Question about the ExcelFormer code to default training

[bernardocecchetto]

Hi, I was studying the provided code in run_default_config_excel.py, and I realized that the categorical features are encoded using CatBoostEncoder. Then, if you apply this encoding process, you set that X_cat = 0, because they are transformed to numerical features. So I have these questions:

1. If I dont use this encoding process, ExcelFormer architecture will deal with these categorical features?
2. 'cardinalities' refers to the number of categorical features that I have in my dataset?
3. Do I need to set WHICH are the categorical features that I have, if I dont apply CatBoostEncoder?

I appreciate your attention and you've done a great work!