Admin Forum:Customizing forums

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I've tried to customize the local forums, but it doesn't seem to work.

<forum>
namespace=Forum
category=Forum:Watercooler
shownamespace=false
addlasteditor=true
historylink=true
cache=false
</forum>

Does not list anything, I've modified the default category name with the addition of a prefix "Forum:", but everything else is the same, and now nothing gets listed. I really don't like how Wikia default category naming takes up precious names from categorization of actual content pages, so I moved the forums.

Does the forums support customized category naming, or do I have to move things back to the rather poorly defined names Wikia came up with (and by extension either use weird names for my forums, or use up category names better used for content page categories? )

-- ForestMonthZero (talk) 06:22, August 18, 2012 (UTC)

Links to the wiki and page in question would probably speed up the resolution of this issue. — Sovq 18:56, August 18, 2012 (UTC)

Yep, the standard forum extension (called DPLforum) does support customized category name. Just looking at your code, I find it hard to believe that your category name is actually "Forum:Watercooler". It's more likely to be "Watercooler". But I dunno, cause I'm not sure what wiki you're talking about. As Sovq has said, we need a link to the wiki to fully help you.

In the meantime, you might want to go to tardis:forum:Panopticon archives to see this code used in a comparatively more advanced way. If you go there, you'll see completely free-form categories in use to create lots of "sub-forums". You'll want to go here for a complete listing of all the parameters that can be changed using DPLforum. (Incidentally, the extension is called "DPLforum" because it is a specific application of DPL (dynamic page list), a fairly powerful extension that you can request be added to your wiki.) czechout ☎ ✍  fly tardis  20:26: Sat 18 Aug 2012 

Well, it turns out that DPLforums doesn't like colons or "Forum:" or whatever, in the names of its categories. Yes, my categories had "Forum:Watercooler" as it's name ("Cateogory:Forum:Watercooler" -- as I said, I renamed the categories, because the default categories use up names better used for actual categorization of pages and not for forums), with FORUM, and the COLON. And DPLforums just refused to recognize that as an acceptable name. When I removed "Category:Forum:x" and replaced it with "Category:Forum x" formulation for forum names, it started working. So now I've had to delete the forum categories, and make new ones with a space instead of a colon. -- ForestMonthZero (talk) 06:16, August 28, 2012 (UTC)