Thread

Hello, all.

I’m running EE 2.1.3 and here’s what I’m trying to do:

I have a Channel for ads that is powering a random sidebar ad on my site geekforcefive.com. I would like to be able to replace this random sidebar ad with a custom ad on the single entry page of some entries in my main channel. What is the best way to do this? Related entries? A series of if statements? Please let me know what you think.

Thanks so much,
Chris

One specific ad for one specific entry?  Relationship.

Yes, that’s what I was planning. And that makes sense.

The issue I can’t wrap my head around is how to make the ad random when I _don’t_ specify an ad for the specific entry. I see that there’s a {if no_related_entries} conditional, but could I throw a Channel tag pair for the Ad channel into that conditional without significantly degrading performance? Or is there some other way I would handle this?

You can look to see that there is a value in the relationship field by checking to see if it has a “0”:

{if relationship_field != "0"}
  relationship loop
{/if}

{if relationship_field =="0"}
channel entries / random loop
{/if}

Okay. That makes sense to me. Now, is it going to be okay to nest that ad channel entries/random loop within the main channel entries loop? It would look like this, right?

{main channel entries loop}
{if relationship_field != "0"}
  relationship loop
{/if}

{if relationship_field =="0"}
ad channel entries / random loop
{/if} 
{/main channel entries loop}

In perusing some other threads, it seemed to me that nesting channel loops could be a very bad thing. Any tips on how to avoid it being bad?

That’s the part you currently have working now, no?  If not, you may want to put it in an embedded template, but it sounds like this would be a single-entry loop nested in a single-entry loop which I wouldn’t worry about.  I’ve nested far more complex entries/loops with no discernible performance issues.

Yep, that’s the part I have working now, though it’s not yet nested within another loop. Glad to know that a single-entry loop inside a single-entry loop isn’t cause for worry. Thanks for the help!

OK - just be aware that you may have to place the nested loop into an embedded template to avoid conflicts between the two loops.