Forum:Template categories

I've been trying to set up a template hierarchy on the new wiki I've just started, and I am trying to organize these templates into categories to make it easier to locate them and find which one to use.

The templates that I'm using have a "meta-template" that contains the basic formatting markup, to coincide with the overall graphical theme of the wiki (also, to make it easier to change the appearance if that is desired), and to lay out other rough organizational appearance issues.

The "main" set of templates then have this meta-template transcluded for this formatting data.

To give a specific example, the "meta-template" I'm using is c:newamsterdam:Template:Quote and one of the "templates" that I'm using this "meta-template" inside of is c:newamsterdam:Quote:Rebecca. In turn, I am using this short quotation on the Main Page, and I have future plans to include the quote on other content pages which is why I'm using templates here rather than embedding the quotes directly into the main page.

What I'd like to do is put into the "meta-template" some method of putting the individual quotes into categories but not have that categorization cascade down into the main content pages. Here is the hierarchy:

Template:Quote ^ |  Quote:Rebecca ^ |  Main Page

I would like to put each of these pages into independent categories, and have the top level contain the categorization information.

I can use the   notation to get this to work for putting the category into the 2nd tier, but the category cascades down to the Main Page as well.

I'd like to use the following syntax:

   

However, all this seems to accomplish is to avoid putting the category into any page at all.

Does anybody know how to set up categorization that cascades down only one level of usage, from a "parent" template like this?

I do realize I could accomplish this by simply adding the category with   tags on the second level of this heirarchy, but I'm lazy and don't want to put in this categorization on every template that I'm using... or at least forgetting to do that when I'm creating dozens of quotes at once, which is my motivation for even attempting this. Also, I would like to keep the templates as simple as possible in terms of only entering the minimal information that repeats itself. --Robert Horning 21:18, 23 January 2009 (UTC)