Will this project be continued to Drupal 7?

I'm the maintainer while he's away. I have full access to the category website and full cvs control.

Um..

/me pokes category.greenash.net.au...

Hmm, the website's dead... It wasn't like that last time I looked. Hope it's temporary, I only have admin on the site, not a shell account, so if it breaks like that, I can't fix it... :-/

Site was down for a bit, came back up, no worries.
Even if something bad does happen to the site, it's not the end of the world.
Closing issue.

Hi,

I used the category module in 2006 and liked the added functionality a lot.
But I think category.module diggs to deap in drupal to stay a module.
Category module needs to be in core or has to use (next to the add-on code) exactly the same code as taxonomy.module.

Without category.module being in core or completely replacing the taxonomy.module I will not use it anymore.
I will tell you why:

I had it installed and it worked great. 
Then I needed functionality which is in a different taxonomy add-on module, like taxonomy_super_select.
And off course the maintainer of this sort of a module will try to make category.module working with his module. And so on with different sort of taxonomy modules...

In the end I could not get the functionality I wanted without leaving the category module.

I think category.module brings great extra functionality, but to be really succesful it should completely replace the standard taxonomy.module and uses the same code so that add-on taxonomy modules works smoothly without patching.

greetings,
Martijn

Drupal 6 has incorporated some of the functionality of Category, especially with the book.module changes.

I think that the scope of Category will get smaller for Drupal 6 as several functions get offloaded to the new more powerful core pieces, and hopefully in Drupal 7 you will be able to do everything you could do with Category using only core modules.

That's what the optimal endgame would be, and I think Drupal is heading in that direction.

Just want to confirm--this project will be discontinued after 6, right? It looks like its mostly implemented as core improvements in D7?

It doesn't look like that, to me. There's a lot in Category, that core doesn't do, and doesn't want to ever do (as I was sort-of told once). Even if core moved in the right direction, still there would be a need for upgrade path at the very minimum, and most probably some of the features will need to be continued as little modules too. Just guessing.

The big problem is, that we're short on people. Almost no-one works on this module long-term, and that's bad and dangerous. But I still hope (and need) that this module does _not_ get discontinued.

I've been thinking about this for a long time now. I plan to write in more detail about this later, but since you've asked, I'll give a quick answer now:

I do not plan to upgrade the Category module to Drupal 7. I do not plan to continue maintaining the Category module for very long once Drupal 7 is released.

Main reasons:

1. Category is needed less than ever. You can now do many things with taxonomy terms that were previously only possible with nodes, such as:
   1. Taxonomy terms can now have fields attached to them (Fields in core).
   2. You can now create a view of taxonomy terms instead of a view of nodes (Views 2 - already possible in Drupal 6).
2. It's possible to do most of the display and menu funkiness that Category offers, if you instead use the core taxonomy module and other add-ons (e.g. menu block, menu trails). It's also possible to duplicate some of this stuff quite simply, using a bit of custom module or custom theme code.
3. Upgrading the Category module to Drupal 7 would be an absolute nightmare, even by Category module upgrade standards. This is mainly due to the substantial changes that the core taxonomy module has seen with Fields in core.
4. The Category module is unpopular, and it has a long history of being buggy, bloated and inefficient. Honestly, I haven't used it on a production site myself for a long time, and I wouldn't recommend that anyone else do so either. Hence, what reason do I have to keep maintaining it?

I'm sorry if this comes as a surprise to anyone. I guess most people realise that it was only a matter of time before I made this decision.

If anyone else wishes to take over the role of Category module maintainer, you are of course welcome to do so. But personally, I intend to stop maintenance of this module in the near future; and if nobody steps up to take my place, then the Category module will fade into the dustbin of history.

Thanks for the clarity. Might be good to say this on the module's home page.

Jaza, thanks for all your hard work. Off course drupal taxonomy and views could use your great skills to move them over to the things catecory did on itself.
Thanks again for your work and appreciate your honesty and clearifying!

Greetings, Martijn

Should this module's non-continuance be posted on its home page? Probably would be helpful so prospective users are fully informed of plans.