Thread

I need to conditionally show include some HTML in a template when a page doesn’t require pagination, ie, on a page where the paginate loop won’t render with the channel:entries loop.

It might be easiest to show with an example. Here is basically what I’m trying to accomplish.

{exp:channel:entries channel="blog_entries" orderby="date" sort="desc" limit='15' paginate='top' disable="member_data|trackbacks"}

{paginate}
 {if next_page}<a href="http://{auto_path}" class='next'>Next ></a>{/if}
 {if previous_page}<a href="http://{auto_path}" class='prev'>< Previous</a>{/if}
{/paginate}

<!-- An example conditional, SUDO code that does not work, to show 
        when EE loop does not need to render the paginate loop. -->

{if pagination_needed=='no' }
 There is no need to display pagination on this page since all the entries fit on a single page.
{/if}

<!-- End of fake SUDO code block. -->

<article>
 <h2><a href="http://{url_title_path=%22blog/entry%22}" title="Read: {title}">{title}</a></h2>
<p> {excerpt}<br />
</article></p>

<p>{/exp:channel:entries}

Is there a native way to check to see if the pagination code will render so I can render an alternate loop in it’s spot instead?

Hi John,

Would something like this work for you:

{paginate}
{if {total_pages} > 1}
  ...your code goes here…
{/if}
{/paginate}

Mike

Thanks for the reply, Mike. I don’t think so because the conditional I’m looking for is for when the content within the paginate tags won’t render.

I’ve tried testing for the {total_pages} being equal to 1, but that doesn’t seem to get parsed.

{paginate}
{if {total_pages} == 1}
  ...never renders because paginate loop doesn't execute when there is no need to show pagination
{/if}
{/paginate}

I’m wanting to display something when paginate doesn’t display.

If I could access {total_pages} outside the paginate loop, I could get that to work though, so I think you’re on the right track.

What about changing it around like so:

{if {total_pages} > 1}
{paginate}
...
{/paginate}
{if:else}
...
{/if}

Mike

Also, I’ve read the old bugrtracker entry from here:

https://support.ellislab.com/bugs/detail/11298/

If I read it correctly, the paginate tag at one point did what I’m expecting it to do but it doesn’t seem to be working that way for me now on EE 2.5.3.

Hi Mike.

It doesn’t appear that {total_pages} renders outside the {paginate} loop unfortunately.

-John

I still don’t have a solution for this issue. Anyone have additional thoughts on it?

Hi John,

You’ll probably have some luck checking your {total_results} against your limit= value:

{if total_results <= '15'}
then no pagination
{/if}

Does that feel like a workable solution to you?

Cheers,

No, it’s still not quite what I need. I need to know whether the pagination block is going to render or not.

The solution you suggest makes that block of “then no pagination” text appear on every page except the last page, assuming the last page doesn’t happen to have exactly the same number of entries as the limit.

The {paginate} tag pair used to render all the time and you’d put some logic inside it to show or not show ‘next’ or ‘prev’ when needed. That’s the scenario that this bug report, https://support.ellislab.com/bugs/detail/11298/, seems to suggest. I think the bug report’s name “paginate tagdata should only be placed if there are multiple pages” may have been taken as a true bug, ie, not displaying anything in the paginate tag pair when pagination links aren’t needed by the channel:entries tag. I need to show alternate content in the situation when the paginate stuff isn’t present, but only then.

Lets try using PHP and do something like this:

<?php $blnPaginate = false;?>
{exp:channel:entries channel="blog_entries" orderby="date" sort="desc" limit="15" paginate="top" disable="member_data|trackbacks"}

{paginate}
<?php $blnPaginate = true;?>
{/paginate}

{/exp:channel:entries}

{exp:channel:entries channel="blog_entries" orderby="date" sort="desc" limit="15" paginate="top" disable="member_data|trackbacks"}

{paginate}
 {if next_page}<a href="http://{auto_path}" class='next'>Next ></a>{/if}
 {if previous_page}<a href="http://{auto_path}" class='prev'>< Previous</a>{/if}
{/paginate}

<!-- An example conditional, SUDO code that does not work, to show 
        when EE loop does not need to render the paginate loop. -->

{if '<?php echo $blnPaginate;>'=='false' }
 There is no need to display pagination on this page since all the entries fit on a single page.
{/if}

<!-- End of fake SUDO code block. -->

<article>
 <h2><a href="http://{url_title_path=%22blog/entry%22}" title="Read: {title}">{title}</a></h2>
<p> {excerpt}<br />
</article></p>

<p>{/exp:channel:entries}

I hope that helps.

Mike

Hi Mike,

That looks like it will work. Thanks for the tips!

My next stop was to look for a hook in the channel module and build an extension which my deadline doesn’t really allow for on this one.

Cheers,

John

Hey John,

I am glad that all is well! How awesome is the ExpressionEngine community?

If you need anything else, please just let me know by opening a new thread.

Cheers,