New sidebar category not showing up bold

It occurs to me that you should see a reference to categories.php (specifically, tpl_categories.php) in /includes/modules/sideboxes/pinkywinky/ch_categories.php.

Whoops, forgot about that! LOL Well, I was planning to change it soon anyway, so now's as good a time as any.

No...when I activate ch_categories.php, the entire body of the site disappears.

gjh42:

It occurs to me that you should see a reference to categories.php (specifically, tpl_categories.php) in /includes/modules/sideboxes/pinkywinky/ch_categories.php.

The two files in that folder are:

category_list_box.old
ch_categories.php

Hmm... the Categories Dressing files do not cause any issues when loaded in a regular site/template. Perhaps there is a corrupted file among the lot? How about deleting all of those mod files and re-uploading, being sure to rename /your_template/ to /pinkywinky/ everywhere, and ftp'ing the whole /includes/ folder at once into /public_html/zencart/.

Well, we're a little closer. I now have a Categories sidebar on the zencart index page...but it only shows a single entry for All Products. There's nothing for the various categories and subcategories. Now what? :lookaroun

Well, that's something. By your page source code, it appears these are all "product-general" product type, not "document-product" or another type. This means one possible reason for the categories to not show is moot. What are your defines like? Post the content of your categories_dressing_defines.php to see if there is a clue there.

I haven't done a thing with the categories_dressing_defines.php file, because I haven't a clue what to do with it. So it's still set exactly to however you wrote it.

Are you sure the copy on the server has the stock define content in it? I suspect the copy of ch_categories.php you used to have was blank or corrupt - if not, you would have found "categories.php" in it when you searched.

What are you using to upload files?

Since I haven't made any edits to it, logically it would still be whatever you specified as the defaults...unless, of course, it's a corrupted file. I've been using my cPanel to upload the files because I can't use my regular FTP program right now.

I just downloaded it from my server, and this is what it says:

<?php // // +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ // | Replacement Categories Tree | // +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ // | Copyright (c) 2005,2007 Christoph Handel | // | Copyright (c) 2003 The zen-cart developers | // | | // | <http://www.held-im-ruhestand.de/> | // | <http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php> | // | | // | Portions Copyright (c) 2003 osCommerce | // +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ // | This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify | // | it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by | // | the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or | // | (at your option) any later version. | // | | // | This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, | // | but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of | // | MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the | // | GNU General Public License for more details. | // | | // | This source file is subject to version 2.0 of the GPL license, | // | that is bundled with this package in the file LICENSE, and is | // | available through the world-wide-web at the following url: | // | <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt> | // | Or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., | // | 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA | // +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ // // require generator //CHRISTOPH BOF require_once (DIR_WS_CLASSES . 'ch_categories_tree_generator.php'); $main_category_tree = new ch_category_tree; //CHRISTOPH EOF $row = 0; $box_categories_array = array(); // don't build a tree when no categories $check_categories = $db->Execute("select categories_id from " . TABLE_CATEGORIES . " where categories_status=1 limit 1"); if ($check_categories->RecordCount() > 0) { $box_categories_array = $main_category_tree->zen_category_tree(); } require($template->get_template_dir('tpl_categories.php',DIR_WS_TEMPLATE, $current_page_base,'sideboxes'). '/tpl_categories.php'); $title = BOX_HEADING_CATEGORIES; require($template->get_template_dir($column_box_default, DIR_WS_TEMPLATE, $current_page_base,'common') . '/' . $column_box_default); ?>

The last define should be commented. As is, it restricts display to only active categories and their first subcats. On the homepage, no categories are active.
Change

define('CAT_BOX_ACTIVE_LEVEL', '1|0|1');//show only active cats, to first subcat level

to

//define('CAT_BOX_ACTIVE_LEVEL', '1|0|1');//show only active cats, to first subcat level

The download version of that file has that define commented out; I'm not sure how your copy lost the //.

That definitely did something! Now how can I edit the colors and fonts? Tangerine and dark purple do NOT go well together--major clash! ROFL

Ideally I'd also like to make the top-level categories a bold font, and reduce the number of spaces in front of each subdirectory so that they don't extend onto two lines. Also I need to get rid of the counts, if possible.

THANK YOU for your patience!!

If I had really looked at interior pages, I would have seen earlier that it was just a configuration issue at the last...
The rest is mostly styling, but the spacing and counts are stock admin functions in Configuration > Layout Settings.

I don't blame you for not browsing too deeply. It's an extremely popular site, which is how they can afford to pay me to maintain it for them. But not my cup of tea, either......

Configuration > Layout I can handle. But the styling...that I don't have a clue. :huh: Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Still, when I look back at how much I've learned over the past 18 months...I've definitely come a long way (even though it sure didn't feel like it today!).

Styling will be done in stylesheet_chcategories_dressing.css. The best way to find out what does what is to use Firefox and install its Web Developer and Firebug extensions. These will allow you to select particular items and see the exact styling that applies to them, and edit the styling in real time to see effects of changes. Then when you are satisfied, you can make the changes in the actual stylesheet.

With Firebug, right-click on an item and select "Inspect Element with Firebug". You can explore from there.

Partial success.

I don't have Firefox or Firebug, so I did a screen capture of the sidebox, opened it in my Corel X2, picked out the colors I wanted to get rid of, opened a hex converter, found the hex codes (ffeecc and ffddbb), and commented out those lines. Cumbersome from your pov, I suppose, but it worked like a treat, as the background of the sidebox is now transparent, which is what I wanted.

I was also able to get rid of the counts, and remove the extra spaces for the subcategories. But no matter what I do, I cannot get rid of the bullets. I made changes as directed:

#categories ul a {/top categories/
display: list-item;
list-style: none;/change to list-style: none; to remove bullet/
background: no-repeat;
border: none;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}

and

#categories ul ul a {/subcategories/
display: list-item;
list-style: none;/change to list-style: none; to remove bullet/
/ background: #ffddbb;
border: none;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}

but it didn't work. I even tried commenting out the entire sections, with no success.

Also I still can't figure out how to get rid of the pink mouseover boxes for the subcategories, or the light blue mouseover boxes with the diagonal lines for the master categories. I would prefer to just do a text color change, rather than a highlighted box.

I don't think I'm looking in the right place to bold the category listings, because they're already marked as bold, and changing the font size isn't changing anything:

.catBoxHeading1 {
font-family: georgia, serif;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 1.4em;
color: #335511;
background-color: #ff66ff;
/*background-image: url(../buttons/english/catheadbg1.gif); */ /uncomment to use background image with or without coded text/
/*height: 23px; */ /uncomment to use background image without coded text/
padding: 0.3em 0.4em;
margin: 0;
}

and so I basically don't know where else to go from here. :blink: But...I got a lot further than I thought I would! So even though I'm sure you're ready to tie me in front of a firing squad, I'm still pleased with my progress. I am getting it...it's just painfully slow!