Plugin: Child Categories

Hi Florian,

Correct if I’m wrong:

1) “Fruit” is level 1 category

2) “Apricot” is level 2 category

3) there are some entries posted into category “Apricot”

4) you need to display those entries using URL http://www.site.com/index.php/products/prod-list/fruit/apricot/

1.) this is correct. Fruit is the level 1 category which holds a few subcategory, including: 2.) apricot is one of the level 2 categories. 3.) there are some weblog entries in the category apricot. 4.) I am not sure if I have to display them using the url http://www.site.com/index.php/products/prod-list/fruit/apricot/ This was the best solution that I was able to come up with that would let me display the entries of a certain category on the “prod-list” template. I passed the parent_category_url_title and child_category_url_title to the “prod-list” template when I link from the “list” template to a subcategory.

Yet another question: do you include “fruit” as the third URL segment because you want to display some info about level 1 category or just in order to have pretty URL?

on my “list” template, segment3, fruit gets displayed because I link to it with the category tag. So I think ee automatically puts segment2 “category”, and segment3 “fruit” in the url. When I link from “list” to “prod-list” template, I am passing parent_category_url_title which is segment3 or fruit, and I pass child_category_url_title which is segment4 or apricot. The reason I try it this way was because I thought that I needed to have that info in the url on the “prod-list” template so that I could read the category_id number and then display the entries for sub category apricot. Is this approach where the problem is? So the reason is not for pretty url or anything, I am just trying to get it to work.

Hi Florian,

If you do not need to output any info about level 1 category, then you can simply use exp:weblog:entries tag; there is no need to use Child Categories plugin:

{exp:category_id category_group="3" category_url_title="{segment_4}" parse="inward" }
{exp:weblog:entries weblog="products" category="{category_id}"}
<a href="http://{path=products/details}{url_title}">{title}</a>

{/exp:weblog:entries}
{/exp:category_id}

That worked for me. Thank you so much for your help.

Is there a conditional that might work this way: {if:this category has child categories} –content– {/if} ?

Thanks!

Hi brittanyA,

Yes, you can achieve this by writing the code as this:

{exp:child_categories parent="18|29" child_categories_sort_by="custom" child_categories_sort_direction="asc" site="1"}

{parent_category_start}

{if "{parent_category_children_count}" > 0}

Some code

{/if}
  
{parent_category_end}


{/exp:child_categories}

Laisvunas, love your plugin it’s saved me SO much time.
I am however running into a problem that I’m hoping there is a simple answer to. I want to show a list of 3 random child categories from one parent. Is this somehow possible? I’ve read over the documentation and I can’t seem to find anything that will allow me to do that. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-kev

Hi Kev,

What you need is in principle achievable.

Two things are missing:

1) plugin which would expose PHP rand() function through EE tag;

2) Child Categories plugin variable {child_category_count} which would output count number of the child category.

Both would be good to have. I will try to implement these things in forthcomming days.

I’d thought about going in and tweaking your plug-in for that added random functionality, but it looked like a more difficult endeavor than I had originally thought. That would be a great addition to an already very useful plug-in, thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

-kev

Hi Laisvunas.

Would you have any comments or resolution regarding my earlier note quoted below? Since then, I have installed your latest 1.5.1 version but the problem is still the same.

- Category custom field: Hmmm… In the following code, the value of the category custom field ({sitemap_template}) that is retrieved is the one of the parent, not the one of the child. I use it in the child’s URL to define what template should be used.

<ul>
{exp:weblog:entries weblog="{my_weblog}"}
{categories}
{exp:child_categories parent="{category_id}" child_categories_sort_by="custom" show_empty="yes"}
{child_category_start}
<li><a href="/index.php/{sitemap_template}/c/{child_category_url_title}">{child_category_name}</a>
{if "{child_category_description}"}
{child_category_description}{/if}</li>
{child_category_end}
{/exp:child_categories}
{/categories}
{/exp:weblog:entries}
</ul>

Hi Michel,

I do not understand, what is here a problem for you.

Is it that {sitemap_template} variable displays the value of custom field of the parent category, but you need to display the value of custom field of child category?

You understand me correctly, Laisvunas.