Support (but in practice image specific categories (like taken on date, men looking whereever) have to be kept. So this can best be handled imho when moving images to a new category by removing all the categories found on both the new category and the moved images from the images moved. --Herzi Pinki (talk) 11:00, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Spinoff: Edit-a-lot for various text replacements? -DieBuche (talk)
If a category is added by a template and there is no explicit [[Category:XXX]], the script will stop processing remaining pages. The problem was found when I move templates which use {{Documentation}} from one category to another.--Gqqnb (talk) 23:56, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
When the category tag contains an unvisible controll character at the bootom (which is inadvertently intruded copying the category name, an example), Cat-a-lot is not able to move or remove the page from the category where it is place, giving a message: "The following pages were skipped, because the old category could not be found:…" HotCat is able to deal such pages. --ŠJů (talk) 10:36, 6 October 2013 (UTC) (Recently identified as char code 8206 (a Left-to-right mark), Substitute character, U+200E, see this (19 June 2012) and this (7 May 2013) report.)[reply]
A way to copy/move to several categories at once. One way to do that would be to require the user (perhaps only if they've set it so) to click "save" before Cat-a-lot actually does anything – the user could then have clicked several "Copy" and "Move" buttons before and Cat-a-lot would do all these operations. darkweasel9412:02, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
An odd bug showed up today, twice (Addendum: the bug persists, either from category or from search list view). I select, say, four files, press "move", catalot responds "4 files moved", all four turn from green to grey. But the target category contains only three files. One was left unchanged. Kaluga.2012 (talk) 20:59, 1 November 2013 (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]
Perhaps change the link to read "Cat-a-lot Preferences" so that it will stand out a little better. I, frankly, never saw it until today and I've been using Cat-a-lot for a long time. . Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 11:55, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The option to automatically mark edits as minor seems to be buggy. If you look at my recent contributions, you'll see that it randomly marks edits as minor, but sometimes not (I set it to mark them as minor). I have no idea under what circumstances that happens. darkweasel9418:42, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Moving files from Category "Media needing categories as of …". This yields an error message "The following pages were skipped, because the old category could not be found". --hdamm (talk) 17:16, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
hdamm (talk·contribs), that is not surprising, it's expected behavior. It applies to all categories that are added through templates, because these aren't in the wikicode, so Cat-a-lot can't really detect them. If you click "Copy" instead of "Move" in a "Media needing categories" category, it will do what you want, as it always removes {{Uncategorized}} if you add categories through it. darkweasel9419:22, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
An option to highlight files in a given category which are also in its subcategories, so one can click "remove from this category" button. This would be a tool to clean up the overcategorized images.
Add an "Are you sure?" pop-up before proceeding that also explains the operation about to commence. E.g., "This will add the category Lions to 13 selected files".—Cpt.a.haddock (talk) 19:19, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
support only if. This could be the default, but I can't support it unless it can be turned off permanently in the preferences. For an experienced use, it would just be a nuisance.. Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 19:27, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I am quite often indefinitely stuck at the "Loading …" prompt while the gadget does its thing. Feels like a bug, but I might be doing something wrong as well.—Cpt.a.haddock (talk) 19:23, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Make the tool available also at the special page "File list" (user galleries of all uploaded files). --ŠJů (talk) 15:24, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Add an option which can remove the file from a category which is not the actual category AND which can remove the file from any category in the research page (for the moment there is just "add" beside each category, it would be nice to have a "remove" option just beside "add", for example in order to cleanup some categories with a research of that kind: "something incategory:"…" hastemplate:"…" etc"… Jeriby (talk) 13:55, 20 August 2015 (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, –Davey2010Talk12:29, 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]
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]
In my opinion the link in the edit summary to [[Help:Cat-a-lot]] should be changed into [[Special:MyLanguage/Help:Gadget-Cat-a-lot|Cat-a-lot]]. --Brackenheim (talk) 10:57, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The gadget has stopped appearing for me when I am using the Monobook skin, but reappears when I use the Vector skin. It's worked perfectly in Monobook for the past few years, so what's changed? Rcsprinter123 (talk) 20:08, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Done @Rcsprinter123: It is definitely one of your own scripts, as you import 3 scripts on Monobook and none on Vector. The very old Rcsprinter123/toolbox2.js breaks definitely all JS. -- -- User: Perhelion20:58, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I do a lot of categorization of unidentified images. I go to, for example, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Media_needing_categories_as_of_4_December_2016. I click on Cat-a-lot and enter a possibly appropriate category name, for example, "Association football clubs of the United Kingdom". Cat-a-lot returns "Category redirects" above it. If I copy the image to "Association football clubs of the United Kingdom," the image is now on the redirect page. Why doesn't Cat-a-lot, recognizing this is a redirect situation, automatically generate the correct category page, so that I can now follow its tree, and I don't have to leave Cat-a-lot? To get the name of the page that "Association football clubs of the United Kingdom" redirects to, I have been opening a new tab and pasting the name in, and following the redirect, which is unnecessary work. Downtowngal (talk) 20:52, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! It works much better now. Now I would like to complain about something else. It is the Geocoding line on an image page. The options are "View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap - Google Earth". The problem is that the OpenStreetMap uses the local language, so if I am categorizing an image from, for example, Japan, if I cannot read Japanese, I cannot use OpenStreetMap. And the Google Earth map has a .kml extension, which my browser does not open. PLEASE make Google Earth open with one click! Downtowngal (talk) 01:56, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
With the new look of this Gadget, I cannot click on plus, because it is behind the scroll bar of a browser (FF 56.0.2.). Can you fix it please?--Juandev (talk) 23:14, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, the handling of {{Uncategorized}} seems to have changed. When using cat-a-lot on a category (and presumingly on a gallery (I did not test this)) to add categories and if your preferences have Remove {{Uncategorized}} checked, {{Uncategorized}} is not removed any more (e.g. categories underneath Category:Photos from Panoramio needing categories by ID). Maybe this is by design, but rather impractical. Please restore the old behavior, in the worst case the file will be tagged as {{Uncategorized}} by some bot again. best --Herzi Pinki (talk) 09:12, 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]
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)❤T☮C☺M☯18:32, 18 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I am using Cat-a-lot on Commons and it seems to barely be working in the past month. It will edit <100 pages and then freeze up. Elisfkc (talk) 18:06, 21 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've been having this too. It's especially annoying when (which is most of the time) the Cat-a-lot box is at the bottom of my browser window, and so I have to drag it upward before I can access those controls. ← PointyOintment ❬t & c❭20:25, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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]
Can you make cat-a-lot available for Special:UnusedFiles? In other wikis, the page would contain a lot of files no longer used after vectorized, replaced with the one on Commons, etc. Thank you. RXerself (talk) 16:27, 7 July 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). ← PointyOintment ❬t & c❭20:23, 25 August 2020 (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. ← PointyOintment ❬t & 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. ← PointyOintment ❬t & 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 ! talk01:35, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Bug: Cat-a-lot is stuck on "Editing page X of Y" if a subcategory has any sort key, such as * or any text string. – Srđan (talk) 09:40, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am finding the same. Well, basically all subcategories get hung up on "1 of x" in recent weeks only, while images are no problem. MarbleGarden (talk) 19:20, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]