The scenario is three top categories, in three boxes, showing only their subcategories, all the time. The boxes should be the same on whatever page you're looking at.

I have cloned one box, and was planning to make one that worked right that I could clone for the others.

I see what you mean about the substr_count( bit... I understood what it was doing, but didn't put two and two together (literally) that it was a redundant operation.

I do not have an expanded cats mod... I read that portion of the discussion several times, but somehow came to the conclusion that this would work without it. It seems I was wrong here

yellow1912's link seems to be unavailable at the moment, it sounds closer to what I'm trying to do. Is there another source of that mod?

thanks for your help