Retaining Categories in left side panel.

[Haak]

I know that there was a link about this in a earlier post but I could not get it to work. My question is how do I get the Categories to stay in the left panel?

Currently if a user clicks on a category it disapears leaving the user unsure of how to navigate to other products in different category's. At a glance a user has to go to the home link and start over.

I took a look at the SimpleCategoryList.ascx but I am not sure what I need to do to that page to make it stay my guess is that something needs to be changed in one of the layout sections ie.. "leftsidebar.master" ?

Any help would be appreciated,
Haak

[Haak]

Ok I found out how to get the layout to always have the the categories show up on the left side BUT when I navigate away from the home page the list under the categories disapear showing only the title?

Half way there any help would be great

Haak

[Shopping Cart Admin]

Hello Haak,

Confirm each of your display pages has the custom component added to the side bar 1.

e.g. home page, category page, product page etc.

[Haak]

Hi Mike,
I still cannot get the list of categories to show after I leave the home page. Here’s an overview again. For all pages that are involved I have used the zone editor to set each page with the same content layout. Here is a list of the pages being used with the layout options.

1. defualt.aspx
2.~/CategoryGrid2.aspx
3.~/Product3.aspx

Layout
1. Active layout = 3 column
2. Header = Standard Header
3. Sidebar = Standard Sidebar 1
4. Content = 1. Home Page 2. Category Grid Page2 3. Show Product 1
5. Sidebar 2 = Shopping bar 1
6. Footer = Standard Footer

Note #4 has 3 different content sections see first list to match page with content.

So aside from the Content page being different all is the same however only the home page shows the list of categories all other pages just show the categories section with no list just blank?

I would like to have a consistent look for the navigation so at all times the user can go back easily to the category they started in or a different one on the fly without having to go back to the home page to start over.

I am sure this is something simple just could use some insight.

The funny thing is the pages look right just not retreiving the data for the sidebar 1 section.

Haak

[chazen]

Let me know if someone figures this out and a sample of what the header looks like in order to make the right sidebar stay on all of the web pages.

[chazen]

The sidebar1 needed to be moddified as follows:

[[conlib:SimpleCategoryList CategoryId="0"]]

The default looked like this:

[[conlib:SimpleCategoryList]]

[ayilmaz]

Hi,
I am new to AbleCommerce. currently I am evaluating the product to see if I can customize it. I am using ComponentArt's Tree view from another post in the forum. However I don't know how to retain this menu across different pages. Can you explain in detail how I can do this please?
Thank you very much.
Ayilmaz

Hello Haak,

Confirm each of your display pages has the custom component added to the side bar 1.

e.g. home page, category page, product page etc.

[compunerdy]

Its very easy..you just use the same sidebar scriplet or use the same conlib in each of your different scriplets. AC7 is very easy to customize this way.

[AbleMods]

Just to clarify for everyone's benefit:

The design of AC7 is such that each different page has it's own set of header, footer, content and sidebar settings.

For example, setting a specific sidebar on the home page doesn't automatically mean that same sidebar will appear for all subsequent pages beneath it. AC7 doesn't care what your site tree looks like, it just knows pages and content assignments.

So if you want all your pages to maintain the same sidebar, you pull up each site page logged in as the Admin user. Scroll to the bottom and change the mode from View to Edit. Modify the sidebar setting to what you want. Save it. Now move on to the next page. Rinse and repeat.

The default content for a fresh install of AC7 is the left sidebar being set to Standard Sidebar 1. So if you modify the existing scriptlet for that sidebar and not create a new sidebar, all the pages would indeed change. But only because it's the default for a fresh install, not because it automatically drills down through your site.

If you've created your own sidebar, using a custom menu control or whatever, you'll have to reassign that sidebar to all pages you want it to appear on.

This same concept to all aspects of an AC7 page i.e. content, footer, header, and sidebar.

[ayilmaz]

Thank you very much for the explanation. It works now.

[hondo69]

PLATFORM: ASP.NET VERSION: 7.0 BUILD: 9879

I'm new to this but starting to get the hang of it. There's still a problem I cannot solve and it deals with sub-categories. Here's a multi-level list of categories and the left sidebar contents:

Level 1 - HOME - [standard sidebar 1] - displays categories
Level 2 - TOYS - [standard sidebar 1] - displays sub-categories within TOYS
Level 3 - PUZZLES - [standard sidebar 1] - blank

Because PUZZLES is a bottom level category the left sidebar is blank. There are no sub-categories below that level to display. The contents area of the page will display products listed in that bottom category (PUZZLES).

I've tried to Edit this page going through Admin, by finding that individual page, and clicking the drop-down at the bottom (changing from View Page to Edit Page). I then changed the left sidebar setting from standard sidebar 1 to a custom sidebar I made.

It will change the left sidebar at Level 3 - PUZZLES, but it also changes Level 2 - TOYS to the same custom sidebar. So I don't understand the concept state by SolunarServices that "each different page has it's own set of header, footer, content and sidebar settings".

It seems every category and sub-category inherit the same setting for sidebar. They are not unique. I would like to create a unique sidebar for each bottom level category in my store.

[AbleMods]

It seems every category and sub-category inherit the same setting for sidebar. They are not unique. I would like to create a unique sidebar for each bottom level category in my store.

You are correct. Settings are retained by .aspx file, not by catalog category.

So if you have your top-level categories using CategoryGrid2.aspx as the page, they will all share the same settings because they all share CategoryGrid2.aspx for the display page. Your bottom-level is probably using a different CategoryGrid page and thus the settings can be different.

The solution is simply to copy the desired CategoryGrid aspx page to a new file name and assign that page to the Category on the Edit Category screen. Then the settings for that copied page will be different from all the others.

[hondo69]

OK, with that great information the fog is lifting.

Since I'm just starting to build our site I think step 1 is for me to map out how I want each page type to behave. Once I have a master plan I can better tweak each individual page type. Up to now I've just been experimenting to learn how the puzzle pieces fit together.

Since I'm simple-minded, I'm going to draw out each page on a piece of paper with header, footer and other components. Then I'll label each section with the appropriate file name. I may even use crayon.

[jmestep]

Then when you get real advanced you can call it a wireframe! I just learned a while ago that that is what it is called.