Using Views To Create DMOZ-Style Sub-Categories
This is a quick Drupal 6.x, Views 2.x blog tutorial about creating the classic DMOZ-style sub-categories plus node listings above/below. Something Drupal does not do out of the box, but is fairly easily achieved.
(Thanks to longwave in #drupaluk on IRC for suggesting this approach.)
You already have standard taxonomy listings (a list of nodes per term) which is already optionally provided using the Views module (so you can control the output without writing any code). There are code-based ways of achieving the following, but you don't actually need to write anything.
With the Views module (Views 2.x only, I'm afraid) create a new view of type "Term". Add a relationship of type "Taxonomy: Parent term". Add an argument of type "Taxonomy: Term ID". For the argument settings under "Action to take if argument is not present:" select the "Provide default argument" radio and select "PHP Code" as the type. In the resulting textarea simply type this:
<?php
return arg(2);
?>Note, you don't actually want the <?php ?> tags.
Why? Because the taxonomy term page where our resulting block will appear is always taxonomy/term/%term so we can rely on arg(2) to return a valid term ID as long as we are on a term page (which we can do by making sure our block only appears on taxonomy/term/* in the block configuration settings).
Add a field, "Taxonomy: Term", link it to the term itself. Finally add another display of type Block and save. That's it. Go to blocks, position it where you want it, set the configuration for the block as I just described so it only appears on other term pages and you're done!
Or you can just import my code and work from there:
<?php
$view = new view;
$view->name = 'taxonomy_subcats';
$view->description = 'Shows a grid of sub-categories for a category as a block.';
$view->tag = '';
$view->view_php = '';
$view->base_table = 'term_data';
$view->is_cacheable = FALSE;
$view->api_version = 2;
$view->disabled = FALSE; /* Edit this to true to make a default view disabled initially */
$handler = $view->new_display('default', 'Defaults', 'default');
$handler->override_option('relationships', array(
'parent' => array(
'label' => 'Parent',
'required' => 0,
'id' => 'parent',
'table' => 'term_hierarchy',
'field' => 'parent',
'relationship' => 'none',
),
));
$handler->override_option('fields', array(
'name' => array(
'label' => '',
'alter' => array(
'alter_text' => 0,
'text' => '',
'make_link' => 0,
'path' => '',
'alt' => '',
'prefix' => '',
'suffix' => '',
'help' => '',
'trim' => 0,
'max_length' => '',
'word_boundary' => 1,
'ellipsis' => 1,
'strip_tags' => 0,
'html' => 0,
),
'link_to_taxonomy' => 1,
'exclude' => 0,
'id' => 'name',
'table' => 'term_data',
'field' => 'name',
'relationship' => 'none',
),
));
$handler->override_option('arguments', array(
'tid' => array(
'default_action' => 'default',
'style_plugin' => 'default_summary',
'style_options' => array(),
'wildcard' => 'all',
'wildcard_substitution' => 'All',
'title' => '',
'default_argument_type' => 'php',
'default_argument' => '',
'validate_type' => 'none',
'validate_fail' => 'not found',
'break_phrase' => 0,
'not' => 0,
'id' => 'tid',
'table' => 'term_data',
'field' => 'tid',
'validate_user_argument_type' => 'uid',
'validate_user_roles' => array(
'2' => 0,
'3' => 0,
'4' => 0,
'6' => 0,
'5' => 0,
'8' => 0,
'7' => 0,
),
'relationship' => 'parent',
'default_options_div_prefix' => '',
'default_argument_user' => 0,
'default_argument_fixed' => '',
'default_argument_php' => 'return arg(2);',
'validate_argument_node_type' => array(
'webform' => 0,
'image' => 0,
'page' => 0,
'story' => 0,
'video' => 0,
),
'validate_argument_node_access' => 0,
'validate_argument_nid_type' => 'nid',
'validate_argument_vocabulary' => array(
'1' => 0,
'2' => 0,
'3' => 0,
'4' => 0,
'5' => 0,
),
'validate_argument_type' => 'tid',
'validate_argument_transform' => 0,
'validate_user_restrict_roles' => 0,
'validate_argument_php' => '',
),
));
$handler->override_option('access', array(
'type' => 'none',
));
$handler->override_option('empty', 'No sub-categories for this category.');
$handler->override_option('empty_format', '1');
$handler->override_option('items_per_page', 0);
$handler->override_option('style_plugin', 'grid');
$handler->override_option('style_options', array(
'grouping' => '',
'columns' => '2',
'alignment' => 'horizontal',
));
$handler = $view->new_display('block', 'Block', 'block_1');
$handler->override_option('block_description', '');
$handler->override_option('block_caching', -1);
?>Have fun!
A big thanks!
Holy crap -
I spent all day yesterday searching Google and Drupal.org for exactly what you list above - only to stumble upon this post early this am. All day yeterday and nothing. Two minutes today and I'm done. Thanks! My brain had been overlooking the concept of creating a relationship using the tax parent term - so I'm thrilled to be on the right track now; this worked great. (And I'll give Joachim's pointer a tryout in a minute or two; thanks to him as well.)
Nice tutorial
Thanks for the tutorial. Do you have a demonstration working somewhere to see what the output looks like?
Best,
-Daniel
Or you could use the patch
Or you could use the patch that's in the queue for Image gallery module, as an image gallery is just a node view for a given term, with a view of child terms above it.
Post new comment