How can I hardcode the categories sidebox?

[member]

How can I hardcode the categories sidebox?

I would like to give my subcategories long descriptive names so that the title of the page is as descriptive as possible. I would like to do it this way instead of spending a lot of time altering the meta tags.

The problem is if I use too long of a subcategory name the sidebox looks bad.
What would I have to do to hard code the sidebar categories instead of it being created dynamically. This way I can give shorter names for the user to click on. I think it should have something to do with tpl_categories.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

[Marg]

Maybe looks at the Blank Sidebox contribution?
http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?ma...roducts_id=174
M

[gjh42]

Rather than hardcode from scratch, you could edit tpl_categories.php to show alternate text for each subcategory. That way, any that did not have alternates coded in would display normally. You could look at the code in Categories Dressing for examples of replacement.
Actually, you could use an image of the short version of the subcat name, and use Categories Dressing directly without any recoding.

[member]

In case this helps anyone, this is what I ended up doing.
First I installed Bettercategories http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?ma...roducts_id=177.


I installed Bettercategories because the layout it created (although I edited the css and replaced part of the images with the blank image) allowed my long titles to be seperated, so they were less cluttered looking.

This is sort of unrelated, but maybe it will help someone.

I then seperated my "generic categories" from my name brand categories and managed to get TWO SIDEBOXES for my categories by following these instructions: http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showth...category+boxes and added the products I wanted in the second menu to both Document - General and Product - General. IN THAT ORDER (otherwise it shows up in both sideboxes).

I renamed the second box here: zen-cart\includes\languages\english\extra_definitions\document_general.php

You should probably copy this to: zen-cart\includes\languages\english\extra_definitions\YOUR_TEMPLATE\document_general .php

By the way, I looked at blank sidebox. The same person has an editable sidebox contribution that is a little easier to use. I really couldn't figure out how to make it look like I wanted. It seems like it might come in handy in the future for a easier undertaking.


I had installed the Categories Dressing, but to be honest the instructions were sort of confusing to me at this point in time.

Thank you both for giving me something to get me thinking differently, so I could get some satisfaction.

[misty]

Good tip... thanks for sharing