split categories display on main page

[skipjensen]

I have over forty categories displaying on the main page grid which makes for a really long page. Every thread I have found deals with splitting product listings into pages, but I have been unable to find where to do it with the main page categories. I would very much appreciate a nudge in the right direction. Many thanks in advance-
SJ

[kobra]

How many columns are you displaying?

A link would help

[skipjensen]

I am displaying 3 columns. I am working locally so I don't have a link.

[kobra]

Depending upon your mainWrapper width

One can display 4, 5 or 6 columns

admin > config > maximum values > Categories To List Per Row

[skipjensen]

I tried that but didn't like the look of it. The three columns looks right, it just makes for a lot of scrolling. It is something I can live with but I was hoping to keep it a little tidier.

Thanks for your help!

SJ

[gjh42]

40+ main categories is a lot... are you sure you can't reasonably combine some of them into subcats of a major category? If not, consider how you are displaying them on the homepage. Could they be made more compact, so users can scan them all and easily see the one they are interested in?
Could you perhaps reasonably organize them into "supergroups", with a heading above each group to guide users? If so, I have posted code for putting headings at desired places in a category listing.

[skipjensen]

This is not a "normal" site. It is for use by my wholesale customers to place orders for t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, and mousepads that feature the artwork of a single artist from Alaska. On a normal retail site, the buyer is buying one or two shirts of a given size and design. Many of our orders are for 4 or 5 sizes, of six, eight or more designs. The normal site can use attributes with a drop down to choose a size and order it, then maybe another size and order it. This is way too cubersome, so I organized the products with the designs as the categories, and the type of product (t-shirt, longsleeves, etc) as sub-categories. When a customer chooses a subcategory, they get a product list with all of the sizes listed (I have images and descriptions turned off so it looks like an order input list), and they can fill in all of the sizes and hit add to cart once, making the ordering process much more streamlined. It's weird but it works really well.

[gjh42]

That sounds like about the best way of organizing such a site... if it works and makes sense to your users, it's not weird:)

[skipjensen]

Thanks! It has been a great experience learning zc and a lot of the posts that have helped me the most have been yours and Kobra's- so thanks for that too.

SJ