Showing subcategory products on category page

Ok so heres my problem, I need you wizards to help me find a solution! :laugh:

So my store sells kitchen doors and also complete kitchen units. I need the doors to be split into doors/drawers/panels/specials but I want all the products on the same page. So as you can see here:

http://kitchen-warehouse.com/replacement-kitchen-doors/high-gloss/white

I have made 4 categories for doors/drawers/panels/specials. What i need to happen is instead of showing the 4 categories and then you going into one of the categories. It would show the category heading then would show the products in the category and then the next category.

So I can imaging it would be changing the category page and also the product listing page. Also it would be a bonus to check if the category contains products or just category. If it contains products it shows all the products on the page, if not then it just has the category link. This would make my month if you guys can help me get this working!

Many thanks,
Daniel

Ok,

So in my searches I found this:
http://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.php?88215-Simple-Category-Tree

Unfortunately it looks very outdated an im not too sure if it will work, im going to give it a try and see what it does.

DannyVarley:

Ok,

So in my searches I found this:
http://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.php?88215-Simple-Category-Tree

Unfortunately it looks very outdated an im not too sure if it will work, im going to give it a try and see what it does.

It does work. Buried in many pages is alot of zip files that kept having additions, fixes and tangents going in other directions. But it is there which the last one posted by yellow works BUT needs to be patched as it takes away stock ZC functionality. The most obvious being that the subcat categories will be removed. There is a patch zip file a few pages after that has a workaround to include it back in.

A couple of tips for you as I am running it in one of my friends shops:

1. The index_filter folder CAN have template overrides. So just make a custom_template folder in there and put your new index filter file there. This will preserve your stock one in case you find to much to manipulate. I know other posts say there is no overrides but it works.

2. You will want to do a manual merge of those codes as 1.51 has been updated for those core files.

3. In your modules/pages/index/ folder there are 2 files, header.php and mainvars.php. If you wanted to use the custom index filter for only 1 category, you can do that. In BOTH those files. you will see a:

  $typefilter = 'default';

if you wanted the doors category to only have this special index filter then change it for this:

if ($current_category_id == xx) {
$typefilter = 'subcat';
} else {
$typefilter = 'default';
}

"xx" is what you would put your category id as for the doors. So once you make a merge, name it something else, for my friends store I named it "subcat_filter". What this will do now is when viewing the doors category only, it will run the subcat_filter and list all products in subcategories in the top category. For all other categories, the default_filter will be used.

Its really a huge jumble is that thread, I have tried installing the module but it seems that it breaks the install does the autoloader file. I will continue to look through the thread to see if there are any comments with the same issue. Your post is great and sounds just what I need, I just need to get it working haha!

Dan

My problem still persists,

I have tried thinking of multiple different answers but my mind cannot come up with one that is easy or that I will be able to get to work myself, In essence all I need is something that can split the product listing up with a headings? This would be a huge step towards what I need, Even better would be the product listing is split up with headings but then the products in these "groups" put behind tabs. I hope that makes sense.

Any ideas people? I know you can help me!
If I need commercial help for zen cart where would be the best place to find this?

Danny