Deleting global categories?
 

It's been touched on in several discussions, but in order to truly customize the system for myself and get rid of all useless and/or redundant categories, I'd like to delete all global categories and start from scratch. Even with removed protection, this currently doesn't seem possible however. Am I missing something? Is there a way to do this?

I'd appreciate any help :)

I would like this as well

I believe you can't delete a category as long as there are any topics that exist in that category.

Have you made sure to delete all of the topics that are using the category?

However, before you do that, have you tried simply hiding them? From the top menu choose "Manage" and the the "Categories" button in the toolbar.

On every category page right beside the category name in the top line there is a check box labelled "Shown". If that box is unchecked, the category won't be shown as a choice any time you have to pick a category.

You can't delete the global categories, even if they're unused. The best you can do is hide them, and then they still clog up your list of Categories. :(

You'll probably want to start a Feature Request thread.

I think the former only applies to custom categories. For global categories, even after moving all the topics out of the category, there's still no option to delete them.

As for hiding - this hides them in the selection when assigning the category - the category is however still present in the category editing screen, so you still have to sift through all the predefined categories to get to the custom ones.

Admittedly, this is very much just my overdeveloped need for orderliness, but I'd love the ability to get rid of things like "celestial location" and such things in a military sci fi campaign where they are certainly not needed and only get in the way of having a good overview of all actually relevant categories.

Alright, thanks for the info, will do.

The global categories need to be there for the Marketplace. They are universal for all purchased content.

I know, I know...but you'll NEVER download something from the market. Methinks you'll need to live with the inconvenience. It would be nice to have a button to hide the hidden or to filter hidden categories to the bottom of the list though.... But those are refinements for waaaaaaay down the list I hope as this is something most people will only deal with once in the entire time they use RW.

If you bring in a content item that uses a global category to a realm where that category has been deleted, it should be added back just like content that uses custom categories.

As MaxSupernova states, hiding them is probably the better practice. Deleting or altering Global Categories could cause issues should you want to purchase content from the content market or share content. I highly recommend that you read section 2.3.4 of the World Builder's Guide (available in the RW application—click the "Manual" button on the Help tab).

If I'm readying the manual correctly—and if Parody is correct—deleting seems safer then editing. You'll be prevented from deleting something that is required (e.g. location category), so you can't just nuke all topic categories. Where it can get really tricky is if you edit global categories.

Sorry if I come across as patronizing, you may very well have a good understanding of what you are doing the possible repercussions, but any newer users reading this thread need to understand that the recommended approach is to create your own topics and hide, rather than delete, the standard global topics. Even when editing global topics, the recommendation is the clone and edit the clone and hide the original.