Create a quick index to Categories, Forms and Templates

Problem
If you are using Semantic Forms, you probably end up having a list of Forms and Templates associated to Categories.

Assuming that you followed the recommended practice of using the same name for each namespace, you should have something like the following :


 * Category:City   | Form:City       | Template:City
 * Category:Country | Form:Country   | Template:Country
 * And so on...    | And so forth... |

To simplify maintenance tasks, I wanted to generate a table with links to all three pages for each category.

Assumptions

 * You are using Semantic Forms and External Data extensions
 * You created a Form and a Template using the same name as their corresponding Category
 * You have created a template called 'Template:!' (see Note at the end of the tip)

Solution
I could not find a way to loop through the list of categories out of the box (or even using DPL).

Instead, I found it was possible to use the 'External Data' extension to help with this task:

1- Create a page called 'CategoryList' and copy the list of categories.

Category City Country

2- Create a second page called 'CategoryIndex' and insert the following query :

3- Make sure to replace  with your URL in both places (in the 'get external data' call and in the corresponding row).

The result will be a nice table with links to basic maintenance URLs for each Category and corresponding Forms and Templates.

Note: This tip assumes you already have template called 'Template:!' which contains simply the character '|'. This is a common trick to display '|' in nested template calls using ' | ' instead.