Electronic file folders or file drawers may be the best anaology for categories. Nothing extraordinary or complicated; just a nice feature of this software that makes it possible to choose which category each "New Question" (or topic, new note, message, whatever) gets filed or stored under after it drops off the "New Questions" list on the main page. (Right now I have the software set to keep the messages on the "New Questions" list - the links on the main page that lead to pages or "threads" like this - for 14 days. After that (or whatever length of time's set), they "disappear" into their file folders, drawers, categories where they can always be found.

When you post a new message, you'll see a "Category" field that has one of them there "drop down menus" attached to it that contains the list of categories to choose from. As of today (the day I'm setting up the first categories), there will be 3 or 4: "2001 Stuff"; "Notes"; "Forum Mechanics" (for occasional notes like this about the truly boring stuff about how this software works); and "2002 General" (which will like a "miscellaneous" catchall file that we may want to refine a little on account of it makes it easier to find things later when they're not all jumbled up in the catchall drawer, dontcha know).

And speaking of that, as or if you think of a category that ought to exist, just let me know and I'll add it to the list of choices. If you're thinking of any right now, just click the "Contribute an answer" button below and type it in. Like this...

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

Answers

I was thinking maybe we should have one called "Pizza Deliveries" so we have some place to keep track of how many times we order pizza, how much they cost, etc... Just an idea.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

And, as many drunk people say at Christmas parties, when they're standing around in those small groups, all talking at once, "And aNOther thing!"

This is probably a pretty good example of how the categorization feature works and why it could come in handy... What got me going on this today is Beth, the great notes she takes, and how we're forever referring back to them as we try to remember which version of what the Guiding Lights presented at the last meeting: "Did he say we should do that, or did he say that in the meeting before last, before he changed his mind again?" (Many times I sat on the picnic table, watching the wind whip those pages, casually wondering what would happen if Beth ever lost that notebook.)

So I switched on the category feature in order to be able to make the category called "Notes," and the idea is, if Beth can stand it, if a quick version of whatever written notes are taken could be typed up and entered into this forum, and filed in the "Notes" category, they would all be right here, in nice neat chronological order. Want to know what the notes said about whatever it is? No problem. Just go to the forum, click on the "Notes" category, and there they all will be.

Which reminds me: As always, good description subject titles always help a lot when it comes to locating particular documents. That is to say, "NOTES: June 19th Meeting with Mike Hutchinson - Spirit Fest T- shirts," is better than "NOTES: June 19th Spirit Fest Meeting."

Also... No need to preface the subject lines with their category names (like the "NOTES:" or "FORUM MECHANICS" prefaces I'm using today. I use them to make it easier to see what they're about while they sit on the "New Questions" list (it helps when a forum has a lot of items on that list - it's not a big factor when that list is short). There's no need for them once they drop off the "New" list and into their categories, so there's really no need for you to worry about remembering to include them. You can if you want to. They don't hurt anything, but they're not crucial...

Okay... That's the categories story.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002

And aNOther thing! Forgot to mention that another really nice feature of the software - a nice aspect of doing things this way - is that each note can have related follow-up notes "attached" to it, or right there underneath it on the screen... It would be as if each note were put in its own file folder, and then notes concerning whatever follow- up actions were taken in regards to its subject were put in the same folder... Again: Not something anyone needs to drive themselves crazy with (a lot of things won't require any kind of follow-up documentation and there's no reason to put things in here just for the sake of putting them in here), but in some more important cases it would probably come in handy.

For example: If I had a meeting with myself, I could've made a note on it that said, "We decided to turn on the categories feature of the forum software, define categories for the existing threads, categorize those existing threads, and then write an explanation of categories and put it in the forum."

That paragraph would have been at the top of this thread, and all these categorization notes would be that "follow-up."

Or, more simply, the follow-up note could consist of one word:

"Done."

But not quite: "One last detail" (while it's crossing my mind). As mentioned in the "About this forum" thread (in the Forum Mechanics category), notes (or anything else) can be typed up in a program like Microsoft Word and then simply copied and pasted into the text entry box that comes up when either "Ask a Question" or "Contribute an answer" is clicked. A lot of times, Word is a much more "comfortable" place to type things: Internet text entry boxes are okay, but they're small, don't have spelling checkers, and if a person's putting together something that's a little longer than a short note (and they tend to worry about things like correct spelling and proof reading - which I sometimes do, probably won't most times in this forum), or you're just more comfortable with Word, by all means, use it...

• Just type up whatever it is.

• Come to the forum.

• Click the links to get where you want to get (click "Ask a Question" to start a new thread or open the existing thread/subject you're looking for, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "Contribute an answer" to add something to an existing thread).

• Shift over to Word, do a "Select all," copy it, shift back over to the forum.

• Click on the text entry box (to put your cursor in it), and do a "Paste," and...

• Click "Submit."

Done.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2002