[Andrea]

Created pages to display lists of members by categories. Seemed to be working (after I discovered commas can’t be used in categories even though category_name is delimited by single quotes – once corrected all seemed to be working yesterday afternoon) then everything broke again about 6PM EST. Here’s html excerpt from one of my pages:

California Red [connections category_name='California Red']

Cheviot [connections category_name='Cheviot']

Cheviot, American Miniature [connections category_name='American Miniature Cheviot']

The page will display properly with the members listed by the categories in the full profile card format, so don’t think there’s wide scale typing errors in my page(s). http://njsheep.net/member-directory/breed/

BUT on this page, if I click on “View All” to compress to a name list http://njsheep.net/member-directory/breed/view/all/ the correct names are still there in the correct categories but clicking on a name loads a page with “no results” for nearly all members on the page (the 1st 2 under Alpaca work, but most of the rest do not).

If it were just one/a few members or one/a few categories would think it’s a typo on my part. Can’t see a pattern to the problem, it’s not single words vs compound words for categories, not members with multiple breeds vs only one listed, etc. Have same issue with the other 3 pages I’ve created that show members by Location, Products and Service categories. The main directory page works fine, so it’s definitely an issue with filtering by category_name. See: http://njsheep.net/member-directory/

Is there a limit to the number of categories that can be used or to the hierarchy depth? I have a depth of 4 and 110 categories, likely need to add more.

I was thinking about purchasing the Widget Pack as it looks like it will do what I’m doing manually with nicer output, but not sure based on the issue I’m reporting.

Greatly appreciate any help you can give me.

Installed: Connections 8.5.10 and WP 4.4.2, using Twenty Sixteen Theme.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Andrea

The issue is you are using the shortcode on the page many times using different options to limit the results. You can do this, but the setup needs to change a little.

If your main directory page, http://njsheep.net/member-directory/, is not being limited by category or other options, then you can use this page for the intructions I am about to give. If you have limited it, then you will need to create a new “Results” page where the only thing on it it the [connections] shortcode. Looking at your pages, I highly recommend the later. When creating the new “Results” page, the name of the page is not important, but should be be relevant, like, maybe “Member”.

After you create the “Results” page and publish it, take note of the page id in the browser address bar. You’ll need it. If you are going to use your existing main directory page, edit that page and get the page id from the browser address bar.

Now, on all your pages where you are using the shortcode, add the home_id shortcode option using the page id for the “Results” page.

That should fix up the issue you are seeing.

Now, just to take time to explain why you were seeing the no results message…

When clicking thru to the profile page, Connections will use the first shortcode on the page, discarding the rest. If the first shortcode is limited by a category, and the name you are clicking on does not exist in that category, you’ll get no results. Hope that makes sense.

Hope that helps, let me know.

ps. I highly suggest using the category shortcode instead. Why? Because if you decide to change the name, then the shortcode will not longer work. The ID is permanent and cannot be editted. The shortcode would only stop working if you deleted the category.

[Andrea]

Ok – now I understand what’s happening and how the fix works. Tried it out and it worked. Many thanks.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Andrea

Great to hear.

[Author]

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