Divide the Description of a category page into 2 parts

[Jaz]

On my category pages, I want to put a significant amount of information in the description tag. Some of this information is relevant for immediate decisions by the customer and other information is just details that a few people will want to read. More importantly, this information will be valuable to search engines.

The problem I have, is that if I provide all the information I want on the page it will push all the categories or products to the bottom of the page. Obviously this is a bad place for my links to be. If I move the descriptions below the category buttons, the relevant information for my customers will be at the bottom of the page.

So my questions is, can I put a brief description at the top of the page and a detailed description under the category links? I know there is only one description field, but there has to be a way around this.

Thanks,

[plugables]

There are 3 fields you can use for descriptions. Summary, Description and Detailed Description (More Details). There are a number of ways you can handle this
- You can use Summary at the top and description/more description under category links.
- Or you can use Description at the top and Detailed Description under category links.
- Or you can create a new custom field or template field and use it for description
- Or if you insist on using the same field for both brief description at top and detailed description after category links you can truncate first say 200 characters from the description and use it at the top and use the remaining characters later.

[Jaz]

Thanks.

I think I want to use the Summary as intended so that one is out.

I do not use the detailed description for anything, so this would be ideal, but detailed description is only available for products, not categories. Is there a way to add detailed description to categories?

I know you offer a plugin for custom fields, and that was the first place I went, but does it work for categories, or just for products? If it does work for categories, can I call out to have one of the custom fields to be at the top. This would be my ideal solution if you can tell me how to make it work. I am not a programmer, but I follow instructions well.

The last option sounds the least desirable but would work if there are not any other options, but I am not sure how i would call this out.

Thanks,

[jmestep]

You could put some kind of text in the description, like [split]. Then look for that text and put the characters before it into one location and the characters after it into another.
Or you might try something like in this site- it is an Able 5 site where she put classes inside the description for different sections, then used css classes for the expansion- you can see those by viewing her style sheet.
http://www.backdesigns.com/BetterBack-w ... 1C119.aspx

[plugables]

Jaz, I do have the customization code that allows custom fields UI for categories. It was never compiled in form of a plugin and put on the store as I thought it is not something that would be needed commonly.
You can get the custom fields UI for products from http://www.plugables.com/Product-Custom ... I-P20.aspx
For custom fields UI for categories you can contact us at http://www.plugables.com/ContactUs.aspx

[Jaz]

Thanks Judy. I think that would work, but it looks like the plugables solution will be easier.

My question with plugables is, what is involved with calling out the part of the description that I want at the top of the page? I assume this is done with some type of CSS call out or something. I am ready to buy the plugables plugin, but i need to know that I can get the details on how to make it do what I need it to.

Thanks,

[plugables]

Ability to set the custom field is one aspect. The ability to display it at the desired location is another. By default custom fields will get displayed on the product page after the description. In order to display a certain custom field at in a certain way you will need some custom code. Examples of how to access and display the custom fields may be found in some other posts in forum.

[plugables]

You have something similar to this code to access the custom field and display it

Code: Select all

        foreach (ProductCustomField customField in Product.CustomFields)
        {
            if (customField.FieldName == "NAME_OF_THE_CUSTOM_FIELD_IM_INTERESTED_IN")
                {
                    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(customField.FieldValue))
                        {
                            //This is the field I am interested in.
                            //Set the value of corresponding display field on the page and make it visible
                            MY_FIELD.Text = customField.FieldValue;
                            MY_FIELD.Visible = True;
                            break;
                        }
                }
        }

Replace 'NAME_OF_THE_CUSTOM_FIELD_IM_INTERESTED_IN' and 'MY_FIELD' with appropriate values.

[Jaz]

Thanks, I have to go out of town, but I will look at it next week and see how it goes.

[hassonmike]

So its been a few months since this has been active, but I am taking over for Jaz on this project and would like catch up on all this so that we finally find a solution to this.

At this point, I'm wondering where this code specified by Plugables is applied to, and if this would interfere with our custom templates.