How do I move a topic to a new Group?

[SolitonMan]

Hi, I got into RW as part of the beta but it's been a few months since I've had time to site down with the app. It's changed a lot since then, and when I loaded a realm I'd been working on I see a completely different structure in the Story Almanac than when I'd created my content. All of the items I created are listed in the Other group, but I'd like to separate them into the appropriate groups for topics of their types. I can't find a way to do that. Ideally, I'd like to be able to drag and drop from the Story Almanac pane.

Is there any way to move a topic to a new group? Thanks, sorry if I'm missing something obvious.

[MaxSupernova]

Look at the topic. On the top right there is a section titled "Containing Topic". You should see the "Other" topic listed there, with a big red X beside it.

Click the X to remove the topic from that group.

Then click the blue plus sign beside "Containing Topic" and choose a new topic for it to belong to.

[SolitonMan]

When I look at the Containing Topic it says "No Container". When I click the blue + to choose a container, I'm not able to select any of the groups listed.

[Silveras]

I think SolitionMan is asking how to move the Category to a different UI group when the groups are being used.

That's part of the Category definition. Switch to the Manage tab, and select Categories. Find the type you want in the list on the left, and click on it. Along the top of the editing window is a pick-list field for the group to show it under.

Be aware that you will probably need to remove protection if it is a default category, so please think that over before you do it. Once the protection is removed, it cannot be restored.

[SolitonMan]

Hi,

Thanks for the replies guys, I'm still not able to do what I want.

I'm trying to move topics from the group Other to the groups Pepole, Groups, Places, Things and Events. I created my realm months ago, at the time the groupings were different, and included what now appear to be called categories. But all my topics were lumped under the group Other when a change was made to the system (apparently).

I don't want all of my topics to be grouped under Other, but I can't find a way to move them. Max's suggestion seemed to be on the right track, in that when I selected the plus button to add a container topic I got the list of People, Groups, Places, Things, Events and Other. But I was unable to select any of those items as the container for my topic. It seemed as though I could create a topic in the groups, and use that as the container, but I couldn't switch the group itself.

[Parody]

Originally Posted by SolitonMan

It seemed as though I could create a topic in the groups, and use that as the container, but I couldn't switch the group itself.

Right, that's how containment works.

So either your old Categories need to be put into the right Simple Grouping, or your Topics need to be switched to the new Categories. Silveras described the first one, here's how to do the second:

1. Select one of your miscategorized Topics in the Navigation Pane (left).
2. Press F7 or click on the large Hammer and Wrench icon at the top of the Content Pane (center).
3. Pick Topic Category/Change Topic to a Different Category...
4. Pick the appropriate one from the list. If there isn't one or you're not sure which one is right yet, either skip this Topic for now or pick something that goes in the right group but doesn't have much pre-built structure, like the "(x) List" categories. (You could also create mostly empty new categories for this purpose, if you want.)
5. Repeat for every miscategorized item. :(

Once you've got things sorted, you can go back and figure out what to do with the items that still aren't properly categorized. Maybe you'll want to make categories that match them, or maybe you'll find that one of the existing categories is the right idea even if you have to rejigger your existing data. It's hard to say without knowing how different your existing Topics are from the current categories.

Before embarking on this adventure, you should back up your database locally so you can undo the whole mess if you don't like the results.

Hope this helps.

[SolitonMan]

Got it, thanks for the guidance. Once I started changing categories the topics began to move into the desired groups. Not obvious to me at all, thanks again for pointing out the correct procedure.