Sub-categories Tutorial

Okay, live & learn...

As I started typing this reply I realized I had changed everything to the new table names except the List Options Tablename for 'category'.

Works great with the new table names.

Thx anyway.

Hi,

No problem, glad everything is working now.

Jason or anyone who can help,

Can you shed some light on how to get a three tier category generated menu to work?Or better yet a 4 tier menu is exactly what I need. Here's some code that shows what I've been trying to achieve with a 3 tier menu, but obviously it doesn't work properly and displays both the second and third tier categories of each record under all top tire categories as seen in the attached snap shots.

<!-- category generated menus -->
<div id="nav-container">
<ul id="topnav">

<!-- First tier navigation -->
<?php foreach ($categoryRecords as $categoryRecord): ?>
<?php if ($categoryRecord['depth'] == 0): ?>
<li><a href="<?php echo $categoryRecord['_link'] ?>"><?php echo $categoryRecord['name'] ?></a>

<!-- second tier navigation -->
<div class="sub"><ul><li>
<?php foreach ($categoryRecords as $categoryRecord): ?>
<?php if ($categoryRecord['depth'] == 1): ?>
<a href="<?php echo $categoryRecord['_link'] ?>"><?php echo $categoryRecord['name'] ?></a>
<?php endif ?>
<?php endforeach; ?>

<!-- third tier navigation -->
<?php foreach ($categoryRecords as $categoryRecord): ?>
<?php if ($categoryRecord['depth'] == 2): ?>
<li style="margin-left:32px">
<a href="<?php echo $categoryRecord['_link'] ?>"><?php echo $categoryRecord['name'] ?></a>
</li>
<?php endif ?>
<?php endforeach; ?><!-- /third tier navigation -->

</li></ul><!-- /sub --><!-- /second tier navigation --></div>

</li>
<?php endif ?>
<?php endforeach; ?>
<!-- /First tier navigation -->

<!-- /topnav --></ul>
<!-- /nav-container --></div>
<!-- /category generated menus -->

Hi,

What's happening in your code is that for each top level category, you are looping through the entire category list 2 more times. The only way to make this would would be to to check to see if the parent category appeared in the lineage field of each subsequent category. The other problem that you're running into is that you use the $categoryRecord variable in each foreach loop, effectively over writing the value it held in the outer loop.

The easiest way to output the category structure is to use the _listItemStart and _listItemEnd fields. This will output everything into a properly nested <ul> list.

For example:

<ul>

<?php foreach ($categoryRecords as $category): ?>

<?php echo $category['_listItemStart'];?>

<a href = "<?php echo $category['_link'];?>"><?php echo $category['name'];?></a>

<?php echo $category['_listItemEnd'];?>

<?php endforeach ?>

</ul>

There are a large number of jquery menu scripts available that can use this structure. Here is one I've used in the past:

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex1/ddsmoothmenu.htm#

Hope this helps get you started

So it sounds like Id need to use something like jQuery to stylize my category levels, using functions such as that below... am I on the right track?
<style>
#navigation {color:gray;width;900px}
.menus {width:130px;float:left;}
li {color:black;}
li.tierone {color:green;}
li.tiertwo {color:blue;}
li.tierthree {color:red;}
li.tierfour {color:purple;}
</style>

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.js"></script>
<script>
$(function() {
$('li:child').addClass('tierone');
('li:nth-child').addClass('tiertwo');

});
</script>


<div id="navigation">
<ul class="menus">

<?php foreach ($categoryRecords as $category): ?>

<?php echo $category['_listItemStart'];?>

<a href = "<?php echo $category['_link'];?>"><?php echo $category['name'];?></a>

<?php echo $category['_listItemEnd'];?>

<?php endforeach ?>

</ul>
</div>

Hi,

I think I see where you're going with this. It would probably be easier to use a script that will take care of the menu structure for you.

Thanks,

Hi Jason,

I've having a bit of trouble displaying a list of FAQs that are organized by category, and wondered if you could bless me with more of your wisdom, please. I posted in this thread back in Nov 2010 with a similar issue, and have used the same format you suggested back then in a number of others sites. Until now it's been working. This is the first site I've built using v2.15.

All I'm trying to do is cycle through a list of categories and print off their respective FAQs.

Here's my code:

<?php

....

/ // load records from 'faq_categories'
list($faq_categoriesRecords, $faq_categoriesMetaData) = getRecords(array(
'tableName' => 'faq_categories',
));

// load records from 'faqs'
list($faqsRecords, $faqsMetaData) = getRecords(array(
'tableName' => 'faqs',
));

?>

<?php foreach ($faq_categoriesRecords as $categoryRecord): ?>

<h1><?php echo $categoryRecord['category_name'] ?></h1>

<?php foreach($faqsRecords as $record): ?>

<p>[debug]Category num = <?php echo $categoryRecord['num'] ?><br />
[debug]faq category = <?php echo $record['faq_categories'] ?></p>

<?php if($categoryRecord['num']==$record['faq_categories']): ?>

<h2><?php echo $record['question'] ?></h2>
<p><?php echo $record['content'] ?></p>

<?php endif ?>
<?php endforeach ?>

<?php endforeach ?>

.... And here's my output - http://www.bcmortgagesonline.com/cms/faq_categories-list.php
(including a bit of debugging code so I can see what values are being assigned to my category numbers and faq categories, and a few screenshots of the associated editors).

Thanks in advance for your help.
Chris

Hi,

It looks like the issue here is that your drop down field is a multi-value list, which means it's tab (\t) separated. This is why you can't use a simple "==" comparision operator.

An easier approach here would be to just retrieve all the faq records for each individual category.

For example:

<?php foreach ($faq_categoriesRecords as $categoryRecord): ?>

<h1><?php echo $categoryRecord['category_name'] ?></h1>
<?php $faqsRecords = mysql_select("faqs", "faq_categories LIKE '%\t".intval($categoryRecord['category_name'])."\t%'"); ?>

<?php foreach($faqsRecords as $record): ?>

<h2><?php echo $record['question'] ?></h2>
<p><?php echo $record['content'] ?></p>

<?php endforeach ?>

<?php endforeach ?>

Hope this helps