Fragment Blockif brand lists

[maroni35]

Dear all,

I have followed Gabe's blockifs tutorials, especially no. 5 and created blockif lists for brands (and some of Bangers layout for brands as well). I have then created section pages where each brand list will appear, this contains a single fragment which contains the layout code with the blockif statement changed for each brand.

So in the test site I have two brands Clover and Olfa and they have two dummy items in them each.

http://www.patchworkquilting.co.uk/acatalog/test3.html
and
http://www.patchworkquilting.co.uk/acatalog/test2.html

This gives me brand pages without duplicates.

Each item in the list then has a link to the specific product extended info page which has an add to cart button and so acts as a Single Product per Page.

What I want though is for the list to be 3 columns wide on the page rather than one product under each other. But I am struggling. The way I have it at the moment is just one fragment which then lists all the items so changing the column count in the section makes no difference. Would it be creating a custom css layout in an external.css file but my attempts so far have all failed. The Aug doesn't seem to hold any info and none of the help so far deals with 3 column layout with a single fragment.

Any help much appreciated.

[leehack]

I've read your post 3 times and i don't get what you have done. I can't see why you are using fragments, nor how you have put blockifs within fragments, that sounds very strange/pointless/impossible.

Create a section for shop by brand, then add a sub-section for each brand, within each sub-section, duplicate your products into it. I don't think you need anything more complicated than that, what you have done seems somewhat over-engineered.

If i have the wrong end of the stick, please hand me the right one and I will try to assist further.

[maroni35]

Dear Lee,

thanks for the reply.

Point 1 "I've read your post 3 times and i don't get what you have done. I can't see why you are using fragments, nor how you have put blockifs within fragments, that sounds very strange/pointless/impossible."

From what I can see there are two options if you want lists in the main content area, put blockifs in product layout code or in fragment layout code. If I do it in product then I have to have a product showing, if I use a fragment then it doesn't have to show anything just the blockif list output. So please correct me on how I am suppossed to put blockif statements in. If you want lists in the left or right navigation then Gabe's tutorials seem to be aimed at these areas (ie he uses the best seller list as an example). But I wanted to populate the main area.

point 2 "Create a section for shop by brand, then add a sub-section for each brand, within each sub-section, duplicate your products into it. I don't think you need anything more complicated than that, what you have done seems somewhat over-engineered.

I was trying to avoid the duplicates route as the website this will be on has 5000 products, this main area is organised by product type. I then wanted a brands navigation area for which I want to create around maybe 30 brand pages with around 800 products in the brand section of the site. With maybe 5 deletions of products a day. So reading through this seemed the best way to limit extra product management, upload time by using custom variables and blockifs.

Hope you can see why I want to do it, but in the words of the proverb, you may say "well I wouldn't start from here".
David

[Goz]

I've done something similar (identical?) with www.woodworkingcentreshop.co.uk

It has about 4000 products in the Brands section, 90% of which are replicated (but not duplicated) in a Product Ranges section.

All the products are in the Brands section. There is a product level UDV which defines Product Range(Product_Range) - this has a fixed list of values - and there is a matching sub-section within the Product Ranges section for each entry in that list of values.

I then have code that separates the products out into product types.

The code I used is :

 
<h1><actinic:variable name="SectionName" /></h1>
 
<ul>
<actinic:block type="EntireSectionList" >
<actinic:block if="%28%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22IncludeInProductRanges%22%20%2f%3e%20%3d%3d%20true%29%20AND%20%28%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22Product%5fRange%22%20%2f%3e%20%3d%3d%20%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22MainSection%3a%3aProduct%5fRange%22%20%2f%3e%29" >
<actinic:variable name="SectionLink" />
</actinic:block>
</actinic:block>
</ul>

(There's also a UDV to say whether a subsection from the brand should be included in the Product Ranges subsections)


This code is in a layout in the Main Product Area Layout for the sub-section pages within the Product Ranges section - a layout specifically for these pages and not used elsewhere.

Hope all that made some sort of sense. Not exactly what you are doing but not a million miles away and it may give you some pointers.


Goz

[maroni35]

Dear Goz,

Okay well have had a look in firebug at your site and maybe I understand Lee's surprise about me using fragments as I have now put the code in an empty page without and fragments or products and got the same result. But I still can't get the list to appear in three columns across. But possibly some progress.

[jont]

Word of caution about using <actinic:block type="EntireSectionList" > can grind some sites to a halt... even the mighty Gabe backed away from that in his tutorials.

Reading the OP again are you are trying to have a fragment across the top and 3 columns sitting beneath? If so search the forum for fragments spanning product columns. In essence you need to either create a new fragment layout with the colspan set to 3 OR my favoured method is to strip out the table tags from the layout list and and the products / fragments and set everything with CSS and floats. The colspan is the quickest solution but stripping the table tags provides for the ultimate in freedom of layout.

[Goz]

Morning jont - <actinic:block type="EntireSectionList" > ground that site down to less than a snails pace and caused me all sorts of problems with running out of memory. It took me a month to sort that out but the code I put in my post works for that site and doesn't cause me any speed issues.

Having said that, it wouldn't be my first choice of attack if I tried to do the product range/brand thing again!!

[leehack]

Looks like a cracking solution Goz if no speed issues, nice one.

[Goz]

well.... there is a slight speed issue..... it takes about a minute to load the site up into Actinic (I guess it is building the Product Range sub-sections). But once up and running, there are no speed issues.

[leehack]

How many products roughly?

Sounds AUG bound to me this does.

[Goz]

There are 3654 products in 18 Brand sections. There are 23 Product Range sections which is where this code appears.

It's an 8.5.3 IDHB site.

[jont]

It's an 8.5.3 IDHB site.

Thats cheating - step into the pain of v9 and it will not only be underground experiments in Switzerland creating black holes!

[maroni35]

Certainly I am aware of speed issues with V9 and wary of Entiresectionlist. If Goz's solution works then great. I'll see if I can get it to work.

With regard to Jont's point, which is where I think I am going wrong, then I only have one fragment which has got the blockif code in it which spawns the entire brand list. In Goz's website he has two columns across but seems to use ul code.

Below is the code I have used to generate the list, and I stuck this originally in a fragment layout but it also works in Section Page with Section Name at the Top. So I assume I am sticking the code in the wrong place?

<actinic:block type="EntireSectionList" >
<actinic:block type="ProductList" >

<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22Gabrielsdeals%22%20%2f%3e%20%3d%3d%20Olfa" >

<img src="<actinic:variable name="ProductImageFileName" />" width="75" alt="<actinic:variable name="ProductName" />" border="0" /><br>
Price: &pound;<actinic:variable name="ProductPriceRaw" />
<br>
<a href="<actinic:variable name="ExtendedInfoPageName" />"><actinic:variable name="ProductName" />...full details</a>
<br>
<hr>
</actinic:block>
</actinic:block>
</actinic:block>

David

[maroni35]

Goz,

looking through your ste then page

http://www.woodworkingcentreshop.co....t_Cutters.html

would seem to be what I am after if it is a blockif generated list how did you ger it to be 3 generated products across?

David

[Goz]

The section itself is part of the blockif generated list.

All that is being displayed is the original section (as you can see from the breadcrumb trail) and, consequently, all the products in it.

That may not be quite what you are after.