I've made some changes to Parser.php on my local install to make category pages a little neater. You can take a look at http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Category_sort_example.png for a fairly recent screenshot.

Things changed are * Three column view of sub categories and articles * List view of subcategories and articles (if there are only a few) * headings for the first letter of sort keys in article and subcategory lists * "Category" doesn't appear before subcategories and * Display of the number of articles and subcategories.

I have no idea if this code is safe/well thought out/whatever but it works fine on my local mediawiki installation.

And no picking on my php skills ;-)

Tobin.

My version of the categoryMagic function follows. Just about everything after "# For all pages that link to this category" is changed.

---- # This method generates the list of subcategories and pages for a category function categoryMagic () { global $wgLang , $wgUser ; if ( !$this->mOptions->getUseCategoryMagic() ) return ; # Doesn't use categories at all

$cns = Namespace::getCategory() ; if ( $this->mTitle->getNamespace() != $cns ) return "" ; # This ain't a category page

$r = "<br style="clear:both;"/>\n";

$sk =& $wgUser->getSkin() ;

$articles = array() ; $articles_start_char = array(); $children = array() ; $children_start_char = array(); $data = array () ; $id = $this->mTitle->getArticleID() ;

# FIXME: add limits $t = wfStrencode( $this->mTitle->getDBKey() ); $sql = "SELECT DISTINCT cur_title,cur_namespace,cl_sortkey FROM cur,categorylinks WHERE cl_to='$t' AND cl_from=cur_id ORDER BY cl_sortkey" ; $res = wfQuery ( $sql, DB_READ ) ; while ( $x = wfFetchObject ( $res ) ) $data[] = $x ;

# For all pages that link to this category foreach ( $data AS $x ) { $t = $wgLang->getNsText ( $x->cur_namespace ) ; if ( $t != "" ) $t .= ":" ; $t .= $x->cur_title ; if ( $x->cur_namespace == $cns ) { array_push ( $children, $sk->makeKnownLink ( $t, $x->cur_title) ) ; # Subcategory array_push ( $children_start_char, $x->cl_sortkey[0]) ; } else { array_push ( $articles , $sk->makeLink ( $t ) ) ; # Page in this category array_push ( $articles_start_char, $x->cl_sortkey[0]) ; } } wfFreeResult ( $res ) ;

# Showing subcategories if ( count ( $children ) > 20) { $ti = $this->mTitle->getText() ; // divide list into three equal chunks $chunk = (int) (count ( $children ) / 3);

// get and display header $h = wfMsg( "subcategories" ); $r .= "<h2>{$h}</h2>\n" ; $r .= "There are ".count( $children )." subcategories to this category<br>" ; $r .= "<table width="100%"><tr valign="top">"; $startChunk = 0; $endChunk = $chunk; // loop through the chunks for($startChunk = 0, $endChunk = $chunk, $chunkIndex = 0; $chunkIndex < 3; $chunkIndex++, $startChunk = $endChunk, $endChunk += $chunk + 1) { $r .= "<td>"; $r .= "<ul>"; // output all subcategories to category for ($index = $startChunk ; $index < $endChunk && $index < count($children); $index++ ) { // check for change of starting letter or begging of chunk if ($children_start_char[$index] != $children_start_char[$index - 1] || $index == $startChunk ) { $r .= "</ul>"; $r .= "<h3>".$children_start_char[$index]."</h3>\n"; $r .= "<ul>"; } $r .= "<li>".$children[$index]."</li>"; } $r .= "</ul>"; $r .= "</td>"; } $r .= "</tr></table>"; } else { // for short lists of subcategories to category. $ti = $this->mTitle->getText() ; $h = wfMsg( "subcategories" ); $r .= "<h2>{$h}</h2>\n" ; $r .= "There are ".count( $children )." subcategories to this category<br>" ;

$r .= "<h3>".$children_start_char[0]."</h3>\n"; $r .= "<ul><li>".$children[0]."</li>"; for ($index = 1; $index < count($children); $index++ ) { if ($children_start_char[$index] != $children_start_char[$index - 1]) { $r .= "</ul>"; $r .= "<h3>".$children_start_char[$index]."</h3>\n"; $r .= "<ul>"; } $r .= "<li>".$children[$index]."</li>"; } $r .= "</ul>"; }

# Showing articles in this category if ( count ( $articles ) > 20) { $ti = $this->mTitle->getText() ; // divide list into three equal chunks $chunk = (int) (count ( $articles ) / 3); // get and display header $h = wfMsg( "category_header", $ti ); $r .= "<h2>{$h}</h2>\n" ; $r .= "There are ".count( $articles )." articles in this category<br>"; $r .= "<table width="100%"><tr valign="top">"; // loop through the chunks for($startChunk = 0, $endChunk = $chunk, $chunkIndex = 0; $chunkIndex < 3; $chunkIndex++, $startChunk = $endChunk, $endChunk += $chunk + 1) { $r .= "<td>"; $r .= "<ul>"; // output all articles in category for ($index = $startChunk ; $index < $endChunk && $index < count($articles); $index++ ) { // check for change of starting letter or begging of chunk if ($articles_start_char[$index] != $articles_start_char[$index - 1] || $index == $startChunk ) { $r .= "</ul>"; $r .= "<h3>".$articles_start_char[$index]."</h3>\n"; $r .= "<ul>"; } $r .= "<li>".$articles[$index]."</li>"; } $r .= "</ul>"; $r .= "</td>"; } $r .= "</tr></table>"; } else { // for short lists of articles in categories. $ti = $this->mTitle->getText() ; $h = wfMsg( "category_header", $ti ); $r .= "<h2>{$h}</h2>\n" ; $r .= "There are ".count( $articles )." articles in this category<br>" ; $r .= "<h3>".$articles_start_char[0]."</h3>\n"; $r .= "<ul><li>".$articles[0]."</li>"; for ($index = 1; $index < count($articles); $index++ ) { if ($articles_start_char[$index] != $articles_start_char[$index - 1]) { $r .= "</ul>"; $r .= "<h3>".$articles_start_char[$index]."</h3>\n"; $r .= "<ul>"; } $r .= "<li>".$articles[$index]."</li>"; } $r .= "</ul>"; }

return $r ; }