how to make categories sidebox of my own style?

[gjh42]

"where the numbers are the category id's (cPaths) separated by commas."

Find the cPath (shown in the address bar) of each category that you want a divider above, and put it in the list. The "," tells the PHP function "explode" to read a comma as a marker between units of information.

[lina0962]

I got it!

Thank you very much for your detailed help! :-)

[weekend camper]

As a follow up, I wanted the same thing, but already had the "main section" of categories done, it was the add-ons I wasn't sure how many or what order etc.


I needed to add a line at the end of the current categories.


Find the file per above poster's instruction, then around line 51 find:

      if (SHOW_COUNTS == 'true') {
        if ((CATEGORIES_COUNT_ZERO == '1' and $box_categories_array[$i]['count'] == 0) or $box_categories_array[$i]['count'] >= 1) {
          $content .= CATEGORIES_COUNT_PREFIX . $box_categories_array[$i]['count'] . CATEGORIES_COUNT_SUFFIX;
        }
      }

      $content .= '<br />' . "\n";
    }
  }

and change to:

      if (SHOW_COUNTS == 'true') {
        if ((CATEGORIES_COUNT_ZERO == '1' and $box_categories_array[$i]['count'] == 0) or $box_categories_array[$i]['count'] >= 1) {
          $content .= CATEGORIES_COUNT_PREFIX . $box_categories_array[$i]['count'] . CATEGORIES_COUNT_SUFFIX;
        }
      }

      $content .= '<br />' . "\n";
      
      if ($box_categories_array[$i]['path'] == 'cPath=26') {
      $content .= '<hr id="catBoxDivider" />' . "\n";
      }
      
    }
  }

where 26 is changed to YOUR last cat.

[gjh42]

There is (or should be) already a <hr> displayed at the beginning of the all/featured/new section:

  if (SHOW_CATEGORIES_BOX_SPECIALS == 'true' or SHOW_CATEGORIES_BOX_PRODUCTS_NEW == 'true' or SHOW_CATEGORIES_BOX_FEATURED_PRODUCTS == 'true' or SHOW_CATEGORIES_BOX_PRODUCTS_ALL == 'true') {
// display a separator between categories and links
    if (SHOW_CATEGORIES_SEPARATOR_LINK == '1') {
      $content .= '<hr id="catBoxDivider" />' . "\n";
    } 

I think I remember seeing the switch for this in admin, but can't locate it now, and a search on SHOW_CATEGORIES_SEPARATOR_LINK finds only this mention in the code; no define or switch.

[gjh42]

The switch is in Configuration > Layout Settings > Categories Separator between links Status. This puts a line between the categories and the all/new/featured links.

[weekend camper]

Hey gjh42,


Thank you for being helpful. I see I wasn't clear in my post.

For people that will come later, with little php experience and wonder what the heck I was on about.


This is the "default" way that Zen shows off the category box:

main cat 1
main cat 2
main cat 3
cat full of linked items x
cat full of linked items y
cat full of linked items ya
cat full of linked items yb
cat full of linked items z
etc
-----------
new
all
etc

gjh42's way of putting a line above the category in question is perfectly OK, if you know for sure what the category id will be of the first cat in question.


At the time I wrote my above post, I didn't know what the "cat full of linked items x" would be (I had just jumped into making the cats, with out thinking about it too hard). Of course, now that I've actually gone through my list of items, I know full well what ID # is attached to that.

main cat 1
main cat 2
main cat 3
------------------- <--- thats the one I was trying to make in the first place
cat full of linked items 1
-------------------
cat full of linked items 2
cat full of linked items 2a
cat full of linked items 2b
-------------------
cat full of linked items 3
etc
-----------
new
all
etc

I was just trying to present an 'upside down' way of getting (almost) the same result.


@edit: I see now that my code will blow an HR into the upper cat once the sub-cats are exposed. gah.

[gjh42]

I think that's why I added the <hr> above the relevant cat originally - because if the cat had subcats, the <hr> would come between them.

If you know that is not going to happen, then it could work perfectly well to put the <hr> below the cat.

There are many ways to customize this area, and one or more combinations that will work for almost everything...