The Stages news application categories can also be configured individually. That means, categories can be removed or new categories can be added. This is done in the Stages configuration file named <PKITHOME>/WEB-INF/conf/PKitConfig.xml . In contrast to the license and signature files, this configuration file can be changed arbitrarily.
Please see the configuration file <PKITHOME>/WEB-INF/conf/PKitConfig.xml that comes with Stages for a very detailed description of the category configuration specification.
When the type of a category attribute is changed (e.g. from a text field to a date field), Stages must convert the old data into the new type. The following table shows how types are automatically converted:
| New Type Original Type | string | text | date | selection |
| string | X | conversion without loss | conversion if string contains valid data, else DEL | DEL |
| text | use the first line of text | X | conversion if text contains valid date in first line, else DEL | DEL |
| date | conversion without loss | conversion without loss | X | DEL |
| selection | DEL | DEL | DEL | X |
DEL: old attributes are deleted automatically
Attributes are only converted when the delete attribute of the categories element is set to true, e.g. <categories delete=“true”>. If the attribute is not true and categories were deleted from the configuration file, Stages prints warnings to the log file and refuses to start.