Should I break the wheel or reinvent it?

[Sword_of_Spirit]

I've decided I need my Individual topic to be different. Most of what I need I can do simply by hiding the parts I don't want. But I also need to move some of the existing snippets around, and add some of other snippets that aren't there. It doesn't want to let me do either of those last two things without removing the protection on the topic.

So it seems like there are two ways to do it. If I remove protection, then I can adjust Individual however I want it. Even though I'm not deleting anything (just hiding it), it still just feels weird to me to mess with such an important default topic.

The other way would be to just make a new topic to use as my own "Individual" topic. I can't foresee any particular technical problems with doing it that way, but I'm brand new here so I wouldn't even know what problems to expect. Also, it seems kind of weird to completely replace using such an important default topic and use a different one in its place. Plus, I have to come up with a name that is as good as "Individual," which may be a difficult task.

What would you do, and why? Thanks for any thoughts.

[Vargr]

In my opinion and in my understanding:

Do not mess with the default categories - ever.

First: You don't need to, there are other options. Second: you might run into severe problems down the road doing so.

You should go with option two.

1: Make a copy of the category you want to change.
2: Hide the default category.
3: Change the name of the new category to what you want - it can be the same as the default category.
4: Change your new category to your heart's content.

Re. step 2 and 3:
You can do these in any order you desire.
As a matter of fact, you can have multiple categories with the same name; the only "problem" with that is for you to pick the right one when they have the same name.
This will not be a problem if you hide those versions you are not interested in.

I have done this for a couple of categories and it works like a charm.

I hope this helps - if you have any questions please ask.


Oh - I forgot...
If you already have made some topics using the default Individual category, you can change the category type for these topics using the wrench to the right of the topic heading. Select Topic Category and then Change Topic To A Different Category.
You will have to do some house keeping afterwards. Or you can just keep them - even if you have set the category to be hidden. RW is quite flexible that way.

[MNBlockHead]

If you want to buy or use shared content when the Content Market is release, you'll want the default categories to be there. It is safe to ADD things and perhaps even rearrange sections and snippets, but removing them could cause problems.

So, I second Vargr's recommendations.

[Parody]

I'm also a fan of hiding the existing Categories and making your own. In my Paranoia realm I have three Categories that replace Individual: one for full-fledged characters, one for more basic characters that don't need so much detail, and one for Bots since their mechanics are different.

For this realm I don't care about the Content Market, so not using the Global Categories doesn't concern me. Also, I avoid the mild concern about changes to the Global Categories and Tag Domains affecting things I'm creating.

[Sword_of_Spirit]

Thanks all! I'll just copy the categories that I know I'm going to use extensively and what to change so I won't have to change the categories on individual topics when I decide I want to change elements of the category, and just use the default categories for subjects I don't know if I'm going to change, and if I do I'll make a copy of the category and then switch them over.