have choice to use subcats in menu item

[krnsgrffn]

Provide the ability to show the subcategories of a parent category in the calendar when creating menu item. It would make creating a calendar on the menu side much easier. Instead of having to select all the individual subcategories, you could select the parent category and then have the choice to display it as one category or use the subcategories.


Thanks!

[Geraint]

You mean a choice - 'show sub cats?' yes/no when selecting a category in a menu item?

[krnsgrffn]

Yes, but have a choice as to what level. Here is a scenario:

Code: Select all

Top
   Second1
      Third1
      Third2
      Third3
         Fourth1
         Fourth2
   Second2
   Second3
      Third1
      Third2


Say I choose the "Top" category. Then there are two more options to choose:
Display using subcategories: Y/N
What Level: 1-? (dropdown)

My choices are "Yes" and "3".

All events from all subcategories would display, as you have it now. For display purposes and legend purposes, however, the events are grouped into their subcategories up to the third level. If there is no third level, it falls back to the second level. However, no fourth level categories are used. All those events are grouped together in their respective parent in the third level.

Does this make sense?

[krnsgrffn]

Okay. This expands the thread to the legend module. I set up a module for a calendar, specify a category, tie it to a menu item, which has the same specified category.

The category is a second level category with several subcategories. The legend, both as module and below the calendar shows the category chosen and its parent category. Why? I want the calendar restricted to the second level category and its children. Why would I want the legend to allow the calendar to expand to include additional categories? This seems backwards. I would expect the legend to show the children for the category I chose (and wouldn't it be great if I could specify the level?), with "All Categories" actually being the category I chose. Right now "All Categories" duplicates the parent category, which I don't want in the first place.

Also, when choosing a category that has subcategories, the subcategory colors are displayed in the calendar, not the parent category color, but the legend only lists the parent. It took me forever to figure out why a group of events were not showing the same color as what was in the legend. I finally realized I had to assign the same color to their categories as the parent category showing in the legend for the legend to make sense. This is where choosing the level for display is helpful. If I could specify when setting up the menu item and when setting up the legend what level to use, the legend and calendar would coincide.

[Geraint]

This will not be possible in Joomla 1.5 I'm afraid since it doesn't support nested categories. It may be possible in Joomla 1.6/1.7 but may require a custom plugin to do this for you since its a fairly specialised requirement.

Are you using Joomla 1.5 or 1.6?

[krnsgrffn]

Joomla 1.6. The organization I am building the site for is a non-profit and there is no way they could afford to pay you for a customized plugin or module.

So in lieu of that, is there a way to add more category selections in the menu and legend? In an older version of JEvents on Joomla 1.5 I was able to easily add more dropdowns through the XML file, but it seems now Joomla does not register the change, so I am stuck having less categories and less definition as to how they are organized so that the legend coincides with what people see on the calendar.

I was hoping with nested categories I would have more flexibility and control over the calendar view and legend, but it seems actually I have less! That is one of the main reasons why I am going with Joomla 1.6 for this project. I cannot go back to Joomla 1.5 because there are other areas where I need nested categories. Now I will have to go back to my client and there will have to be some major rethinking as to how the calendars on their site are going to work.

[Geraint]

Did you see this 'mod' http://www.jevents.net/en/jevents-15-to ... y-selector ?

Its written for Joomla 1.5 so will need to be updated but in essence it adds a 'dropdown menu' type layout for the legend and always shows all the categories. The site where its implemented selected their category colours so that the sub-categories were lighter shades of the colour of the parent category.

If you think this will solve the problem I'll take a look at updating this script for J1.6

[krnsgrffn]

Hmmm. This looks okay, but do I have control over how many levels it shows? I have some sub category levels that I want to use purely for filtering purposes for Latest Events so I can show particular events for particular groups.

[Geraint]

You would need to check the level of the category before displaying it but it should be possible.

[krnsgrffn]

Well, that sounds like it would help. What needs to be done to update the script? And how would I check the level of the category? I assume if I stopped at a certain category level that all the events from the subcats under that level would be included. Those subcats I am creating purely for filtering purposes for latest events can easily have the same color as their parent category, so that is not an issue.

Thanks for coming up with a possible fix for my circumstance!