat requests the wikitext of that precise wgCurRevisionId, then modifies that to change categories, and then submits the changed text as an edit. I see exactly three possible ways in which this can fail:

1. wgCurRevisionId is incorrect (for instance, if some other JavaScript fiddled with it) and denotes an earlier page version than the one shown. Possible, but rather unlikely, I think.

   Could happen for instance if some edits were made to the page through some other JavaScript (e.g., through the edit API), and this other script did neither reload the page nor update wgCurRevisionId so that the value the server originally sent and that HotCat sees is outdated. Lupo 10:53, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

2. wgCurRevisionId is correct, but the MediaWiki API somehow returns the wrong page text, namely the wikitext of the previous page revision.
3. Neither of the above, but bugzilla:27891 reared its head and you were shown, after having saved the edit, not the page after the edit but again the revision before the edit, but you didn't notice it. (I notice that the mistakenly undone edit is quite far above the categories, so I consider that not impossible.)

On top of that, the MediaWiki software suppresses edit conflicts with oneself, so you don't even get an edit conflict. In all three cases, I don't see what I could do in HotCat about that. Lupo 22:54, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I just noticed that wgCurRevisionId always is the latest revision ID of the page, even if you're looking at an old version. Furthermore, I notice that the API queries HotCat makes before submitting the edit actually do return again that latest revision ID, as well as the revision ID of the wikitext gotten. Hence HotCat can detect before submitting whether the page has been edited in the meantime, or whether it got back some other text than the one it had asked for, and therefore it can actually try to guard against such problems, and instead of saving automatically always force a diff view in such cases. I'll implement something to that effect. It won't avoid the problem completely (as I don't know what causes this, I can only combat symptoms), but if HotCat detects it, you'll at least have the possibility to review your change and not save it. Lupo 13:57, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate your response, though I must admit, most of this technical language is Greek to me. And I did see your response above when I reported the problem in October. You are also correct when you say this is very rare: I do not recall it happening since I made the earlier report. Back then, I made a report on Village pump technical, and a responder pointed me here. So, once again, here I am, still baffled. Again, thanks for your response. ---RepublicanJacobite_TheFortyFive 14:37, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Rest assured, I am baffled, too :-) But I do have a few things up my sleeve to try to combat this strange phenomenon. The upshot of the above technical gobbledygook is: I can change HotCat such that it tries to detect that, and if it thinks this has occurred, it won't save but show you a normal diff screen, where you'd then have to click on the "save page" button to make the edit. Lupo 14:44, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I am glad I am not alone! The option you mention would at least let the editor know that there is a conflict, and he can then choose not to make the edit. ---RepublicanJacobite_TheFortyFive 03:26, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Done in HotCat V2.18. Please reload your browser's cache to get the newest version. If HotCat thinks that the edit it'll make might cause a self edit conflict, it will by default not save but show a diff screen with the warning MediaWiki:Editingold shown at the top. If you ever see that message on a HotCat edit, please send me the full HTML page source of that diff page (you can get it through the browser's "View page source" menu command). There is some version information in that HTML, and together with the page history I may be able to figure out better why it has occurred. Lupo 10:46, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

No French?

How come there's no French version, and how can I fix that? --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 17:58, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Alors, moi, je vois bien l'interface français quand je visite p.ex. cette page-ci avec uselang=fr. Lupo 10:14, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't mean how can use English WP with French controls, I mean why has no one translated HotCat into French? And is it easily done? / Pourquoi personne n'est pas traduire l'HotCat? C'est possible où facile? --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 05:52, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

But there is a French translation. The UI messages have all been translated; HotCat loads and uses them from commons:MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js/fr if you set the interface language to French. The edit summaries of HotCat have not been translated on purpose. Edit summaries are for the benefit of other contributors and therefore should always be in the main language of the wiki (the content language, i.e., English at the English Wikipedia or at the Commons). If other projects use the Commons' HotCat, they have the possibility to localize the edit summaries through a /local_defaults file on their wiki. See commons:Help:Gadget-HotCat. If you're asking about HotCat at the French Wikipedia, please note that the French Wikipedia uses their own script that has nothing to do with commons:MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js. Lupo 14:16, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion: TextExt for user input, suggestions, etc

http://textextjs.com/

Would make for a very slick interface alternative to the current implementation. nocnokneo (talk) 06:33, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Multiple changes - auto save

