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use custom fields as pseudo categories
I want to use custom fields as pseudo categories, that is, clicking on a value will go to a page with a list of all other articles with the same value. So if an article’s custom field called “color” has value of “blue”, I want the user to be able to click on blue and get a list of all articles with color=“blue”.
Now, I know I can bring up a list of all the “blue” articles with
<txp:article_custom color=“blue” />
But I don’t want to have to manually create a static article_custom page/form for every possible value of “color”.
I can’t figure out how to pass the variable.
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Re: use custom fields as pseudo categories
floodfish wrote:
I want the user to be able to click on blue and get a list of all articles with color=“blue”.
This is untested but can you configure one article to handle all such resuests (e.g. an article in a dedicated section called, I dunno, filter or something) and pass the custom field info as variables on the end of the URL? So perhaps in your article form:
<a href="/filter?color=<txp:custom_field name='color' />" />Filter by color</a>
<a href="/filter?size=<txp:custom_field name='size' />" />Filter by size</a>
...and then in your ‘filter’ article use smd_if to ‘read’ the URL variables:
<txp:smd_if field="urlvar:color" operator="isused">
<txp:article_custom color="{smd_if_color}" />
</txp:smd_if>
<txp:smd_if field="urlvar:size" operator="isused">
<txp:article_custom size="{smd_if_size}" />
</txp:smd_if>
...The adi_gps plugin might be even better because it will read all the URL vars into <txp:variable /> tags so you can then access them all as <txp:variable name="color" /> and so on.
Does that give you a starting point? There’s probably a neater (perhaps even native) way of doing it but my brain’s not in gear yet and these were the only ways I could figure.
Last edited by Bloke (2009-04-23 07:50:24)
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Re: use custom fields as pseudo categories
Thanks, Stef!
adi_gps may could just the ticket. I’m going to try with that first.
This strikes me as functionality that should be native, but that may just be my naivete.
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Re: use custom fields as pseudo categories
For a more free-form solution, tags might work too. If you find you don’t really need the attribute (color) but just the attribute value (blue). Tru tags is my fave tagging plugin.
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