Include sub-category photos in "New" "Most" etc

BobHarbison · February 13th, 2009, 08:51 AM

Is it possible to have a category also include photos from its sub-categories in the New, Most Popular and Random photo bars?

I know you can do it if the category doesn't have thumbnails, such as this one:

Bob Harbison Photography - Special Events

That's doing exactly what I want it to do, it shows photos from all of its sub-categories. If I set it to have thumbnails, then none of the sub-category photos show.

I'd like to have that category have thumbnails, since I want to have one photo act as a category icon on the main page. Other than that, I won't have photos in the main category, only the sub-categories.

So, is it possible to have sub-category photos included?

BobHarbison · February 14th, 2009, 09:58 AM

Any input on this one, or would the only solution be a hack/mod?

Chuck S · February 14th, 2009, 10:29 AM

Does this tie into our situation we have already discussed?

If we are discussing children of a cat in the featured photos block it shows all children of its direct children. It is not going to show children of children if thats what your expecting.

BobHarbison · February 14th, 2009, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck S

Does this tie into our situation we have already discussed?

No, not really... Same site, totally separate issue/behavior.

Quote:

If we are discussing children of a cat in the featured photos block it shows all children of its direct children. It is not going to show children of children if thats what your expecting.

You're right, that's how it works.

However, if I switch the category to not have thumbnails, then it will show second level children in the new / popular / random blocks.

Here's two samples:
Bob Harbison Photography - Railroads

The category of railroad is set up to have thumbnails, so it only shows images from that category.

Bob Harbison Photography - General

The category "General" is set up to not have thumbnails, so photos from the three lower tier categories show up.

The difference is entirely in how you call the category. When it has thumbnails, the category is called like this:
Bob Harbison Photography - Railroads

Code:

Content visible to verified customers only.

The "php" tag is just so the url can easily be seen...

No thumbs show from the child categories.

When it is set to not contain thumbnails, the program call it like this:
Bob Harbison Photography - Railroads

Code:

Content visible to verified customers only.

Now it shows thumbs from the child categories.

Note that you can switch back and forth using the two urls, nothing is actually changing the category of course.

I would prefer that it work like this even if the category has thumbnails:
Bob Harbison Photography - Railroads

I suspect I'm getting into hack/mod territory here, rather than a switch or setting in the program, but I thought I'd ask and see if I can do it using the software itself.

Chuck S · February 15th, 2009, 09:59 AM

yes your definately getting into mod/hack territory as we show children of a parent cat. Like I posted we show children photos of a category not multiple levels. You could potentially hack this but it might be pretty server intensive to go many levels down.

BobHarbison · February 15th, 2009, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck S

yes your definately getting into mod/hack territory as we show children of a parent cat. Like I posted we show children photos of a category not multiple levels. You could potentially hack this but it might be pretty server intensive to go many levels down.

OK, I thought so...

Just to be clear, all I've done so far is to set one category as having thumbnails and another one as not. That's done in the category section of the admin area.

When I do that, it changes how the category is linked from the main page. In one case it used index.php (no thumbs) and in the other is using showgallary.php.

So I can create the behavior from inside the program, without any hacks, simply be having a category that has no thumbs.

In fact setting a category with no thumbs would work just fine as it is, except for one tiny catch. I want to have one single image in the category to serve as the category thumbnail on the main index page. I've kind of kludged one in using html in the category description, but I don't really like the presentation. I prefer the way it looks on the index page when it's a normal category with thumbnails.

I do understand what you're saying about server load, and that is a good point, especially if all the categories were set up that way.

Thanks!

Chuck S · February 15th, 2009, 10:57 AM

Why not simply move a photo to a category tag it as the index thumb and then move it back to the original category.

that should work.

BobHarbison · February 15th, 2009, 11:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck S

Why not simply move a photo to a category tag it as the index thumb and then move it back to the original category.

that should work.

That's a cool trick, and it almost does what I want, but not quite...

It works exactly as you suggest. Here's why it's not doing what I want it to do.

If I set the category to have no thumbnails, then it shows the thumbnails from second level categories. That's what I'm looking to do.

However, when I set the category to not have thumbnails, the index image trick you suggest no longer works.

If I switch the category to have thumbs, then it works as you suggested, but then of course it doesn't show thumbs from sub-categories.

So close, but so far away...

BobHarbison · February 15th, 2009, 11:39 PM

OK, on a related note...

It appears there is a moderately small size limit on the category description length. Is it possible to change that from within the program? If I can go longer, my html in the description trick will work well enough for what I need. Currently I seem to be bumping into the length restriction by the time I add an image and text both.

(Still trying to find a non-hack method...)

Chuck S · February 16th, 2009, 07:30 AM

Categories that do not have thumbs do not have avatars they are that long plain bar on the index

description varchar(255) default NULL,

its a varchar field which is limited to 255 characters.

ALTER TABLE pp_categories CHANGE description description TEXT DEFAULT NULL;

BobHarbison · February 16th, 2009, 09:13 PM

Thanks Chuck, that did the trick...

The "long plain bar" you mentioned is exactly the problem I was looking to get rid of. It was too easy to overlook.

I feel that the category thumbnails make the categories stand out much better.

In case anyone is interested, here's the resulting index page:
Bob Harbison Photography - Main Index

Normally you'd simply have the category contain thumbs, but then when you get to the sub-category, you wouldn't see all of the new images including the lower level categories.

This work-around does both, which as we discussed above isn't possible otherwise with some kind of a mod/hack.

Chuck S · February 17th, 2009, 10:08 AM

Yes if your trying to do something outside the normal run of things you would need to modify the code.