Organizing Your Catalog With Categories

Organizing your catalog is very easy to do, you should use the categories feature to do it. By making unique categories and placing your catalog items into them you will be creating a taxonomy. This will let you filter and sort your catalog in unique ways that wouldn't be possible without. The main reason to categorize your catalog is so you may have specific items shown on specific posts or pages.

Making a Category
In the edit catalog item form, under the categories sub-panel, enter a category name in the field to the left of the new button and then click the new button. After the new category is created and loaded it will appear in a checkbox list above, your new category should already be checked. Click the "Save" button at the bottom of the form and your catalog item is now in a category.

Assigning Categories
Edit a catalog item and check the box next to any category you want the item to be in. Next hit save.

Editing A Category
In the edit catalog item form their is a checkbox list of available categories for your catalog. If you hover your mouse over a category in the list an edit link will appear, simply click this link to make a modal popup window appear with a simple form.

In the form will be two text fields, one for the category name and the other for the category slug. The category slug is used to create the full path of the archive page's permalink, when the public feature is enabled. You should not set these to reserved WordPress words and there are certain rules for naming, such as a slug should not contain spaces.

Deleting A Category
Click the edit link on the right side of the category you wish to delete, in the edit modal popup window you will see a Delete Category link. Click this link and confirm your decision to delete the category.

Filtering Your Catalog
Once you have categorized your catalog you may filter your results for easier use. The first and most obvious use of this will be in the Admin Panels where you can use the category drop down menu to show one category at a time. But the real power is when using the shortcode in your posts or pages. It is simple to add a category filter to the shortcode, allowing you to display only items from that category. To do so simply add a shortcode option like so, [catablog category="dog"]. If you want to show catalog items from 3 categories separate each category name with a comma, [catablog category="dogs,cats,mice"]. You may use and combine any number of categories you see fit. One idea to utilize this feature would be to have a product type and a language category, thus allowing you to create a multilingual product catalog.

Advanced Filtering: The Operator Option
There is one other shortcode option that lets you control how your catalog is filtered, the operator option. This option utilizes the new taxonomy query parameter in WordPress 3.1. Possible values for this option are 'IN', 'NOT IN' and 'AND'. The default value for this option is 'IN', which basically means if the catalog item is in any of the categories selected for the shortcode, it will be displayed. If you change this option to 'NOT IN', then you will display all catalog items that are not in any of the selected categories. The last possible value, 'AND', will make sure that all catalog items being displayed are in all the selected categories. Here are some examples:

[catablog category="red,blue,green" operator="in"]
show catalog items that are in red, blue or green categories. it does not matter if an item is only in one of the categories, it will be shown.

[catablog category="red" operator="not in"]
show all catalog items that are not in the red category. hides all items categorized as red.

[catablog category="red,green" operator="and"]
show catalog items that are in both the red and green category, if an item is in only one of these categories it will not be displayed.

156 Responses to Organizing Your Catalog With Categories

  1. david says:

    Hi… LOVE THIS!!!

    Is there a way to print the category to the page? Maybe with a %CATEGORY% token, or something?
    THANKS!

    • david says:

      to be clearer… I mean so that the category name can actually show up on the page.

      Maybe something like:

      <div class='catablog-row'>
        This is the %CATEGORY% category:
      
        <div class="catablog-images-column">
          %MAIN-IMAGE%
          %SUB-IMAGES%
        </div>
      
        <h3 class='catablog-title'>%TITLE%</h3>
        <div class="catablog-description">
          %DESCRIPTION%
          %BUY-NOW-BUTTON%
        </div>
      </div>
      

      • Zach says:

        Hi David,

        Just remember that any catalog item may have more than one category. If I was to separate each category with a space it might be awkward looking if a category name was two words. This is what I am thinking:

        %CATEGORY% Token:
        Renders out a string of the current catalog items categories wrapped in quotes and separated by commas. This should be used for direct text display and could be considered akin to the template tag, the_category().

