We currently have two very large categories - Bridges (1336 pages) and Junctions (2868 pages). The Bridges are currently also largely (although not completely) categorised under Arch, Suspension etc, and I would like in the longer term to do something similar with Junctions. As far as bridges are concerned, I think that the majority not in a sub-cat have [[Cat:Br..]] at the bottom anyway, so would it be possible to change the Bridges Infobox to read [[Category:All Bridges]] in place of [[Category:Bridges]] - the former could then be a Hidden Cat, and the latter would only (hopefully) have un-categorised bridges in.
Ditto, although maybe at a later date, for Junctions?

Roads is currently 8,320 pages!



We could do something like that, yeah. What is possible is to auto-generate the categories (type=suspension or similar), but the big problem with that is that it involves extreme accuracy with the typing. I could probably do something with it so that if it didn't fit the exact wording it would fall through to a catch-all category.

Whack this where you would like the type to be displayed... it'll run a switch on whatever is given in the type= parameter...



"|type=suspension" would display "Suspension Bridge" and put it in the suspension bridges category
"|type=suspenssion" would display "Error: Invalid bridge type specified"

I implemented a similar thing on the type field of the route boxes.

you'll want to change the parameter from type to bridgetype as type is already in use.

Just a thought - we can do this, but we still need the massive "bridge" category, as that's how the navbox works!

We can, however, add the "subcategories" quite happily - like "Roads" has "Motorways" for example

Yes, I see what you mean. However, apart from trashing the job queue, is there any reason why the navbox couldn't cope with Category:All Bridges instead though? The reason being that the Bridge subcategories, bridge type* pages, uncategorized bridges and so on are all in Category:Bridges, making it very hard to see the wood for the trees.
* I appreciate that these could go in a Bridge Type sub-cat, but that could still get lost on page 2 of the big list.

Yes, I think we could do that. There would be a period of time where things wouldn't work properly as we'd have to do the Navbox change at one point, and the Bridges infobox at another, or we'll overwhelm the server.

Just a word of caution. Try not to fiddle with template code too much. A seemingly innocuous template edit has been known to cause very heavy load on the server for days at a time.