sub categories not doing what I want

Here's the site for reference: http://dev.binkwaffle.com

I'd like to be able to click on "birth announcements" and get ALL the products laid out jsut like the would if there were no subcategories. One on top of the other with alternating background colors.

Additionally I'd like to be able to click on the image links on the main page and have the products displayed according to a tag like "boys". I don't like the boxed "all products" at the bottom of the page when you're viewing a subcategory.

Is this possible? Is it possible to add a "tags" field to each product & category to make searches easy?

Thanks,
Brad

I just realized that this was probably supposed to be posted in "Setting Up Categories and Products". Mods, please move.

Oh...and if anybody has any kind of answer for my problem I'd love to hear that too.

Thanks,

Brad

The easiest way to get the display options you want is to use linked products and different subcategories.

Have a subcat (it can't be the top cat) titled "Both", and copy/link all the announcements from the "Boys" and "Girls" subcats into that.

You can do the same with any other grouping of products you would like to display.

OK. That will work. Why can't I link them to the top category? That would be ideal. I tried it and it works but will it end up breaking something later?

Zen Cart is structured to deal with only products or subcategories in a category. If they are mixed, there can be unpredictable results with searches and pricing, and subcategories and products will not both be displayed in one window. From somebody's comment recently, the products would show and not the subs.

Your setup with the "girls", "boys" and "both" links on the home page seems quite sensible to go with the categories menu showing "birth announcements" which opens to show all, boys and girls subs. Just finish linking the "both" to the all sub and it will work fine.

By the way, I really like your site. It is another example of the creative ways to break out of the stock ZC box. I hope you add it to the showcase when you open for business (you will need to put back the powered by zen cart link for that).

Thanks for the help and I'm glad you like my site. I took out the "powered by zen cart link" because when I had it in there previously I was hacked. & since the site had next to 0 visitors the only thing I could think of was that somebody was going through the showcase finding sites to hack. I've since secured it but hopefully that won't happen again if I choose to put it back it.

I might be doing this wrong. I've linked each product to the "all" (used that rather than "both") sub cat but nothing is showing up in the top cat. How do I get the all to show up in the top cat & then maybe hide the "all" cat? Or hide the top cat?

Thanks for all the help.

You're doing it right. Products will not show in the top cat, only the subcat headings (and their images).
Give each subcat a nice image or group shot, and you will see a representative sampling when you click on birth announcements.

Alternatively, since you have so few categories, you might just make "girls' birth announcements", "boys' birth announcements" and "all birth announcements" top categories and completely eliminate a step.

Hmm... it just occurred to me that fraternal twins can be a girl and a boy, so a clear alternative to "girls" or "boys" might be a very good thing.

Your are correct. Twins cards are in the works so there will be another category for that.

I think I like your idea of separate top categories. I think I'll try that and see how it goes.

Thanks!