Category page won't switch with dropdown selection

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Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • 04/22/2015 at 3:21 pm #332098
    Damon Bell
    Participant

    I have a new directory setup with 50 categories, one for each state. I want to send users to the category pages instead of using the php variable URL. For example, when they view Califorinia listings, the URL is mydomain.com/directory/states/california.

    The URL works fine. Howeevr, when the user switch to a new state (category) in the dropdown menu, it adds the php vars to the end of the current URL instead of to the directory’s root folder. For example, the URL looks like this when switching to a new category.

    mydomain.com/directory/states/california/?page_id=1382&cn-s=&cn-cat=2

    That does not work. To be functional, it needs to be mydomain.com/director/?page_id=1382&cn-s=&cn-cat=2 (needs to drop states/california/ before adding the php vars).

    Also, is there a way to configure the menu itself to send the user to the category specific URL instead of root folder with the php vars? The reason is 2 fold.

    First, the URLs look much cleaner.

    Second, by relying only on the php vars to switch between categories, Yoast only uses the directory’s root folder, mydomain.com/directory, for the canonical URL on every category. I want the site to get a page indexed in the search engines for each state page/category. By using the category specific URL, Yoast uses a different canonical URL for each category.

    • This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by Damon Bell.
    04/23/2015 at 10:23 am #332165
    Damon Bell
    Participant

    Hi, maybe you could just point me to where I would need to go to replace the drop down menu with a custom menu. We are using the cMap template.

    I can easily build a simple dropdown the has links to each of the category page URLs. I would just like to replace the dropdown menu with one that contains static links to each of our category pages.

    The only caveat is that this would need updated if we every changed the categories. However, I don’t think we will be changing them any time soon so for us this would work out fine.

    I’m on a deadline to get this done for a client so I’m just looking for the quickest way to get a dropdown menu to point to the category page URLs. Even if it needs to be a “bandaid” hack, I’m fine with it for now.

    Thanks!

    04/28/2015 at 9:45 am #332719
    Steven Zahm
    Keymaster

    @ Damon

    The short answer is that I’m aware of this “conflict” between using the category slug and the category ID to query the results. I do have some code, currently disabled, that deals with this but it needs more work before being “turned on”.

    Right now the options are:

    Turn off the category select in cMap and use the category widget from the Widget Pack. This probably the best option as it’ll make it very easy for search engines to index the directory. The links it create a all “pretty” permalinks.

    Or add force_home='true' to the shortcode. I have not personally tested this, but it should default back to the page permalink with the query vars when switching categories.

    I removed the site you had cMap registered to, you should now be able to activate the support license.

    Hope that helps, please let me know.

    My sincerest apologies for overlooking this post and not replying in a timely manner!

    04/28/2015 at 2:36 pm #332762
    Damon Bell
    Participant

    Thanks for the response. I’ve disable both the search and categories and will use widgets. I like the idea of using the widgets because I’m creating a responsive design and I have more control over the design layout using the widgets.

    One question, does the category widget have an option to display as a dropdown with a scrollbar? I have 53 categories which is a vertical real estate hog. If it doesn’t then no big deal. I can always just use the search widget and create a custom css dropdown menu with a scroll for the categories.

    If the category widget can do the dropdown and scroll then it would be better though. That way if categories are added later it would automatically include them and they wouldn’t need added into the html. I’m building this for a client who doesn’t know html or css so I’m trying to make it easy to maintain on their side once I’m finished with it.

    04/29/2015 at 10:33 am #332852
    Steven Zahm
    Keymaster

    @ Damon

    re: One question, does the category widget have an option to display as a dropdown with a scrollbar?

    Sorry, no. You would end up in the same situation it it were an option. Maybe use CSS to define a max-height and set overflow-y to be scroll. Probably a better alternate solutions is something like this. There are many options floating about which convert lists into dropdowns and are responsive compatible.

    Hope that helps!

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