Structure module - categories

My understanding of Structure might be wrong, but it doesn’t really work with categories in the way EE natively does, ie, it doesn’t trigger a category with a key word in the URI. In structure you’d need to have testing-analysis set up as a parent page with category as a subpage and then electronics as either a subpage of that or as a listing.

So if I was doing a site with Structure, I wouldn’t bother having a segment that says category as it doesn’t say anything about the content it’s displaying. Instead, you’d replace category with the name of the subsection, e.g. products.

You also have to make sure that each page/listing has a template assigned.

Cheers for the reply. That’s kind of what I’m doing - I’m including category in the URL simply so I can detect if we’re wanting to use categories. I’ve tried creating a subpage called http://example.com/testing-analysis/category/ which appears OK, but then when I go to http://example.com/testing-analysis/category/electronics/ I get a blank page.

If I could use my ‘category’ subpage and grab the segment_3 so I can filter the list by category, that would work and I’d be happy. Surely I don’t have to create subpages manually per category as that makes structure a bit lame.

It’s a bit hard to get a picture of what you’re trying to do without seeing how you’ve set your structure up.

I’m not sure how I can describe it any better…I could give you a CP login if you’d be so kind as to take a look, I’m bashing a brick wall with it.

The setup for that page is as simple as : (without the category subpage in this case)

I’ll have a look if you like although I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to provide an answer.

I shall DM you the details, and no worries at all about the answer - it might just be something simple I’ve missed.

Thanks for looking, owe you one.

Hi Andy, I’m playing with structure and I wanted to do exactly the same thing as you. I can’t find any way to integrate categories with structure the way you tried.

I was wondering how you ended up with this thing ? Have you manage to do it ?

Thanks for hepling !

Hi Benjamin,

I got this working in the same way as Structure handles (or appears to handle) pagination - by passing it as a querystring rather than a native EE segment.

So for example instead of http://example.com/testing-analysis/category/electronics/, I’m using http://example.com/testing-analysis/?cat=electronics.

Then I’m picking it up in the template with PHP and using a custom SQL query to handle the hard work. It seems to work OK, so far!

Hope that helps.

Hi Andy ang thanks for your reply !

It seems like a good way to make it work without needing to hard code anything, that’s nice !

Yesterday I kept on thinking about it and I may have found some other way to make it work (I’m still working on it). Here is the idea :

Structure URL (uses portfolio-tpl template) http://example.com/portfolio/

Categories URL http://example.com/portfolio-tpl/category/websites/

and to add few lines in the HTACCESS :

RewriteRule ^portfolio/(.*)$ /index.php/portfolio-tpl/category/$1/ [L]

(Not sure this is exactly working but you get the idea)

to make the same URL work this way : http://example.com/portfolio/websites/

I’ll tell you if I get this to work, but I’m already wondering how I’ll be able to get the parent entry from the categories page. As Structure doesn’t use the url_title, I’m wondering what kind of query I’m gonna have to make to find the portfolio structure entry from the term “portfolio” (when I’m on a category page).

Anyway, I’m gonna try this a little bit and if it still doesn’t work, I’ll setup a querystring solution like yours.

Thanks for your help !

Hi Benjamin - did you ever get this way to work? I’m back onto a Structure site faced with categories again, always seeking better ways!

Passing a string is a great way to do this. I’ve been meaning to write an article about it. Also, remember you can always switch to the normal templating system just to feed data through the front-end. Sometimes there’s no reason to have the category page in Structure at all as it’s purely a sorting mechanism. You can attach a listing to a main page for authors so they have the simple interface, but how you display them on the front-end can be different.

I was able to get categories work with Structure by putting a conditional in the “dynamic” parameter. For example:

{exp:weblog:entries weblog="portfolio" dynamic="{if segment_2 == 'category'}on{/if}{if segment_2 != 'category'}off{/if}" disable="member_data|pagination|trackbacks"}

-John

@code72 Great solution! Have you tested this deeper than 2 levels?

Be sure to check out this excellent write up of Structure:

http://www.viget.com/inspire/a-whole-new-wooooorld-structure-expressionengine

It suggests using a combo of Leevi Grahams Safe Segments and Lows Seg2Cat, and I’ve gotten my categories to fire much more neatly.