What are custom category pages
Category pages were always meant to be a way to clearly separate your content into sections. One of the most common issues had what that they wanted to have the functionality and richness of content/design articles had. This was partially fixed with the introduction of parent articles but… Parent articles were never meant to be used as categories.
The custom category pages allow you to completely redesign the way the page looks. Using the Design and Content tabs you will be able to add a lot of custom content AND choose where this content appears.
The organization of the structure is very simple, all you need to do is go to the Design tab and use the Drag and Drop functionality to place them where you want. If you don’t want to use one of the sections, just drag it to the “Unused sections” box, you can always drag them back out if you want!
How can you use them
Custom categories can do so much more than the simple implementation. Because of the extra content, they can be used not only to showcase the contents of the category but they can serve you as introductory articles to sections. They can be used to give context and to enrich the experience of your readers. Some people are using them as a way to show their work during competitions and others to write.
Create a Primer for your Party
Custom Category as a player’s handbook by Roger Davis in The World of Tavomia
Create Information Hubs
As a way to show articles in a completely custom way, in the form of an archive by Aubekai (hellay)
Use them as Monetization Tools
Use custom categories to give context by Amy Winters-Voss in Liminal Chronicles
Who can use them
Since the fall under the remit of advanced customization, the Custom Categories, as well as the Custom World Homepage, are both Grandmaster+ features. There is no plan for those trickle down just yet, BUT the technology and changes used on them WILL allow for a lot of great stuff for all guild members, read below!
What’s coming up next
Drag’n’Drop on the homepage
The same drag and drop used in categories will be used soon to bring the same freedom to the homepage, I know that after the recent update many of you wished that it would be easier!
Cleanup of the Edit Category page
Brandon (Ademal) created for me a beautiful list of suggestions about making the category edit page cleaner and simpler so I will be doing those soon
The Table of Contents used in the homepage as the ToC for categories
The new style of Table of contents will be used in the categories page as well for everyone which means that you will be able to see your articles in the ToC as well
Global Announcements/Content block
This is loosely related but important, all guild members will get a new feature soon that will allow you to have a piece of content that will appear in every single article and category in your world. I will try this by adding it on the sidebar of the articles with a sidebar and we will see how it goes
Testing technology for future use in articles
This is highly experimental, but I know that many of you asked for the chance to be able to move things around in your articles. I am doing some experiments now on that and on the ability to quickly hide/show to people other than the writer pieces of the content. Not easy stuff but I am on it.
Special Categories / Sections
I have seen many of you using articles as a way to “blog” and give “development updates” I want to find ways of making this easier for you and to provide a way for you to write blog-style content in your worlds
