Advanced Categorization

  • jcaren

    (@jcaren)


    15 years, 6 months ago

    I am creating a new magazine style site for a client with an interesting need….I am having a hard time figuring out the best way to achieve this…here is what they need…

    They have lets say 4 regional categories…

    Area 1
    Area 2
    Area 3
    Area 4

    Then they have let’s say 4 main categories with subcategories…

    Home Furnishing
    chairs
    sinks
    lights

    Outdoor Life
    benches
    parks
    chairs

    Pools
    toys
    equipment

    Storage
    garage
    basement
    attic

    Now, EACH of those categories/subcategories will be listed under EACH of the regions…..

    If a reader clicks on a region first…then a category….ONLY articles from that region should be returned…..(excluding all other regions)

    If a reader clicks on a category first – it should return ALL articles in that category from all the regions….but then they should have the ability to then narrow down to a region if they choose to so they can only view articles from that region….

    Confused yet?!?!?

    I know its a long shot….but has anyone done anything similar that can offer some advice….I am still researching options, but thought I would throw it out there just in case!

    I am trying to work with taxonomies but so far have not achieved what I need….any help is greatly appreciated!!!!

    Thanks so much!!!

    Jill

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • cemery

    (@cemery)

    15 years, 6 months ago

    I’m have a similar issue, Jill. I’m trying to have certain category pages such as http://www.mysite.com/category/something display several blocks of post teasers from that category based on co-categories.

    So, for instance, it would look like:

    Main category for page: Vermont
    Loop 1: Activities (in Vermont)
    Loop 2: National Parks (in Vermont)
    Loop 3: Stores (in Vermont)

    I’d like to do things to each of these loops, such as limiting the post number and having a “featured” first post with a post thumbnail displayed.

    The confusing part, for me, is preserving the parameters created by the category URL while modifying the multiple loops on the page to create the filtered blocks.

    Using query_post to filter each loop seemed like a good idea, but the Function reference entry says it shouldn’t be used for multiple loops. Also, it overrides the parameters from the category URL, unless you use:

    global $query_string;

    and then recall it as such:

    query_posts($query_string . "&order=ASC");

    Perhaps it’s a matter of putting conditional category logic inside the standard loop, as they show on The Loop page in the documentation

    <?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>

 <?php if ( in_category('3') ) { ?>

 <?php } else { ?>

 <?php } ?>

    But this doesn’t solve my questions about limiting the number of posts shown or perhaps excluding certain post types from showing up in the loop.

    If I figured it out I’ll let you know.

    cemery

    (@cemery)

    15 years, 6 months ago

    I just cam across this post which might offer some clues:

    http://wordpress.org/support/topic/pass-variable-into-category_and-array?replies=4#post-897517

    Seems he combined the URL-generated ‘cat’ parameter with another category ID in an array, then passed it as a variable into category_and. I’m guessing one needs to further modify the query_post arguments to change things like post count.

    This still doesn’t address the warning not to use query_posts in multiple loops – but maybe I’m misinterpreting what “multiple loops means…?

    Here’s his code:

    <?php

$cid = get_query_var('cat');
$myarray = array($cid,21);
query_posts(array('category__and'=>$myarray)); ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<h3><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h3>
<p><?php the_excerpt('Read more »'); ?></p>

<?php endwhile; ?>

    Thread Starter jcaren

    (@jcaren)

    15 years, 6 months ago

    Actually I think I got it to work how I need it with this plugin

    http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/custom-taxonomies-menu-widget/

    It allows the reader to pick a category and then when they click on a “tag” they can pull only the articles for that tag…..from within that specified category….

    Then they can choice a “tag” and then narrow down by category….so it works both ways as I needed it to…..

    Still playing but so far it works perfectly!!!!

    cemery

    (@cemery)

    15 years, 6 months ago

    Awesome! I think I found my answer, too. I modified the code I posted above with a get_posts loop and got this:

    <?php
$cid = get_query_var('cat');
global $post;
$myposts = get_posts('cat=-22,-21,' . $cid . '&numberposts=5');
foreach($myposts as $post) :
  setup_postdata($post);
?>
   <li><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
<?php endforeach; ?>

    This grabs the category parameter from the URL and passes it as the variable $cid to the get_posts function. By concatenating that variable with other category ids to remove the things I don’t want to see in the loop (i.e., “-22,-21”) I can drill down to what I want to display.

    Using the get_posts function also allows me to add other filters, such as post count and offset.

    The only thing I’d like to change is to be able to filter the URL category id based on “and” logic – as in category_and – instead of subtracting out categories. Seems more elegant and manageable.

    Does anybody know if you can pass category_and as an argument to get_posts with additional filters included such as numberposts, offset, etc? If so, do you have an example…?

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

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