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Help with dynamic article sorting (Solved - smd_switch)
Hello
I have a long list of articles, one per line, output (via article_custom) as:
name, category, date
.. currently as lines wrapped in <h2> tags (i.e. not an unordered list or a table)
and I’d like users to be able to sort the articles by name (alphabetical), category (alphabetical) and date (chronological) – by clicking either name, category or date.
I’m sure I can achieve this (with perhaps a combination of JQuery and smd_if) but I can’t quite figure out how.
Could anyone please suggest how I might do this?
Thanks for your help.
Last edited by spiffin (2011-02-03 16:42:16)
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Re: Help with dynamic article sorting (Solved - smd_switch)
You could use a select box to choose the desired sort order and append that to the url as an url variable, e.g. ?sortcrit=category.
Then use adi_gps to grab the urlvar from the url and save it in a txp:variable (it will do that for you automatically).
You should first check if the value returned is allowed (e.g. not some illegal string) using if_variable and your allowed values and if ok, you then use sort='<txp:variable name="sortcrit" /> asc' (tag in tag with single quotes) in your article_custom sort attribute. Note: this method requires a page refresh to re-sort.
Another approach, seeing as you have your information all on one line, is to make a table out of your article list and use jquery datatables which has built-in table column sorting and more (such as pagination and search, but you can also dumb it down if you want less). The markup is no longer h2s but the effect is the same and the table is not necessarily wrong semantically (i.e. you’re using a table as a tabular overview).
Last edited by jakob (2011-02-02 22:28:36)
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Re: Help with dynamic article sorting (Solved - smd_switch)
Thanks Jakob .. much appreciated.
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Re: Help with dynamic article sorting (Solved - smd_switch)
Okay, after some fiddling, I did it this way (using Stef’s wonderful smd_switch plugin):
1. Defined links (to sort on click) for name, category, date as:
<a href="../?sort=name" title="sort by name">name</a> <a href="../?sort=category" title="sort by category">category</a> <a href="../?sort=date" title="sort by date">date</a>
2. Used smd_switch to switch between 3 article_custom statements – each with a different sort order:
<txp:smd_switch item="?sort" look_in="urlvar">
<txp:smd_case value="name" type="eq">
<txp:article_custom section="archive" form="listing" sort="Title" />
</txp:smd_case>
<txp:smd_case value="category" type="eq">
<txp:article_custom section="archive" form="listing" sort="Category1" />
</txp:smd_case>
<txp:smd_case value="date" type="eq" default="1">
<txp:article_custom section="archive" form="listing" sort="Posted desc" />
</txp:smd_case>
</txp:smd_switch>
3. Sorted! Thanks Jakob and Stef.
Last edited by spiffin (2011-02-03 17:24:59)
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