Sub-categories Tutorial

134 posts by 17 authors in: Forums > CMS Builder
Last Post: August 7, 2012   (RSS)

By markr - March 11, 2012

Luv the forum, esp old gems like this post.

Works great, but here's a quick question, can I have multiple category sections each with its own article section?

apple_cats
apple_articles

banana_cats
banana_articles

etc.

I thought it would be simple but when I swap in the table names I either get a function error or a cms_categories not found error.

Re: [markr] Sub-categories Tutorial

By Jason - March 12, 2012

Hi,

Would you be able to attach your code so we can take a look? If you can also let us know which table names you need to use we should be able to show you where the changes need to be made.

Thanks,
---------------------------------------------------
Jason Sauchuk - Project Manager
interactivetools.com

Hire me! Save time by getting our experts to help with your project.
http://www.interactivetools.com/consulting/

By markr - March 12, 2012

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.

Re: [markr] Sub-categories Tutorial

By Jason - March 13, 2012

Hi,

No problem, glad everything is working now.
---------------------------------------------------
Jason Sauchuk - Project Manager
interactivetools.com

Hire me! Save time by getting our experts to help with your project.
http://www.interactivetools.com/consulting/

By Mikey - April 29, 2012 - edited: April 29, 2012

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 -->

By Mikey - April 30, 2012 - edited: April 30, 2012

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>

Re: [zick] Sub-categories Tutorial

By Jason - May 1, 2012

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,
---------------------------------------------------
Jason Sauchuk - Project Manager
interactivetools.com

Hire me! Save time by getting our experts to help with your project.
http://www.interactivetools.com/consulting/

By cjpritchard - May 14, 2012

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

Re: [cjpritchard] Sub-categories Tutorial

By Jason - May 15, 2012

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
---------------------------------------------------
Jason Sauchuk - Project Manager
interactivetools.com

Hire me! Save time by getting our experts to help with your project.
http://www.interactivetools.com/consulting/