Dynamically generated visual Category page

[draneb]

I would love to have a page which is dynamically generated, shows links to all the categories in the store along with the category image and displays them in a grid format (like 3 on each row). Essentially, just a nice visual category list page. Has anyone made such a script for AC7?

PS - Believe me I am frustrated that I do not know how to program.

[mazhar]

Try following sample control

[draneb]

Neat! That is exactly what I was looking for. If I recall AC 5.5 had something like this but not in 7.0.

1) Mazhar, I would like to send you a tip through paypal for helping me. Could you pm me with your email address?

2) I have attached a screenshot of how it looks. It seems to be listing both categories and any subcategories (which is fine for now because I don't have too many), or having it just list main categories would be fine as well.

3) It doesn't seem to be sorting alphabetically

4) How would I center the images and links?

Thank you!

[William M]

draneb,

With a little more work, you can get the home page category grid to look a bit better and you can get away from using only the parent categories in the store (add some subs to the grid too), add a non-category link, etc:

http://www.medicinecabinetmaker.com

Contact Jim at Web2Market for more on this.

[draneb]

Hello,

I have been using the visualcats conlib control. How could I get it to display only the top level categories? Right now it will list main categories, sub categories, and so on... That works fine on one of my sites but the other just has too many sub categories and the page is too long. I was hoping to just list the main cats with pictures on that site.

Thank you very much.

[mazhar]

Hello,

I have been using the visualcats conlib control. How could I get it to display only the top level categories? Right now it will list main categories, sub categories, and so on... That works fine on one of my sites but the other just has too many sub categories and the page is too long. I was hoping to just list the main cats with pictures on that site.

Thank you very much.

Locate following code in file

Code: Select all

<asp:ObjectDataSource ID="CategoryDS" runat="server" SelectMethod="LoadForStore"
    TypeName="CommerceBuilder.Catalog.CategoryDataSource" DataObjectTypeName="CommerceBuilder.Catalog.Category">
</asp:ObjectDataSource>

and replace it with following code block

Code: Select all

<asp:ObjectDataSource ID="CategoryDS" runat="server" SelectMethod="LoadForParent"
    TypeName="CommerceBuilder.Catalog.CategoryDataSource" DataObjectTypeName="CommerceBuilder.Catalog.Category">
    <SelectParameters>
    <asp:Parameter Name="categoryId" DefaultValue="0" Type="Int32" />
    <asp:Parameter Name="publicOnly" DefaultValue="True" Type="Boolean" />
    </SelectParameters>
</asp:ObjectDataSource>