#3275 - Catalogue confusion

By Adam Edington
Added 3rd May 2017, 10:16 AM
1 view

Identifier	#3275
Issue type	Feature request or suggestion
Title	Catalogue confusion
Status	Completed
Handling member	Chris Graham
Addon	catalogues
Description	Doing what I think are simple things and running into issues. 1) Sort key and search key (has to be both, can't be one of the other) and doesn't always work for sorting the data in Tabular listing view. 2) Tree view vs Standard view (switching between them messes things up). Posting as a usability issue as I have read all the tutorials, but things always turn funky on me pretty fast.
Steps to reproduce	Experimenting I created some categories for a catalogue. These categories were included as part of the url:- (index.php?page=catalogues&type=entry&id=legendary%2Fthe-golden-dawn This is useful as I am trying to create a card browser and there are several ranks for each card of the same name, so having the category in the url helps to separate them somewhat. I think I turned Narrow in when browsing on and I liked the fact all content is displayed regardless of category but I didn't like the categories being listed as well. As the categories somehow ended up being children on the main catalogue category that appeared, I had 2 lots of the same categories so I deleted the ones listed at root. The old entries have kept the category reference in the url, new entries cannot be categorised (so I guess deleting the root categories also removed the ones inside the catalogue if that makes sense) so they have no clear separation. index.php?page=catalogues&type=entry&id=creatures%2Fthe-mimic I always stumble into the same kind of issues with catalogues, they must make sense but I am pretty sure switching options messes them up.
Funded?	No

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Comments

By Guest posted 3rd May 2017, 10:23 AM

3) Moving entries into new categories appears to work, but the categories are empty when browsed directly.

By Guest posted 3rd May 2017, 8:22 PM

Sorry for the issues, I found major issues too when digging deeper also. It's a very complex system code-wise and I think people usually only test it superficially as the options are pretty complicated. It's no wonder you got mixed up.

"Narrow-in" was not working at all. Now fixed.

Sorting was not working at all. Now fixed.

We'll release a new patch release very soon.

[quote]
Tree view vs Standard view (switching between them messes things up).
[/quote]

It will flatten your categories if you switch from a tree catalogue to a non-tree catalogue, and that cannot be undone. I don't consider that a bug, it's the natural effect of what you're doing.
Some proposed improvements are covered in #2426.

[quote]
Sort key and search key (has to be both, can't be one of the other)
[/quote]

Covered in #302.

[quote]
I didn't like the categories being listed as well
[/quote]

You can edit CATALOGUE_DEFAULT_CATEGORY_SCREEN.tpl, remove:
[code]
{+START,IF_NON_EMPTY,{SUBCATEGORIES}}
<div class="box box___catalogue_category_screen"><div class="box_inner compacted_subbox_stream">
<h2>{!SUBCATEGORIES_HERE}</h2>

<div>
{SUBCATEGORIES}
</div>
</div></div>
{+END}
[/code]

[quote]
As the categories somehow ended up being children on the main catalogue category that appeared, I had 2 lots of the same categories so I deleted the ones listed at root.
[/quote]

I can't follow here.
A tree catalogue has one single root, always. And you can't delete it. Maybe you meant "top-level categories". And a category can only be in one place, there's only a single parent for a category.

Anyway, hopefully you'll not be confused after the "narrow-in" bug fixes.

By Guest posted 23rd May 2017, 3:00 PM

Just mentioning here again that there are issues created when switching from tree to non tree catalogues, maybe switching shouldn't be an option. I always tend to find myself with categories at the root and underneath the catalogue title when changing. This results in double the amount of returns for search terms as clearly the system is seeing double. The categories are listed alongside the parent, then below the parent, in your terms.

By Guest posted 4th Jun 2017, 4:11 PM

I just tested with a tree catalogue with 2 categories under root (so 3 categories).

So...
Root
Root > a
Root > b

I converted to non-tree and now I have 3 categories...
Root
a
b

So it seems normal and fine to me. I'd need to see a thorough step-by-step bug report (preferably a screencast) to understand what you're experiencing).

I suspect some kind of confusion still with category structure. Perhaps with deeper categories, and/or unwitting creation of duplicated category names.