Category Layouts

[adam f]

Im aware that you can use categories to allow certain options to appear for certain products, but is there a way of making certain products appear within a specific category?

For example if i wanted an option of displaying only boots then only the products within this category would be displayed and the others hidden.

[leehack]

This is not possible AFAIK, although i agree that it would be great to have. The good news is that if your site is not too large (so doesn't grind to a halt processing), you might be able to do something along those lines, where you create a new variable that runs alongside the category one (and could in fact contain the exact same details). You then run a block on the product list and can filter the processing of that list by your new variable. So on the shoes section for instance, you might have a shoes category and the product list will run through them all showing just those where the variable is set to shoes.

If that sounds a bit technical (you would need to get your hands dirty), you might consider the simpler route of creating a section called shoes and duplicating your products into it. If you right click and copy a product, you then get the option to paste as duplicate - this is how most people create by brand, by colour, by size sections etc.

[adam f]

id prefer to do it the variable way as i want to avoid duplication as much as possible as it sounds like a maintanance nightmare!

how would i make the variable run alongside the categories as i thought you could only put a variable within a category not the other way round.

[leehack]

It's not as bad as it sounds, the initial setting up takes some time (any solution you choose will be the same), once you have done that and just setting up new products periodically, it just becomes part of the routine, much the same as you remember to put things in sections or add images etc.

For this idea you would forget categories, they'd not work together at all on this. You'd be creating a product level variable that just contained the same as the category. The contents of a new variable scoped to product level are available to show on a product layout and thus can be used to filter a product list, the category cannot be used like this. The new variable just fills in the gap so that you can do what you want as category cannot.

[adam f]

well so far ive managed to make a variable of choices, that in effect does the same thing as the category list. i then copied the code for the product list and put a block of

myvariable == "shoes"

shoes being an example choice in the variable

but the section ive created to display the products doesnt display anything! and when i take the block off it only displays products under that section and not other sections

where am i going wrong?

[jont]

You need to insert your myvariable == "shoes" into a block if around the EntireSectionList variable.

Word of caution - set up a small test of a few products to check it works - Actinic will iterate through all the products testing for the variable and can cause Actinic to hang for a long time while processing.

[adam f]

thanks jont, it worked. However it wasnt EntireProductList it was EntireSectionList

[jont]

Glad it worked - I will change my post if others want to use it