Vanishing Category Blurb

I wrote some blurb for a category but upon adding a product to that category the blurb no longer appears. However the blurb reappears when a subcategory replaces the product in that category.

Is there an admin switch at play here or do I need a mod.

Also could someone better explain the differences between these mods:

a) Short Description for Categories

b) Short Description

c) Extra description files

d) Product Extra Fields

TIA

What happens when you add two products to the category, does it re-appear? From where does it disappear?

Short Description for Categories allows you to add a short description to each category.

Short description is different because it allows you to add a short description to each product rather than category.

Extra description fields adds some fields into the product description for files. Product extra fields does the same, and in my view should just be a later version of the other mod, from which it was derived.

kuroi:

What happens when you add two products to the category, does it re-appear? From where does it disappear?

Thanks for replying Kuroi.

That is an interesting phenomena because I do have categories displaying more than one product and where category description also appears.

If there is only one product in the category, does zen cart thus treat this category as a product?

kuroi:

Short Description for Categories allows you to add a short description to each category.

I usually write a category description for each category at the time of creating the category (in the space provided), and have even managed to split these descriptions above and below the products listing using the ### technique recently supplied by Niccol in the following thread:

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=133568

What is not clear to me is what this mod does that is different to the 138a category setup and the ### technique I am using.

kuroi:

Short description is different because it allows you to add a short description to each product rather than category.

At the time of adding a product to the catalog, I usually write a short description for the product in the space provided. This description appears, when one opens the product page, below the product image, nomenclature and attributes, and can extend considerably. What is not clear to me is what this mod does that is different to the 138a product setup.

kuroi:

Extra description fields adds some fields into the product description for files. Product extra fields does the same, and in my view should just be a later version of the other mod, from which it was derived.

Where a description for a product is large, I usually create a new page or pdf and provide a link to that page or pdf in the description. As such I have yet to see a need for adding extra fields for products.

From my perspective, I fail to see any real gain in installing Mods a, b and c above.

There is a switch, Admin > Configuration > Layout Settings > Skip 1-prod Categories, that when enabled causes the category page to be by-passed to go straight to the product information page. Since the category page has been by-passed, so has the category description that would have been displayed otherwise.

The mods that you have asked about add short summaries to listings that wouldn't otherwise have had them, or replace abbreviated text with something over which you have more control. But you're not obliged to use them. If they're not going to be of benefit to your site, don't use them. There are hundreds of others that you won't need too!

kuroi:

There is a switch, Admin > Configuration > Layout Settings > Skip 1-prod Categories, that when enabled causes the category page to be by-passed to go straight to the product information page. Since the category page has been by-passed, so has the category description that would have been displayed otherwise.

That's the one. Many thanks for the follow up.