Hi - I tend to do this on commons at lot more than here but I'm asking here anyway - it it possible to have the page auto save and skip the conventional save screen when altering more than one category - this happens a lot for me.Mddkpp (talk) 16:54, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Anything is possible. However, I had deemed that too risky, and thus have implemented it to always open a diff screen if multiple categories are changed. Personally, I like the ability to back out. With the new HotCat 2.15, it is however possible for you to force it to auto-save always. Put the following in your Special:MyPage/common.js:

mw.loader.using("mediawiki.user", function () {
  $('body').delegate('#hotcatCommitForm', 'submit', function () {
    var submitType = this.wpDiff;
    if (submitType && (!this.oldid || this.oldid == '0')) {
      // Switch form submission from diff to save. Don't do this if "oldid" is set to anything but '0':
      // that indicates an edit conflict with yourself, and in that case you really, really do want
      // to see the diff!
      this.wpEditToken.value = mw.user.tokens.get("editToken");
      submitType.name = submitType.value = 'wpSave';
    }
    return true;
  });
});

That makes HotCat always auto-save. (You may need to refresh your browser's cache first to make sure your browser does use the latest HotCat 2.15.) Lupo 21:05, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Works great - thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 21:52, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes works for me too, here and on commons - you may have no idea just how useful (de-frustrating) this will be for me. thanks x 10. :)

Mddkpp (talk) 22:14, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Code updated slightly with the check for "oldid". See #Same bug I reported before below. Lupo 11:01, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

The code above is not working for me at all on Commons. It was mentioned on the Twinkle talk page that $ may not work as an alias for jQuery anymore; but it still didn't work when I tried substituting jQuery or window.jQuery for the $. Any ideas? —Darkwind (talk) 23:55, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

en dashes

Bots (such as Clydebot) sometimes move categories to dashed versions, following the punctuation of the main article. That means HotCat will no longer recognize the hyphenated form of the name, which is what most people will try to enter – most will have no idea what the problem is, or how to type a dash if they did know.

Could you adjust HotCat to recognize dashes and hyphens as equivalent?

Thanks, — kwami (talk) 04:28, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

I would say the problem is with using n-dashes in titles, not with people not knowing how to type them. This n-dash business is over-nitpicky counterproductive pedantry. No, I won't change HotCat to treat n-dashes and hyphens as equivalent, because it might be completely wrong in other languages, and furthermore HotCat wouldn't know whether to treat n-dashes as hyphens or hyphens as n-dashes. If you want n-dashes and hyphens to be equivalent, file a bug request against the search engines (and page list API) to have them treated as equivalent for the English wikipedia. Or just stop using n-dashes in page titles. (They could still be shown in the displayed title via the DISPLAYTITLE magic word.) Lupo 06:33, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the solution, Kwami, is to get a bot to create category redirects using a hyphen instead of an en dash where en dashes are used in category names (e.g. Category:1990-91 NBA season to Category:1990–91 NBA season). Wouldn't that fix the problem? Jenks24 (talk) 08:15, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

That should work. Lupo 08:26, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

There would be no problem with other languages, it would simply be a matter of recognition. Basically, you don't like English punctuation, so you're going to pout and cause accessibility problems. Lovely. No, I'm not going to create hundreds of redirects to fix up the mess you created. We'll have more people who won't bother adding categories to our articles; but then, I don't care much about categories, so it makes little difference to me. (And no, I won't get a bot to do it either. It would take months of debate for them to decide whether they should do it or not, and it wouldn't address future changes.) — kwami (talk) 08:19, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