        %CATEGORY-CLASSES% Token:
        Render the current catalog item’s category slugs separated by an empty space character. This will work well for CSS classes that may be used to display items in specific categories differently.

        What do you think? Maybe in the future the first token could make links out of each category name. There is so much to do, still I am glad to hear of your enthusiasm for my plugin. Cheers.

      • Zach says:

        CataBlog 1.2.8 has both tokens that I mentioned before. Enjoy 🙂

  2. Lem says:

    I am new to this plugin and am using the 1.2.8 version

    if I put this in a page
    [catablog category="decknpatio" operator="in"]

    or
    [catablog category="decknpatio"]

    all images in all categories are displayed. What am I doing wrong?

    • Zach says:

      Hi Lem

      I’m trying to track this bug down, your help would be greatly appreciated. What version of WordPress are you using? Do you have any other plugins with custom taxonomies? Does the category filter in the Admin Library Panel work?

      • Lem says:

        I am using WP 3.1.3. And it works well in admin side. This is a new site that I am working on, the only other plugins I have is one for a Contact Form. I will have to check this evening when I get home and have access to my test site.

        • Zach says:

          Is there any way you might be able to make me a temporary account that gives me admin access to your test site’s Admin Panels? It would be deeply appreciated.

          You may contact me via email for any private information.

          • Lem says:

            Yes I can give you access, is the email that you have on your illproductions.com the correct one to use. If not just send me and email on the email I post with this message and I will send you the login information.

          • Zach says:

            Yes the illproductions.com email address is correct.

    • Zach says:

      Alright, so I found the solution to your problem.

      I’m willing to bet that you copy and pasted the Shortcode from this blog or somewhere else. When you did that you also copied the formatting, which messed up the Shortcode when you pasted it into the visual editor in WordPress. Login to your admin and look at go to edit the page your catalog is on. Notice that if you switch the editor into HTML mode there are a bunch of <code /> tags that shouldn’t be there.

      The short of this is to make sure you enter the Shortcodes manually, or if you are planning on pasting in a Shortcode, make sure that it is unformatted text.

      There is nothing more I personally can do about this, it is the nature of using the visual editor in WordPress, please be careful when copying and pasting between programs like Word or your web browser.

      One other tip I can suggest is to paste the text into a raw text editor before pasting it into the visual editor, this will remove any formatting.

      • Lem says:

        Thanks Zach,
        I am embarrassed, because I have been bitten that way before. The thought just did not cross my mind when I was looking at it. Note to self always check the html view.

        • Zach says:

          Please, do not be embarrassed. I really have heard this from a lot of people, and guess what, you were instrumental in me figuring out one of the most likely fixes.

          When someone asks and says, hey the category filters aren’t working, I now have an answer for them. Thanks you and please enjoy CataBlog.

          Cheers!

  3. Ibanez says:

    Hi, I’m using 1.2.8 version with WP 3.1.3, and everything goes ok with the categories until they are displayed in the lightbox, it never stops to show only the images of each category, I thought the problem had to see with I was using WP 3.1.1 with catablog 1.2.7 but now I’m not sure because I skipped WP 3.1.2. Hope you can help me, thanks!

    • Zach says:

      Hi Ibanez

      Thanks for your input, I do not believe you are experiencing the same issue as the commenters above, they are unable to control which categories are shown on a particular page. That is a big show stopper, as the functionality of the whole plugin is lost if you can’t render sections of your catalog to specific pages.

      I assume you are loading more than one category on a single page. I am aware that the LightBox treats all images on the current page as one large collection, is this not desirable? If it is extremely problematic I will look into letting one configure this behavior in the CataBlog Options panel.

