Where does ZC pull the products in a category from database?

[buddhaflow]

Hi, I have a most vexing problem.

I want to display the products in totally random order. Every time they refresh, I want it to show totally different products. I am selling t-shirts and bumper stickers, and I really don't want it showing the same few products at the top every time.

I hate to bother the forum, but I have spent HOURS digging through the guts of ZC, grep'ping for every vaguely related term, etc.

I thought it would be so easy - just find the SQL statement where it grabs the products to display, add an 'order by rand()' to the end of it, presto!

But I just can't find this SQL statement ANYWHERE!! It is driving me bananas.

I thought, for instance, it would be in /includes/classes/db/mysql/define_queries.php. But it doesn't seem to be. I also looked through all the core files, the function defines, the default template, the template I am using, etc. etc. I just don't know where else to look.

Could someone please enlighten me as to where this logic might reside?

Thank you!
Sasha Shepherd

[DrByte]

Exactly *which* display component are you referring to? Are you talking about a "featured products" box? or a "specials" box? or the product-listing within each category? Are you saying you wish to completely ignore the customer's sort-preference selected in the pulldown? and ignore the default sort-order you've set within your admin?

[buddhaflow]

Ah! I cracked it!!!!


/includes/index_filters/default_filter.php

I sure didn't think to look in that folder

I just did a search in the file for everyhting that said '$sql_listing .='

Commented all of it out.

Then, wrote a single statement:

$listing_sql .= " order by rand()";

That solved it. Now all products display in random order :)

[buddhaflow]

Basically, in every category view, I wanted to totally ignore any sort preferences (my template disabled them for the customer anyway), and ONLY do random. It worked a charm :)