There is general guidance right now for admins who process changes of hyphens to endashes in category names to retain the hyphenated version as a category redirect. This works well with hotcat; if you add the category with the hyphen and it is soft redirected to the en-dash version, it adds the en-dash version. I think things are working very well as they are now. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 09:07, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that would work well. When did it start? I haven't seen it so far. Is there any plan to apply it retroactively, for the cats which were speedy moved without redirects? — kwami (talk) 09:21, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

The advice was set down about ... a year ago? I'm guessing. Maybe a bit longer ago. It was around the same time when it became recognised that changing a hyphen to an endash in a category name could be processed via speedy procedures. Unfortunately, the advice has not sunk in for all admins, and not everyone does it when speedy changes are processed. As far as I know there have been no formal plans formed to retroactively apply it, though some of us occasionally try to do a bunch. It probably could be a task for a bot; (User:Russbot might be interested in work like that.) It works quite well once it's set up. Try adding Category:Human-animal interaction to a page with hot cat and it will auto change it to Category:Human–animal interaction. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 09:41, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I saw it work with the NBA cat. I'll make a request with the bot that made the changes first. Thanks. — kwami (talk) 21:13, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Weird symbols recently showed up in Konqueror

I've been using HotCat for a few years now without problems, but just now I noticed the symbols (-) and (±) next to categories have changed to (−) and (±). I realize I use a fairly non-mainstream browser (Konqueror 4.8.3), but I know this wasn't happening as recently as May 31. I don't see it in Firefox 12.0, so it's not an OS issue. Any ideas? Ntsimp (talk) 06:19, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Never mind; clearing my cache fixed it. Sorry. Ntsimp (talk) 06:25, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Adding invisible characters

Why HotCat here inserted the invisible character U+200E (LTR mark) at the end of the category? If you edit the article and use the backspace on this category you will notice an invisible character between novels‎ and ]]. Is it a bug? -- Basilicofresco (msg) 18:46, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Good question. The user must have entered that U+200E. Can happen if he copy-pasted the category name from somewhere else. MediaWiki allows such bidi characters in the wikitext, but strips them when looking for the category. HotCat already takes great care to handle that when replacing a category, and the category to be replaced is written in the wikitext with such embedded invisible characters. I'm not sure offhand if HotCat could remove them always from user input without breaking anything; will have to check in the MediaWiki software how exactly it constructs links. Lupo 14:13, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Stubs

Category:Stubs should never be added directly to an article (only using {{stub}}), so could HotCat please not allow editors to do so? here's an example of HotCat being used to do this by a newbie editor: it would be more helpful if HotCat warned/prevented this. PamD 10:32, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

And of course all other stub templates. extra999 (talk) 13:45, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, we already excluded all categories ending in "... stub" or "... stubs". I have now changed the configuration to also exclude all categories starting with "Stub ..." or "Stubs ...". Lupo 13:52, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good. Thanks. PamD 14:34, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Placement after stub-categories

When adding categories to an article that has no categories other than those created thru stub templates, the new categories are placed after the stub categories. However if existing categories precede stub categories any additions are placed ahead of the stub categories.

This creates an inconsistency in Wikipedia. Ottawahitech (talk) 04:26, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

It also goes against WP:ORDER, which specifies that all categories should be placed ahead of any stub templates. PamD 06:50, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I second this. I have reported this bug a long time ago. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:39, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Is HotCat broken?

It just vanished completely for me between categorizing one article and the next, but it's still checked in my Gadgets tab, I looked. Katharineamy (talk) 00:44, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Not working for me today either. GoingBatty (talk) 02:04, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Working now. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:08, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

It's happening again - I've tried bypassing the cache to no avail. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 15:24, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

And fixed again. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 19:52, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

HotCat should avoid certain categories

For example, Category:Transformers is an ambiguous category, but HotCat seems to ignore the template {{Category ambiguous}}. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 20:59, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

That's a configuration issue. For reasons I don't remember, HotCat is configured here to ignore disambiguation categories. You could change that by setting HotCat.disambig_category = 'Disambiguation categories'; in MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js/local defaults. Lupo 05:53, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Looks like nobody did this, so I've done it now myself. May need a cache reload for people who are already using HotCat. Lupo 19:58, 15 November 2012 (UTC)