Categories box layout nightmare Need Help!

[magder]

I've been at this for the past week. I thought it would be very simple But I as it turns out, I'm very simple.

In the categories box I want to show Top categories and the sub categories beneath it. I want to have conrtrol with css over both the category and the subcategories so they look different.

Something Like this:

Books

• subcat book 1
  subcat book 2
  subcat book 3

Audio Tapes

• subcatTape 1
  subcatTape 2
  subcatTape3

I found a contribution called all categories by Christian Lescuyer which allowed me to list cats and subcats underneath. However I can't figure out how to separate them to achieve the above look.

The all categories code looks like this:

// Preorder tree traversal
  function preorder($cid, $level, $foo, $cpath)
  {
    global $categories_string, $HTTP_GET_VARS;

// Display link
    if ($cid != 0) {
      for ($i=0; $i<$level; $i++)
        $categories_string .=  '&&';
      $categories_string .= '<a href="' . tep_href_link(FILENAME_DEFAULT, 'cPath=' . $cpath . $cid) . '">';
// 1.6 Are we on the "path" to selected category?
      $bold = strstr($HTTP_GET_VARS['cPath'], $cpath . $cid . '_') || $HTTP_GET_VARS['cPath'] == $cpath . $cid;
// 1.6 If yes, use <b>
      if ($bold)
        $categories_string .=  '<b>';
      $categories_string .=  $foo[$cid]['name'];
      if ($bold)
        $categories_string .=  '</b>';
      $categories_string .=  '</a>';
// 1.4 SHOW_COUNTS is 'true' or 'false', not true or false
      if (SHOW_COUNTS == 'true') {
        $products_in_category = tep_count_products_in_category($cid);
        if ($products_in_category > 0) {
          $categories_string .= '&(' . $products_in_category . ')';
        }
      }
      $categories_string .= '<br>';
    }

// Traverse category tree
    foreach ($foo as $key => $value) {
      if ($foo[$key]['parent'] == $cid) {
//        print "$key, $level, $cid, $cpath<br>";
        preorder($key, $level+1, $foo, ($level != 0 ? $cpath . $cid . '_' : ''));
      }
    }
  }

?>
<!-- all_categories //-->
          <tr>
            <td>
<?php
//////////
// Display box heading
//////////
  $info_box_contents = array();
  $info_box_contents[] = array('align' => 'left', 'text'  => BOX_HEADING_CATEGORIES);
  new infoBoxHeading($info_box_contents, true, false);


//////////
// Get categories list
//////////
// 1.2 Test for presence of status field for compatibility with older versions
  $status = tep_db_num_rows(tep_db_query('describe categories status'));

  $query = "select c.categories_id, cd.categories_name, c.parent_id
            from " . TABLE_CATEGORIES . " c, " . TABLE_CATEGORIES_DESCRIPTION . " cd
            where c.categories_id = cd.categories_id";
// 1.3 Can't have 'where' in an if statement!
  if ($status >0)
    $query.= " and c.status = '1'";
  $query.= " and cd.language_id='" . $languages_id ."'
            order by sort_order, cd.categories_name";

  $categories_query = tep_db_query($query);

// Stuff in an array
  while ($categories = tep_db_fetch_array($categories_query))  {
    $foo[$categories['categories_id']] = array('name' => $categories['categories_name'], 'parent' => $categories['parent_id']);
  }

// Initiate tree traverse
  $categories_string = '';
  preorder(0, 0, $foo, '');

//////////
// Display box contents
//////////
  $info_box_contents = array();
  $info_box_contents[] = array('align' => 'left', 'text'  => $categories_string);
  new infoBox($info_box_contents);
?>
            </td>
          </tr>
<!-- all_categories_eof //-->

Christian offered this help via email but have not been able to make it work.

You have to do it at build time, in the preorder() function.
Locate:
if ($bold)

  $categories_string .= '<b>';

Add something like:
if ($level == 0) 

  $categories_string .= '<span class="whatever">';

Then after the name and before the second "bold" thing, close the tag:

if ($level == 0) 

  $categories_string .= '</span>';

I've slept very little and I'm eating a lot. I'm having a store layout depression.

Any help would be more than apreciated and most certainly compensated .

Gary

[sinisnap]

yeah i agree, it would be awesome to have a solution to this...gary did you ever figure it out??

[magder]

No I never did figure it out. I just started using the abbox store the templating system and hope I can do i there.