Thread

Full disclosure: I’m relatively new to Expression Engine and this is the first time I’ve used it for more than a blog and a basic one-level product page.

The structure for our products section needs to be as follows:

Products Section
+Group
++Sub-group
+++Sub-sub-group
++++Product
++++Product
++++Product

++Sub-group
+++Sub-sub-group
++++Product
++++Product
++++Product

+Group
++Sub-group
+++Sub-sub-group
++++Product
++++Product
++++Product

I hope that makes sense. The URL we’d like to generate would be: mywebpage.com/products/group/sub-group/sub-sub-group/product
Our client also needs the ability to add more products, but they won’t be needing to add more sub-categories.

I know that categories won’t allow us to have our URL structure go that deep and I have a vague conception that relationships might be helpful to us but don’t feel like I understand them enough to know what they’re capable of. I’m more than willing to read up on some of this if I can just get pointed in the right direction.

I’ve read Boyink’s EE 2 book, but his products section wasn’t as deep as what we’ll be building.

Any help is appreciated.

Authentic Studios, if you really need that many levels in your hierarchy, you could approach this in a couple of different ways.

1) Templates allow two-level hierarchies, ie groupA/subgroup1, groupA/subgroup2, groupB/subgroup1, etc., This could then be augmented using categories—( i.e. groupA/subgroup2/C12). That might work!

or,

2) You could look at modelling part of your hierarchy using Matrix/Playa fields, in addition to the above. There is an extension allowing Matrix rows to be referenced by URL title. Worth a look.

alternatively,

3) Have a look at the Structure module. It allows arbitrarily deep hierarchies to be created.

Have you seen Boyink’s article on multifaceted navigation? Just guessing, but that might work for you too.

I’d give option 1 (above) a good hard look first, but you should be able to sort it one way or another, with EE.

HTH

Thanks for the mention Brett.

Just to follow up in case someone else is trying to figure this out, I ended up using Structure for our product section and it made life much, much easier for me. I’m sure it would have been possible to accomplish the same hierarchy without this add-on, but I feel that my clients will have a much easier time updating the site now and adding products of their own.

One final thing: when I hit a snag early on in using Structure Travis gave some of the best customer support I’ve ever received and was willing to work with me until I understood what I was doing wrong. That means a lot and I’ll definitely be a repeat customer.

Thanks for the tips, Brett, and thanks for your books, Boyink. You guys have been very helpful as I’ve worked my way toward figuring out ExpressionEngine.