Can you change the alpha sorter from a drop down menu in to a text links?

[IllusionGuy]

On the category page how can we change the alpha sorter from a drop down menu in to a text links like so:

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

[stevesh]

Maybe something like this?:

sperling.com/examples/menuh/

[IllusionGuy]

Ok there is probably a cleaner way of doing this but, I got this to work on the category page.

<div id="alpha_filter">
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=65" class="alpha_filter">A</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=66" class="alpha_filter">B</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=67" class="alpha_filter">C</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=68" class="alpha_filter">D</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=69" class="alpha_filter">E</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=70" class="alpha_filter">F</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=71" class="alpha_filter">G</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=72" class="alpha_filter">H</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=73" class="alpha_filter">I</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=74" class="alpha_filter">J</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=75" class="alpha_filter">K</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=76" class="alpha_filter">L</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=77" class="alpha_filter">M</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=78" class="alpha_filter">N</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=79" class="alpha_filter">O</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=80" class="alpha_filter">P</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=81" class="alpha_filter">Q</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=82" class="alpha_filter">R</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=83" class="alpha_filter">S</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=84" class="alpha_filter">T</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=85" class="alpha_filter">U</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=86" class="alpha_filter">V</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=87" class="alpha_filter">W</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=88" class="alpha_filter">X</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=89" class="alpha_filter">Y</a>|
  <a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath=<?=$_GET['cPath']?>&sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=90" class="alpha_filter">Z</a>
</div>

Is there a way to adapt these links to work on the products all page (tpl_products_all_default.php)?

[IllusionGuy]

Is it even posible to add an alpha sorter to the all products page? I have been playing with this code now for days

[IllusionGuy]

Is it posible to add the alpha sorter to the all products page?

[Flipside]

Message me if you are still looking for help.

[zskiman]

just wanted to say thanx for the great post, this was suggested to me to try on our site and i started scratchin my head, thinking of how involved it would be.

i found this post, and it took all but 5 minutes to setup, and it looks and works great.

thanks again!!!

[IllusionGuy]

Thanks for the reply zskiman

I have updated the above code and cleaned it up:

function GetAlphabet($type='string',$lower=false){
    $spacer = " | ";
 $r = ($type == 'string') ? '' : array();
    // chr 65 => A, chr 90 => Z
    for ($c=65; $c <= 90; $c++){
     if (!isset($alpha_filter_id)){$alpha_filter_id = 65;}
        $ch = ($lower) ? strtolower(chr($c)) : '<a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath='.$_GET['cPath'].'&alpha_filter_id='.$alpha_filter_id.'">'.chr($c)."</a>$spacer";
        if ($type == 'string'){ $r .= $ch; }
        else { $r[] = $ch; }
  $alpha_filter_id = $alpha_filter_id+1;
    }
    return $spacer.$r;
}
echo GetAlphabet(); 

[IllusionGuy]

I made an update to this code, I added some css when a letter is active it will be bold and black, so that the user knows what page they are on.

function GetAlphabet($type='string',$lower=false){
    $spacer = " | ";
 $r = ($type == 'string') ? '' : array();
    // chr 65 => A, chr 90 => Z
    for ($c=65; $c <= 90; $c++){
     if (!isset($alpha_filter_id)){$alpha_filter_id = 65;}
     if ($alpha_filter_id == $_GET['alpha_filter_id']){$style = ' style="font-weight:bold; font-size:12px; color:#000000;"';}else{$style = '';}
        $ch = ($lower) ? strtolower(chr($c)) : '<a href="index.php?main_page=index&cPath='.$_GET['cPath'].'&alpha_filter_id='.$alpha_filter_id.'"'.$style.'>'.chr($c)."</a>$spacer";
        if ($type == 'string'){ $r .= $ch; }
        else { $r[] = $ch; }
  $alpha_filter_id = $alpha_filter_id+1;
    }
    return $spacer.$r;
}
echo GetAlphabet();