Category Order Extension - Connections Directory Plugin

As mentioned in the Working Towards 8.2 blog, I’ve been commissioned to add the ability to custom order the categories. I’ve made a lot of progress and I will soon be ready to beta test it. All-in all, this is yet another major release as the changes are far and wide. Not only do these changes make Connections even more flexible, they make it lighter and faster. Absolutely everyone will get to benefit from these changes, but it may disappoint some that the actual ability to custom order the categories will be released as a premium extension with the very original name of “Custom Category Order”. Yeah, I know, how could I possibly get any more creative, right?

Without further ado, here are a few screenshots of the Custom Category Order extension…

When the extension is installed, it adds a simple form input where you can enter the order. The order can be any positive integer. The default is 0, which means no custom order. If you’re familiar with the “Order” field when creating WordPress pages … it works in the exact same way.

As you may know, the default sort order is alphabetical. Here’s a screenshot showing the category admin table with many categories custom ordered. You’ll notice the Custom Category Order extension also adds a new column to the table so you can easily see the order. One feature I want to point out … notice the top level categories have the order set as 1, 2 and 3 respectively. Now look at the order of the children categories, they have an order of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. The order also respects the parent/child relationship of the categories. If there were unordered categories, parent or child, they would follow after the ordered categories alphabetically.

One last screenshot for you. This one is simply showing the category, custom ordered, in the admin drop downs found on both the category and manage admin pages.

4 Responses to Custom Category Ordering

Stefanie 02/18/2015

I am SO!!! In need of this and can’t wait for it to come out so I can revamp my directory. I recently pulled it down due to a change over in themes and a lack of compatibility. I then downloaded yours only to find out the categories were not available for listing in a menu. Then I saw this update and Im so glad. I really didn’t want to look for another plugin as I like yours so much.

Thanks
Stefanie Young
- Steven Zahm 02/19/2015
  
  @ Stefanie
  
  Just to clarify … since you said something about showing in a menu. The custom category ordering does not add this feature. It is to allow a the custom ordering of the categories where they are displayed such as on the Connections admin pages, the templates which allow filters ing by category and in the category list widget in the Widget Pack. There’s nothing currently available to add them to the menu. Though you could use the Custom Link menu item and manually add links to categories within Connections.
  
  Hope that helps!
Walt Hensley 03/06/2015

I have downloaded both CMap and Market Templates. The later better suits my needs. However, I cannot get it to display the Category Dropdown…it will only show the Category Sidebar.
- Steven Zahm 03/09/2015
  
  @ Walt
  
  Market does not have a category drop down, it has the category sidebar… functionally that is the only difference between cMap and Market. The rest is actually just minor styling differences. My guess is you just want to remove the gradient background from cMAp so it looks like Market, yes? See this doc page for cMap. You change the background color to white or transparent and remove the gradient. Hope that helps.