      Looking forward to your response. 🙂

      • Ibanez says:

        Hi Zach thanks for your quick answer,
        Well, my images into the pages actually are showed by categories, and you are right, I’m using more than one category in the same page, but I don’t have control of any category inside the lightbox even between the categories of diferent pages ramains the next buton until the end of the entire catablog. It would be great if you add some options to setting up it behavior. Maybe you can take a look of my unfinished page, so you can tell me if there is something I can do by now, thanks a lot for your help.
        http://sgpublicidad.com/site/

        • Zach says:

          I will try and address this in a future version. Currently it was easiest and ultimately required a lot less processor to just scan the page once and load all the possible LightBox images. This will not work in for your needs. You requirements will need different groups based upon Shortcodes calls. Let me think about this…

          • Ibanez says:

            Hi zach, sure I’ll be waiting for it on new versions, the operator “in” it’s working to display just the content of every page and that’s good enough by now, thanks a lot.

  4. Eduards says:

    Hi!
    I’m wondering is there any option to create a category menu?
    Regards,
    Eduards

    • Zach says:

      You may create a page per category and place a Shortcode into each page with the appropriate category filter in the Shortcode. A future version will allow for individual pages per catalog item and archive pages…but I think this is more what you want anyways. Let me know if that works for you.

    • Zach says:

      With the new Public feature you may also use the built in WordPress menu system to create a menu of categories. This can also be placed in your site as a widget by simply using the menu widget.

  5. Zorba Jones says:

    Hi Zach!

    I wonder if you could explain how to use the categorie settings to manage two languages for a multilingual product catalog for instance…
    I already used a previous version, and always needed to duplicate the product for every language so I’m really interested to know if we can do it without the need to duplicate.

    Thanks

    Keep up the good work!

    • Zach says:

      Hi Zorba,

      I think you got my idea from the beginning, and yes you will need a different catalog item for each language you translate the item into. This will make for duplicate images in the catalog, but different titles and descriptions in the localized language. You can then use the Shortcode category option to set it for product types and language, an example.

      [catablog category="fishing poles,english" operator="AND"]
      [catablog category="fishing poles,spanish" operator="AND"]
      

      The main problem with this solution is that you need separate pages for each language. You also need to store duplicate copies of the same image on your web server. I will be looking into making a multiple language feature, that would let one set multiple titles and descriptions per image.

      With some theme editing you could try and dynamically set the categories in the php function. Try getting the blog language and then passing that into php function catablog_show_items($category).

  6. Zorba Jones says:

    Thanks Zach!
    A multiple language feature will be really good for me, as I usually need to work with 3 different languages.
    Using qTranslate a lot!

  7. urryes says:

    Hi Zach! It seems that light-box is not work on my site – although “Enable Light-Box” turn on – simply open the original image without some effects – only image. What’s cause may be? I’m using WP 3.1.3

  8. Ian Tait says:

    Can you display by product code?

    For example –

    [catablog product-code="50993773765"]
    or
    http://yourwebsite.com/?pc=50993773765

    Anything like this would be very helpful.

    • Zach says:

      I am unsure how you are planning to organize your catalog with product code? Do items share codes so you may group catalog items by product code, or does each item have its own Product Code? This page pertains mainly to ways of grouping your catalog items. Perhaps you mean to order your catalog…could you make a corresponding category for a product code and use that?

      If you give me some more information about what exactly you are trying to build I might be able to offer more help.

    • Zach says:

      As far as your question about URLs goes, you could very well have your URL be: http://yourwebsite.com/pc/50993773765/

      Currently this would require you setting the title to that string of numbers, but eventually you will be able to manually change the catalog item slug…

      You could also consider swapping the title and the product code values, put the item’s title in the product code and the item’s product code in the title….just a thought.

  9. Nika says:

    Can SOMEONE please HELP!!!

    The operator “and” (only) stopped working, . It was functioning perfectly before, for days. I have dozens of pages using that, and they all stopped showing images. The categories appointed to the items have not been changed.
    I have no idea what went wrong. I have tried several times reinstalling the plugin and deleting files.
    Could it have anything to do with updating wordpress to 3.2 or changing servers, themes? Any options selected within wp admin could have contributed? I do not know!!

