New Catagory Lister Plugin
Development and Programming
I would like to know if this is worth my time to tackle:
My next plugin is a new catagory lister. It will work about like this:
1) it should duplicate the catagory order per weblog 2) There will be a linear and nested order switch, nested will be handled different 2a) Nesting will NOT use unordered list, it will however provide a “Nesting Level” that can then be applied through style sheets. 3) Custom Listing order will allow user to order catagories and even nest them however you like regardless of how they are listed in your control panel 4) Comment count will be incorporated with the plugin automatically 5) Counts in nested catagories will be available 6) Top level count will be Top level comments + aggrigate of sub catagories 7) Top level count Only for top level, no aggrigate (option) 8) Show or not show empty catagories 9) Rank Catagories (Hottest to coolest) (no nesting) 10) Rank Catagories (Hottest to coolest) with psuedo nesting 11) Ability to combine weblogs (order, nest, rank, “p”rank) 12) Limiting functions, date functions.
More maybe …
Expected usage:
{exp:cat2 weblog="weblog1|weblog3" nest="1" count="single|double" rank="0" order="DESC" specific_order="default"}
<div class="cat2-{nl}"><a href="http://{path}">{catagory} ( {count} ) {last_date}</a></div>
{/exp:cat2}Notice that “{nl}” is a nesting level and controlled directly by CSS. Since there are no “UL” arrangement and layout of the list will be greatly enhanced and easily controlled with 4 or 5 CSS class defs.
Expected output:
— Style One — catagory one (100) <— Note: 82 posts in this catagory + 18 in this main catagory …catagory oneA (50) …catagory oneB (10) <— Note: 2 post in this catagory + 8 posts in the subs ……catagory oneA (4) ……catagory oneA (4) …catagory oneC (22) Catagory two (25)
— Style Two — catagory one ( 18 / 82 ) <— Note: 82 posts in this catagory + 18 in this main catagory …catagory oneA (50) …catagory oneB ( 2 / 8) <— Note: 2 post in this catagory + 8 posts in the subs ……catagory oneB A (4) ……catagory oneB B (4) …catagory oneC (22) Catagory two (25)
— Ranked (pseudo nesting) — Catagory One - ONE A (50) Catagory Two (25) Catagory One - ONE C (22) Catagory ONE (18) Catagory One - ONE B - A (4) Catagory One - ONE B - B (4) Catagory One - ONE B (2)
Style: Nest Level 1 Nest Level 2 Nest Level 3
The cool thing here is the margin control will be a lot easier and it will have the advantage of easier cross platform compatibility with Mozilla and IE. (Does anyone esle see a prolem with list and CSS in IE? or Vice Versa?) Eliminating the list use allows for easier formatting.
This is putting me back to my dev days… And to think, I used to get paid for this.
-JB
This is ready…
http://www.miasmaofmusings.com/index.php/weblog/dl_cl/
Get Cat_lister plugin.
Wow…Can’t wait to play…Thanks!!!
You are welcome… I highly recommend download the DOC file that goes with it. It gives mor information that is in the usage text
This looks very good. I’ll be giving it a try ASAP. Thank you.
Jubal,
Thanks for the plugin… very helpful.
One thing though, max_list=”10” does not seem to work.
This is what I have in the template:
{exp:cat_lister weblog="{master_weblog_name}" max_list="10" sort_field="l_e_date" sort_order="DESC" display_style="NListU" show_empty="no" style_def_L="id='archiveseries'" }But, the output is still the entire list of categories, although the other parameters do their job.
Any suggestions?
Simon.
I will look into it and post an update if need be.
I will look into it and post an update if need be.
Have you had a chance to work on this? As far as I can tell, nothing is done with the max_length and max_order variables in the plugin. You retrieve the variables from the template, but nothing happens with the data.
Hey guys…started a new job… I was working on this in the spare time… I will be working on updates in the next day or two…
-JB
ATTENTION ALL CAT_LISTER USERS
I have just updated Cat_lister to version 1.02. Please download the new version and documents (minor fixes to docs) for most up to date version. These modules are available at my site at:
http://www.miasmaofmusings.com/index.php/weblog/dl_cl/
If the plugin is working fine for you, do not bother to download it, it was a bug fix specifically due to a version control issue. (Turns out some features were not included)
As usual, if you have any questions, just ask, and I will help where I can.
BTW, you can also post questions to my forums at:
http://www.miasmaofmusings.com/index.php/forums/
-jb
Thanks, Jubal. Great work! A couple things.
1) The Zip files appear to be corrupted. Or at least my computer thinks they are.
2) I’m a little confused about how to do the following: I want to list one category and its children. I thought I would do something like:
{exp:cat_lister weblog="directory" sort_order="custom" custom_sort="133"}But that throws a whole host of errors like
Notice: Undefined index: DEF in pi.cat_lister.php on line 285I would RTFM but, well, see #1 above. Any tips?
Thanks, Jubal. Great work! A couple things.{exp:cat_lister weblog="directory" sort_order="custom" custom_sort="133"}
OK, try this:
{exp:cat_lister weblog="directory" custom_sort="133"}because sort_order=”custom” is already implied by the custom_sort. However, I did not intend to get just one category and it’s subs in this version. So to do that you may have to do:
{exp:cat_lister weblog="directory" custom_sort="133|134|135|136"}to list it. Also, to get this to list in a tree pattern, you may have to addit like this:
{exp:cat_lister weblog="directory" custom_sort="133|134|135|136" display_style="NListO"}I have not work on pulling data in this way, so this is a work around. I guess I can add this to my Future Features list, like I said, to be honest with you, I did not see it happening. Just goes to prove you can never see all the options that the public may want, and I thought I had done a good job predicting.
As for the zip… I will upload it again and attach it here as well.
-JB
Thanks JB,
That fixed the max_list problem.
Simon.
First Jeff, thanks for making this available. I installed, and following your helpful instructions, I get a nice nested list. BUT, I also get debug code in EE to the following effect:
Notice: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /Volumes/Raid/serverwebsites/mydomain/system/plugins/pi.cat_lister.php on line 222
I looked inside the plugin and did not see anything clearly wrong on its line 222.
And if I change “{master_weblog_name}” to “{weblog1}”, then the call to the plugin fails and outputs nothing. Perhaps I am just forgetting something obvious, or have overlooked something in the docs. If so, my apologies. But any help would be appreciated.
BTW, No matter what, I cannot get the latest version to unzip. Could be me, but I have downloaded it to three separate machines, and each time I get the unzip error: “no such directory.”
That error is a compatability issue in PHP 4.4.1. I believe that if you remove the ampersands it’ll get rid of the error.
{master_weblog_name} should be fine, that’s an assigned variable. weblog1 you’d want to do without the {}, as it’s not a variable but a value that you’re calling directly as specified in the weblog management area for shortname. =)
I hope that helps!