[Ray Atreides]

Hi Steven,

I have a quick question.

On the page URL shown below (with listings pulled from multiple categories)..

http://www.tamborinemtncc.org.au/accommodation-choices-on-tamborine-mountain/

I am listing businesses pulled via a number of Categories and then more specifically listing ID’s within those Categories to avoid duplicates where businesses are in more than one Category. This works well.

However I also wish to allow visitors to goto a specific Category (i.e. just look at B&B’s or Cottages) and have added the ‘Select Category’ box on the page.

My problem is that I only want a listing to appear ONCE on the page. However some businesses are in more than ONE Category. This is why I used the listing ID numbers to ensure that a business only appeared once.

However, if a Category is selected from the drop down Category Box the ‘search’ will only return those businesses that have been selected on the multiple category listings page by the ID numbers.

This can cause a business to not appear in the Category ‘search’ if the ID has not been included.

For example…

Business A is in both the B&B Category (listing ID 143) and the Cottages Category (listing ID 1209).

I have only used the ID of 1209 otherwise the business would appear twice in the multiple category listing page.

Is there a way that I can ensure that when a Category is selected it will show ALL the businesses in that Category?

Any help would be appreciated.

I have put the ‘connections shortcode’ below…

[connections color='#076B39' order_by='id|RANDOM' category='3,9,11,13,15' id='1,5,7,121,123,131,145,149,167,173,231,239,247,273,291,409,423,907,925,927,929,931,937,943,959,1161,1203,1207,1209,1239,1241' enable_category_by_root_parent=true page_limit=50 str_work_addr='Our Location' str_work_phone='Phone' str_cell_phone='Mobile' str_work_email='Email' enable_bio_head=FALSE enable_note=FALSE link_format='Goto%separator% %title%' image_fallback=’block’ addr_format='%label% %line1% %line2% %line3% %city%, %state% %zipcode%' link_format='Visit Our Website%separator% %title%']

Regards,

Ray

[Steven Zahm]

@ Ray

To answer this question specifically…

re: Is there a way that I can ensure that when a Category is selected it will show ALL the businesses in that Category?

No, not with the shortcode you are using. Setting the specific entries to display by setting the id shortcode option will always limit the list to those entries.

That said…

Assuming you have always used the order_by='id|RANDOM' shortcode option… There was a bug when using the order by random that would cause the entry to be listed for each category it was assigned to. I’m guessing this was the cause of the duplicates that you were experiencing. This bug was fixed between a year and year and a half ago. So you should no longer need the id shortcode option to prevent duplicates.

Now, it sounds like you have duplicate entries in your database as a work around but limiting the display to only one of them, correct?

To test that the bug is fixed for you, set those duplicates to unlisted and remove the id option.

Now, you still might having another problem…

I see this is a heavily modded version for Slim Plus 1.0. There is a category selection bug in that version that you should fix. Open the slim-plus.php file, look for this block of code towards the end of the file:

public function setCategory( $atts ) {

    if ( $atts['enable_category_select'] ) {

        if ( get_query_var('cn-cat') ) $atts['category_in'] = get_query_var('cn-cat');

    } else {

        if ( get_query_var('cn-cat') ) $atts['category'] = get_query_var('cn-cat');
    }

    return $atts;
}

Change it to this:

public static function setCategory( $atts ) {

    if ( $atts['enable_category_multi_select'] ) {

        if ( get_query_var('cn-cat') ) $atts['category_in'] = get_query_var('cn-cat');
        remove_query_arg( 'cn-cat' );

    }

    return $atts;
}

Hope that helps. Please let me know.

[Ray Atreides]

Hi Steven,

Thanks for your response.

Because we have many businesses in more than 1 Category (i.e. they could be in 3 x categories) and some using the same listing ID and some having more than 1 x listing ID etc as the content may be different on each ID, it is a little bit complex to achieve just what I need to.

However, I have found a workaround that is effective and works for all concerned (you can see on the page where I have added a Button which calls a popup with links to the various Accommodation Type Categories http://www.tamborinemtncc.org.au/accommodation-choices-on-tamborine-mountain/ ).

Thanks for your help and suggestions and for the advice on the Category selection bug.

Thanks again.

Regards,

Ray

[Steven Zahm]

@ Ray

Good to hear you figured out a solution that meets your needs. Admittedly it is tough to figure out exactly what that is but I hope I did provide some useful information.

[Ray Atreides]

Hi Steven,

You were very helpful (as usual) in helping me to better understand the issue from the Connections side.

In the end what I did was select the records that I wanted using ID’s for the Accommodation Choices Page (http://www.tamborinemtncc.org.au/accommodation-choices-on-tamborine-mountain/). Then I added a ‘Select Accommodation Type’ button (this calls a simple popup) which allows those visitors that do not wish to scroll through all of the accommodation listings to select by accommodation type (Category) and view just say B&B’s.

This works and eliminates any duplicates in the Accommodation Choices Page but returns all of the listings in any Category and no longer limited by my use of ID’s.

The limitations were my end as we have a specific system & allowances for multiple listings.

Anyway all is now good.

Thank you for your help again!

Regards,

Ray

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