Adding & Modifying a Category
When adding or modifying a category you are
presented with the following fields and options.
Category Details
Category Status: Setting a category to inactive is an
alternative way to take a category down from your
site without deleting it completely. If set to inactive
visitors will not be able to view the category page(s)
and will instead get a 404 page not found warning.
Images and files on inactive categories will still be
accessible if linked to from outside the category
itself. Inactive categories can also just be used to
organise category hierarchy in the admin.
Category Name: This is the name for this particular
category and the only required field on the page. All
other fields are optional. Note that any articles or
products associated with a category will remain
associated even if the category name is modified.
Parent Category: If you want to organise your
categories into a hierarchy structure and you want
this category to be a sub-category of another
category then select it’s parent category here.
URL Slug: This is only important if you are using
friendly urls. The url slug is a means to provide a
more readable and seo friendly url for the category.
For example a standard category url might look
something like
http://www.mysite.com/?category=1234567890 and
if you enter an url slug eg. widgets/green the new
friendly url would be
http://www.mysite.com/widgets/green/ - It is
recommended to settle on a slug and not change it
once set. If you change the slug on an established
page then any manually placed links going to the old
friendly url would ideally need to be updated.
Main Content: This is where you can add and edit
the main content for the category. This can be
anything from a simple line of text to a few
paragraphs or even more complex content such as
embeded images, videos or widgets.
If you want to copy and paste content into a
content area please bear in mind that the copied
content might bring across extra unneeded html
code that can bloat or even break your page layout,
to help get around this there are “paste as plain text”
and “paste from word” buttons in addition to the
normal paste function.
There are two ways to upload and add images to a
content area. The first way is to use the method
outlined below under Category Images. The other
way is to use the file browser. To open the file
browser, click the Insert/Edit Image button (the little
tree on the toolbar) then on the dialog box that pops
up click the Browse button to the right of the image
url field. This will open the file browser where you
can upload images and then select them to add to
into the content area. Images uploaded thought the
file browser are stored in the data/images directory
and are included with any backups you make.
For advanced html editing you can click the html
button on the toolbar or toggle the editor toolbar off
and edit the html code directly.
If the category is using a page template that has
more than one content area specified then
additional content areas will be shown here below
the main content area. Each content area has it’s
own toolbar to allow you to easily format text.
The following special tags can also be used in any
category content area:
{display_items} - displays item listings
{page_num} - displays current page number
{contact_form} - displays a contact form
Meta Description: This is used mainly to provide
search engines with a useful description of the page.
Search engines will sometimes use this text when
displaying links to the page. Enter one or two
sentences with appropriate keywords but don’t just
list keywords.
Meta Keywords: Comma separate keywords and
key-phrases in this field to help search engines index
your pages better. SEO wise this is less important
than the Meta Description.
Category Images
You can upload images to any particular category.
Category images can be used in a few different ways.
For example if you are using a dynamic slider you
can have it displaying images from a particular
category. There is also an advanced feature to
display a category image table which generates a
table of category image links. When modifying a
category you can also drag or copy these uploaded
images into your content areas and resize them as
required.
Category Files
You can upload files such as PDF or ZIP files to a
category. When files have been added to a category
you can drag or copy and paste the generated
download links into your content areas or anywhere
on your site. There is the option to use a standard
download link or a secure download link that will
only work for registered users who are logged in.
Category Visibility Options
Page Template: Select the page template that you
want to use for this category. Page templates are
typically designed and uploaded by a web developer
and they determine the overall design and layout of
the page.
Heading: If this is set to visible then a heading will be
displayed at the top of the main page content area.
The heading will be whatever the category name is. If
you hide this you can add a custom heading in the
main content area.
cont...
Description: You can hide the content on the page
by setting this to hidden.
Menu Link: If this is set to hidden then any dynamic
menus will not display a link to this particular
category.
Override Menu Link: If you are using a dynamic
category menu on your website you can override the
default link by adding custom html code here.
In Sitemap: Choose whether to include this category
in the sitemap or not. For example you might want
to hide restricted areas of your website and exclude
them from the sitemap.
Category Listings
Listings Visibility: Choose whether to show or hide
listings for this category. If you are using the category
as a stand-alone page you should set this to hidden.
Listings Format: Select the format for this
categories listings. Listing formats are typically coded
and uploaded by a web developer and they
determine how listings will look on the page. Select a
format begining with “products_” if you are going to
display products in this category. Select a format
begining with “news_” if you are going to display
news articles in this category.
Number of Columns: Set the number of items you
want to display across the page.
Number of Rows: Set the number of items you want
to display down the page.
Thumbnail Width: Set the width for thumbnail
images.
Thumbnail Height: Set the height for thumbnail
images.
Keep Aspect Ratio: If checked thumbnails are
resized to fit within the given thumbnail dimensions.
If unchecked thumbnails are resized to exactly match
the thumbnail dimensions.
Advanced Search Filter: A category by default will
display only items that are assigned to it. The search
filter allows you to override this behaviour and
control what items are displayed in the category. This
is only needed for special case scenarios and can be
left blank if you don’t need it. Search filters should be
separeated with a colon : character.
eg. cat=0:sort=priority
Reserved names for the advanced search filter:
•
cat - list items from other categories eg.
catid1,catid2,catid3;catid4,catid5 (comma=or)
(semicolon=andgroups)
•
sort - override the default sort order which is
'priority_offset', other options are 'id', 'id_r',
'priority', 'priority_r', 'name', 'name_r', 'date',
'date_r', 'random' (_r indicates reverse order)
(date only works on news articles) (random
can be used to display items randomly on a
particular page but is not suitable for
pagination)
•
phrase - search items using a general search
phrase, typically for searching item ids, name,
keywords - specify negative keywords with a
preceding hyphen eg -keyword or perform an
exact match with square brackets eg. [exact
keyphrase]
•
price - display only products within a specified
price range eg. 0,200 for 0 to 200 - or enter a
single price to display listings greater or equal
to the specified price
Other names can be used in custom scenarios eg.
rooms=3,location=Dublin etc.
User Group Permissions
Select who can view this categories content. If you
check “Everyone” then anybody can view it. If you
check “Registered Users“ then only registered users
who are logged in will be able to view it. You can also
setup custom user groups and only allow specific
users access.
CMS Help - Categories - Adding & Modifying a Category