Help Understanding Categories

**davec69** · 09-20-2004, 05:14 PM

I am new to OScommerce, and I'm having trouble understanding the categories, I would appreciate any suggestions. The data which we upload into oscommerce, comes from MS Access, we've assigned the relevant field to be used as the category, unfortunately, the descriptions in this field, only makes sense internally, when viewed on the website, they just look like a bunch of giberish. How would I go about, defining the category descriptions in OSCommerce, so that they show up on the website with meaningful terminology? An example, in our database, dom= Domestic, impor= Import, ect, currently the "dom" and "impor" are showing up as categories, when imported via easypopulate. Is there a way to tell oscommerce that impor=Import and dom =Domestic,I am trying to avoid changing the categories in MS Access, because they are relevant in our day to day business, they just aren't user friendly. Thanks

**jonthewebb** · 09-21-2004, 01:52 AM

Can't you just change the category name in the OSC admin?

I am not sure if this is overwritten each time you use easypopulate, I never got on with that "upgrade". If it does, you can 'translate' by setting up an array at the top of (or preferably in a separate file but that's just for neatness) includes/boxes/categories.php. It would be something like this:

$translation = array();
$translation['impor'] = 'import';
$translation['dom'] = 'domestic'];

So that each of your abbreviations is the key to the correct word.

Then, on line 35-ish (not sure as I've mod'd my one quite a bit), change:

$categories_string .= $tree[$counter]['name'];

to:

$categories_string .= $translation[$tree[$counter]['name']];

that should do it.

hope that helps

jon

**davec69** · 09-21-2004, 11:47 AM

Jon, thanks for your response. I tried changing the names in the admin section first, but I had two problems, First, all the categories disappeared from the category box on the homepage, and second, during the next easypopulate upload, it just added the original categories, giving both the old and new categories.

I checked the includes/boxes/categories.php file, but I did not find the statement

$categories_string .= $tree[$counter]['name'];

the closest match was

$boxContent .= $tree[$counter]['name'];

**jonthewebb** · 09-21-2004, 01:35 PM

yes, that is probably it, I think I was looking at a non-MAX version of OSC. Sorry

So try the following:

1) at the top of the page, inside the php tags, insert the following:

$translation = array();
$translation['impor'] = 'import';
$translation['dom'] = 'domestic'];

2) Then, replace your existing code:

$boxContent .= $tree[$counter]['name'];

with:

$boxContent .= $translation[$tree[$counter]['name']];

and see if that works. The category named 'impor' should now appear as 'import' as desired. Hopefully. Be aware that it is case-sensitive.

The best way to do what you want would be to add an extra field to the database which contains your correct category name, and to create an admin tool etc etc... but this hack should work.

jw