How do I get the category descriptions & image to show?

[rcheltrvel]

If you click on a main category, you get the category listing page. The category listing pages shows a listing of all the subcatagory. On that page, I would like to show a category description and one image, plus a graphic bullet next to each sub category. How can I do this? I went to category options and added a description & image there but that didn;t seem to show up anywhere. Once I am able to do this, is there a way that it can apply to all of my category listing pages?

[ScribeTime]

Did you try changing the "Category Page Display Type" under Category options for the categories? If that doesn't work, perhaps check the code for your category listing page. You should see something like this (notice the Start: Sub_Category_image section):


<!--START: SUB_CATEGORIES_FORMAT-->
<td>
<table border="0" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;
<!--START: SUB_CATEGORY_IMAGE-->
<a href="view_category.asp?cat=[CATID]"><IMG SRC="[SUB_CATEGORY_IMAGE]" ALT="[SUB_CATEGORY_NAME]" BORDER="0"></a>
<!--END: SUB_CATEGORY_IMAGE-->
</td>
<td class="font2"><a href="view_category.asp?cat=[CATID]">[SUB_CATEGORY_NAME]</a><br>[SUB_CATEGORY_DESCRIPTION]</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
<!--END: SUB_CATEGORIES_FORMAT-->


I wanted the description to be under the image, so I changed the code a little to:

<!--START: SUB_CATEGORIES_FORMAT-->
<td>
<table border="0" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="0">
<tr bordercolor="#CCCCCC" class="cat_imgborder">
<td align="center" class="font2">
<!--START: SUB_CATEGORY_IMAGE-->
<a href="view_category.asp?cat=[CATID]"><IMG SRC="[SUB_CATEGORY_IMAGE]" ALT="[SUB_CATEGORY_NAME]" BORDER="0" class="cat_imgborder"></a>
<!--END: SUB_CATEGORY_IMAGE--> </td>
</tr><br />
<tr>
<td class="font2" align="center"><a href="view_category.asp?cat=[CATID]" class="font1">[SUB_CATEGORY_NAME]</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
<!--END: SUB_CATEGORIES_FORMAT-->

Again, I'm still working on this one too and have to clean out some of the extra CSS code in there. But it's getting there.

Once you get your category listing page exactly how you want, you would just select that particular layout number under category options. The nice thing is that you can have as many different layouts as you want. Also, I don't know if this is documented somewhere but category_0.html refers to listing 1, category_1.html refers to listing 2 and so on...

Again, although this isn't super specific (since I'm still trying to figure it out too : ) maybe it will give some you clues on how to do what you want to do.

[syncbox]

just make sure, if you get above category_0 and category_1 to category_2, 3, etc... that you ALSO put a copy into the common folder (not just your layout folder) or you cannot even choose those files. THAT IS NOT DOCUMENTED ANYWHERE... though it often says to put a copy of those files in the layout folder, nothing mentions adding files to common.

in fact, it says that common gets overwritten in updates!

[GonzaloGil]

Note however that the only templates we overwrite during version upgrades are the "_0.html" templates. In the event that we do overwrite your templates, it won't matter because you have a copy on your folder which is what it uses anyway. The drop down that lets you pick a template looks in the common folder, because that is the template base for the entire store.