Enabling users to filter by category will encourage and support the natural impulse people have to participate and organize around topics that interest them—and around particular workflows, which have used categories as a handy workaround for organizing their tasks.
The Category menu works the same as the main filter panel does--the same rollover, selection, close-menu, etc. behavior. Here are the Category filter-specific specs:
==General User menu functions
- Selecting a category from the menu means that all edits made to articles and other pages in that category are shown in the Results area.
- In terms of filtering logic, the entire Category menu is one filter "group." This means that when multiple categories are added to a search, each broadens the search, since all Category filters relate to one another via an OR.
- In the Active Filter Display Area, Category names are prepended by a / in their respective Tag bubbles. E.g., /Legendary creatures.
- Instruction text in the bottom of the panel reads: Search for any category by typing its name in the search bar, preceded by /.
- A "?" icon (help link) leads users to an as yet unwritten Help page on using category filters. !!@Pginer-WMF -- please add this to mockups.!!
==Category search functions
- When the Category menu is open, an / is displayed in the Search bar.
- When a reviewer who hasn't used this tool comes to it for the first time, the system scans the user's Contributions and identifies 5 categories from the pages the user has edited most recently (harvesting from as few pages as are necessary to achieve 5). These categories are presented in the menu, in alphabetical order, under the heading "Categories of articles you recently edited." !!@Pginer-WMF, Roan says this can be done relatively simply. Does this work for you?!!
- If the reviewer has made no edits to page in categories, no categories are presented.!! @Pginer-WMF, please show a design of what this state looks like. Please note the updated search and label text used here.!!
- Reviewers can search for categories not on the "Recent categories you've edited" list by entering a category name in the search bar, prepended by /, like so /Legendary creatures.
- As the reviewer types a category name, the system attempts to match it with category names in that wiki, showing the 10 closest matches, in alpha order, preceded by check boxes.
- The reviewer can select a category by clicking its check box in the menu, or by hitting Return once a unique match has been achieved in the search bar.
- The menu retains the 10 category names that the reviewer used most recently, gradually replacing prepopulated categories with categories the user actually searched for. These category names are listed in alphabetical order.
- There is no Exclude mode for Category filters.
!!@Pginer-WMF, please add updated mockups with new label, instruction text and help link. !!