Alphabetical List of Products

[rstarost]

Is there any way to make a category where it prints just the title of all prodcuts which are hyperlinked to their product page. I would also like to set it up so that its an alphabetical list and has a seperator when a new letter in the alphabet starts. Somethie like an array where all titles beginning with A go here B here and etc. I know tis a long shot but I was hoping someone could help.

[drstuey]

The Category Template Manager module supports A-Z listings and the help file for that module includes the code to accomplish this, that you can copy and paste. http://www.mivacentral.com/prod.mv?SS-CTGYTEMPLATES5

[rstarost]

I use this module on another site and I remember it having a problem with timing out if you have too many products and you want to havea show all link. Is this still the case?

[drstuey]

Sorry, I never implemented it so can't comment.

[wcw]

Do you have an example page of what you'd like this to look like?

Are your products sorted alphabetically in this special category?

Are all your other categories going to be normal, ie with thumbs, add and buy buttons, prices, etc?

[rstarost]

I just want the list of product titles to print out in arrays wich are determined by the first letter in the title. So I can put the "A" array under a table cell where I havea big letter a which will be anchored from letter lins on the home page

[wcw]

Creating 26 arrays of products would be a bit much for the server to process. It makes more sense to use one array of products and write conditional code to begin a new table cell when the first letter of the product name changes.

[rstarost]

that makes sense...would i be able to apply that to the mod rule and have a table set up that way? And I have no idea how to begin that code in MIVA. Thanks for the help thus far

[wcw]

I thought about this the other day when you asked it but am currently swamped so could not write a little test ditty. Maybe someone else here already has a working example.

[rstarost]

Well I will keep my eye out and hopefully some one will help. I can do it manually for now but have to update it each time I add a product which is not fun at all. By manually I mean via downloading the products to excel, saving as a web page and breaking it apart.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

While a manual process may take more of your time...it will be time that each of your customers and your server wont have to do everytime they hit the page....just a thought.

[rstarost]

I wouldnt think if it was coded correctly it would put that much of an undo strain on the server we only have about 1800 products

[kayakbabe]

On merchant 5.5 doesn't the sitemap do this already?
It does list categories, but you can edit the SMAP template to not do that.

[rstarost]

On merchant 5.5 doesn't the sitemap do this already?
It does list categories, but you can edit the SMAP template to not do that.

How do you do the site map in 5.5?

[kayakbabe]

I didn't read the whole thread about you wanting to put big letters inbetween the list of products. I'm not sure how you'd get the letter of the alphabet.. you would have to do some coding for that. But I"m sure it could be done.

At the very least you can have a simple list of all your products that you don't have hand code everytime.

You can edit the SMAP in the pages section of the admin, and get rid of the display of the categories on it.

[drstuey]

How do you do the site map in 5.5?

search these forums for SMAP to find out more, but basically you have to go to: Global Settings > Domain Settings > SEO Settings and tick the sitemap option and Update. This will add the SMAP template to the Pages list.

[rstarost]

Ok I love the SMAP page now if I could just figure out how to detemine the first letter of the string and sort accordingly I would be set

[rstarost]

Ok is there a way to make the SMAP page out put products in Alphabetical order? Like a sort by Title Ascedning?

[Dan - Kemper Strategic]

As someone previously mentioned in the thread, I think the Category Template Manager (http://www.sebenza.com/products/SS-CTGYTEMPLATES5.html?a_aid=KSEC) is going to be the best solution for you in this case. I am not aware of any time out issues with the module unless you were trying to load thousands of products per page, in which it would be a problem for any solution. The alpha sorting feature actually helps in this area because it breaks things down by alphabet so you are not loading all of your products on one page, and it has the sorting features you are after.

[rstarost]

ok so the SMAP page is about useless, unless you just want a big long unconfigurable list.

[Dan - Kemper Strategic]

ok so the SMAP page is about useless, unless you just want a big long unconfigurable list.

Correct :)

[rstarost]

As someone previously mentioned in the thread, I think the Category Template Manager (http://www.sebenza.com/products/SS-CTGYTEMPLATES5.html?a_aid=KSEC) is going to be the best solution for you in this case. I am not aware of any time out issues with the module unless you were trying to load thousands of products per page, in which it would be a problem for any solution. The alpha sorting feature actually helps in this area because it breaks things down by alphabet so you are not loading all of your products on one page, and it has the sorting features you are after.

The only issue I see with this is that I would have to create a new categroy for the the product list which will make it show up in my category tree which I would not want.

[Dan - Kemper Strategic]

It would be easy to conditional that category out of the cattree so it would not display.

[rstarost]

It would be easy to conditional that category out of the cattree so it would not display.

I am all ears ;) hahaha..Actually dont know how to do that

[Dan - Kemper Strategic]

Shoot me an email offlist and I will give you a walkthrough.