Thread

Hi folks,

I recently took over development of an EE 2 site from a friend of mine who got out of the freelancing business.  I’m still fairly new at this EE stuff, so pardon me if this question has a really simple answer I’ve overlooked.

My client runs a shop where she sells something like 250 different pairs of socks. We have them organized by brand and style. We have the catalog displaying items just fine, but she wants it to show the brands in a particular order.

For instance, she wants all of the Sock It To Me socks to show up first, then another brand, then another brand, etc.  I’ve used the test code…

{exp:channel:entries channel="products_socks" orderby="sock_supplier" sort="desc" status="Open|Out of Stock" limit="1000"}
    <li>{sock_supplier} - {title}</li>
    {if no_results} Well that's weird, there's nothing here! Try something else. {/if}
   {/exp:channel:entries}

and that orders the socks by the supplier alphabetically, but I want to specify the supplier order so Sock it to Me comes first, and so forth.  Is there any way to do this?  I’ve tried everything I can think of!

Thanks,
-Tobyn

Hi zair99 welcome to the forums

What you’re seeing here is EE’s default way of listing entries using the orderby parameter as you would expect.

As you really want a custom order there are some things you can try.

1. Use Stickies
For all “Sock It To Me socks” product entries mark then as “Sticky” (under the Options tab). This should make those items rise to the top of any list irrsepective of any other sort order.

2. Use an addon
The one that springs to min is http://gotolow.com/addons/low-reorder which allows you to apply a custom sort for entries. However as you have 100’s of products that may be a bit cumbersome to work with.

3. Use two sets of tags in your template and use the search:field_name parameter to filter them

{exp:channel:entries channel="products_socks" orderby="sock_supplier" sort="desc" 
status="Open|Out of Stock" limit="1000" search:sock_supplier="Sock It To Me socks"}
<li>{sock_supplier} - {title}</li>
{if no_results}No products from Sock It To Me socks {/if}
{/exp:channel:entries}  

{exp:channel:entries channel="products_socks" orderby="sock_supplier" sort="desc" 
status="Open|Out of Stock" limit="1000" search:sock_supplier="not Sock It To Me socks"}
<li>{sock_supplier} - {title}</li>
{if no_results} Well that's weird, there's nothing here! Try something else. {/if}
{/exp:channel:entries}

I’ll check out that addon, but the third option sounds like it’d be about perfect!  I haven’t done much yet with the search:field_name parameter, so it should be interesting. 😊  Thanks for the quick advice and I’ll post again with some results.

If your planning on using pagination on these pages I would be inclined to go for option 1 or 2.

Hmm, yes, pagination is an issue.  Applying the stickiness almost works, but I have two brands that I want to be sticky.  I think I’d like to start a petition for optional ordering weights on custom field items.  😉

I’m going to keep poking at this and see what I come up with.

Hooray!  I managed to get it to work using JavaScript rather than EE for the pagination.

{exp:channel:entries channel="products_socks" category="<?echo($cat_list)?>" orderby="sock_supplier|sock_gender|date" sort="desc|desc|desc" status="Open|Out of Stock" limit="1000" search:sock_supplier="Sock It To Me|Gumball Poodle"}

 {if <?echo($brand_list)?>}
 
  {if <?echo($gender_list)?>}
 
   [removed]
    entry_ids[total_results] = "{entry_id}";
    total_results++;
   [removed]
    
  {/if}

 {/if}
 
{/exp:channel:entries}

Followed by the channel entries tag specifying all the rest of the brands, with that same JavaScript, plus a bunch of other crap further in.  Long story short, it works like a charm, but man do I wish it was easier!

Thanks a bunch guys!