Categories Dressing

gjh42:

There is not a prearranged setting for that situation; you would need to add a new case in the functions file to give that behavior. It would not be complicated, and I can look at it when I get some time next week.
You would need to have the chcategories option installed to show all top and subcats at once.

Okay, i'll give it a shot!

Gjh42, will you be releasing the new version anytime soon?

Thx

I hope so! There are only a couple of minor things to finish testing, and I have to make sure the readme is up to date with everything. I hope I can make time for it in the next week or so. There will be very little functionally different from the advance copy attached to this thread some time back (post 1542).

Hi Glen. How's things!? I'm on to pick your briain on a new category I'll be adding to our site soon. I've added it in a test site at:

http://www.silkblooms.co.uk/wholesale/

You'll see from the above URL that I've added a new main category called "Artificial Home Flowers". The idea is to open out a full new set of sub categories, similar to the wedding flowers above. However, it looks quite bad and blends in with the wedding flowers too readily. So, I'm going to make it look like this instead:

Much better, but I'm in two minds how to tackle it. OK, so the Wedding Flowers is easy enough to place in teh top chcategoriesHeading. I just need to edit a file and change the text. It's the other one that'll pose the challenge.

I'd imagine that creating a new side box would be the wrong way to go as it'd too much of a task to add the new category tree to it. So, I'm betting there's a way to replace that catBoxDivider1 line with a .jpg or .png file instead? I'd lose the Google ranking on the key phrase if I make a graphic header for the category but I think it's the easy way to go here.

Any ideas or suggestions for me?

You can add a heading to the Artificial Home Flowers category, specifying a style class tag that is only used for that heading, like```php
define ('CAT_BOX_HEADING_354','1|0|||Homewear Flowers|5');//new list - text heading - style 5

Then a rule like```
.catBoxHeading5 { 
    font-weight: bold;
    font-size: 1.4em;
    color: #335511; 
    background: #ff66ff url(../buttons/english/catheadbg5.gif) no-repeat;
    }
```where catheadbg5.gif has the desired background image.

Thanks Glen, definitely works apart from one little thing:

http://www.silkblooms.co.uk/wholesale/

Can't seem to move the text down, vertically, into the centre of the header bar like the other categories. This is the CSS I've used:

.catBoxHeading5 {
background: url("../images/button-bg5.png") no-repeat scroll;
color: #000000;
font-family: trebuchet MS;
font-size: 13px;
font-weight: bold;
height: 34px;
padding-left: 30px;
position: relative;
right: 18px;
width: 160px;
}

Strike that, I got it:

.catBoxHeading5 {
background: url("../images/button-bg5.png") no-repeat scroll;
color: #000000;
font-family: trebuchet MS;
font-size: 13px;
font-weight: bold;
height: 34px;
padding-left: 49px;
padding-top: 12px;
position: relative;
right: 18px;
width: 160px;
}

Thank you Glen. A genius mod!!

Hi Glen

Thanks for creating this mod. I'm currently using Get Em Fast's CSS Flyout menu and am working on a new template. I'd like to use your mod but am having some trouble. While I'm able to create groups in my categories, I need to manipulate the categories to the correct group.

For example:
I have group called "Toys". In the group, I'd like to move several categories like For Men, For Women, For Couple etc. These categories exist but I'm not sure how to bring them in the box. These are top categories with sub categories within them.

I can't include an link as I'm working on my local host. Any help would be appreciated.

First, give your top categories sort orders to put them in the order you desire. Then create groups starting with the first category you want for each group, by giving it a 'CAT_BOX_HEADING_xx' define, specifying to start a new group as described in the readme. You can give this a heading or not as desired.

If you need more help, you can post a "view source" of the sidebox output code which will tell me what categories you have and what you have set up.

gjh42:

First, give your top categories sort orders to put them in the order you desire. Then create groups starting with the first category you want for each group, by giving it a 'CAT_BOX_HEADING_xx' define, specifying to start a new group as described in the readme. You can give this a heading or not as desired.

If you need more help, you can post a "view source" of the sidebox output code which will tell me what categories you have and what you have set up.

Thank you. I will try this when I get home tonight and report back.

Glen - I changed the sort order from admin and don't see a different result. I'm running a search right now to see how to change the cPath. If I can do that, then I think I'll be heading in the right direction. I'll report further in a bit.

You don't want to change the cPath except by properly moving categories in admin, if that is an appropriate thing to do. Why do you want to change cPaths?

How are your categories displaying now, alphabetically?

Yes it is currently displaying alphabetically. I've moved the site to a personal url online and will pm you the link. I've changed the sort order for a few categories but they are not being picked up.

Okay, what are the sort orders for the categories currently under the "Test 3" heading?
I see that the demo categories all come below the real categories you have made, which indicates that the new ones don't have sort orders (or their orders are all 0 or small).

The cPath or category id is not related to the sort order, if you were thinking of influencing it that way. The "Sort Order" field is at the very bottom of the product editing page.

You are correct. I'm changing the sort order and am able to create/move categories in the group that I would like them to display under. How would you move a group over another? For example, if you review the site now, I'd like the second group to be displayed before the first group.

By far the best way would be to redo the sort orders of one group so they all come before/after the other group, as appropriate. Any other solution would be picky and fragile.

Thank you for the great mod!

I have a question. How come when I select a 2nd or 3rd subcat from my drop down menu, nothing displays in my sidebox?

I played around with the numbers here:

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

in categories_dressing_defines.php. It works fine when 1st subcat is selected from the drop down menu. But when 2nd/3rd subcat is selected, the sidebox disappears.

Please help!!!

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

The third number in this define is for the lowest subcat level. If you want to show all levels of subcats, just set it to a large number like 9. That will let any plausible subcat levels show without bothering further.

If you have changed that number without effect, or if the whole sidebox actually disappears, you have some larger coding error that I can't diagnose from the information you have given.

Hi Glen,
The entire sidebox does not disappear. The box with
* Specials ...
* New Products ...
Featured Heading
* Featured Products ...
* All Products ...
is still there.

I tried many combos in this line of code
define('CAT_BOX_ACTIVE_LEVEL', '1|0|1');
I can get the top cat to display in the sidebox when I select a top cat from the horizontal dropdown menu. But when I select a subcat, the sidebox that displays the cats disappears.

This is want: when I select Topcat->1st subcat->2nd subcat ... I want the same tree in the sidebox. So far all I can get is that when Top Cat is selected, Top Cat & 1st subcat appears in the sidebox. But when 1st or 2nd subcat is selected, the cat tree in the sidebox disappears.

I'm not sure if what I said makes any sense.