    Please, help!!!!

    • Zach says:

      I bet it is from upgrading to WordPress 3.2. I haven’t had a chance to test all of CataBlog’s functions on WordPress 3.2, but mostly it has been working for me. I would recommend testing new versions on a different server before hitting the update button in the future.

    • Zach says:

      This blog is still being run on WordPress 3.1.3 and CataBlog 1.2.9.7 because I haven’t had a chance to test yet…

  10. Gilbert says:

    Zack,
    Issue with categories:
    I have an image in three categories (red,gree,blue) and now I have a page where I want to show only images from red and green; I do this: [catablog category="red,green" operator="and"]
    For some reason it wont show anything. -> Why?
    If I use operator “in” it will show all images within all the categories -> this is still ok.

    I think that was after the update to WordPress 3.2.
    Before it used to work, I think.

    Any ideas?
    Thanks, Gilbert.

    PS: compare pages (two catagories: AusgefuehrteProjekte and Aarberg):
    http://architektur-mathys.ch/objekte/ausgefuehrte-projekte/aarberg/
    http://architektur-mathys.ch/objekte/ausgefuehrte-projekte/

  11. Zack – any eta for a fix to the Catablog? I upgraded to 3.2 and lost the “and” capabilities also.

    Customer is anxious to launch and your widget was so perfect for his site.

    I thank you for all the work on this – and appreciate anything you can do…

  12. Marc says:

    Great module Zach !
    I wonder how I can delete a category.
    In the edit catalog item form (“Edit Catalog Entry”) I see only the categories sub-panel in the lower right corner but no checkbox list of the available categories as indicated in the above instructions ?
    I use WP 3.2 french + CataBlog 1.2.9.8 + Firefox 5.0 (same pb in IE 7)
    thanks

    • Zach says:

      The delete category link appears when you hover over the category name.

      • Marc says:

        Thanks Zach,
        But the delete option does not appear when I hover over the category name in the category sub-panel. Do you have a screen shot to share ?

        • Zach says:

          I don’t know why you are not seeing the delete link, are you sure you are using a supported browser for the Admin side. Also you could try resetting CataBlog in the CataBlog Options Admin Panel, under the System Tab is the reset button, use it to reset CataBlog and start over. Perhaps that will fix your problems.

  13. arif says:

    Can i make total category? how to make code? I will make gallery photo with easy sorting by category and identify the total category.

    Thxs
    arif

  14. Vicki says:

    This may be a long shot, but I figured it can’t hurt to ask. I’m still feeling my way around this plugin (thank you for making it)!

    I’d like to use the catalog to allow users to look for items by categories. Ideally, I’d like them to be able to search by multiple categories at a time (say, checkboxes to select the ones they want to see).

    So far, I’ve figured out that I could possibly create a page with links to each individual category and display each category on a page by itself using the shortcode. Though, it seems somewhat cumbersome.

    Is there any way to have categories show up automatically somewhere without manually adding links on a page to shortcode pages and/or have the option to select and search in multiple categories at a time? Or is this beyond the range of what the plugin does?

    Thanks for your help!

    • Zach says:

      Right now there is not, there are plans for tag clouds, category and some other widgets in the future, but as CataBlog has not been very profitable and I have a ton of other things to do in my life currently, there is little chance that these widgets will be added anytime too soon, perhaps in a month or so.

  15. Courtney says:

    I am dying here. I inherited this website from a previous person who created it. I am using the catablog to display our companies products on the site. It is a great thing. I have learnt how to add new pictures to existing categories, for example, steel products, or wire products. However, since 11 am this morning, I have been trying to create a new category- for example, miscellaneous products. I have read the note up top, and see no correlation when I go into the site. For example, “In the edit catalog item form”, I am not seeing any catalog form, so I dont even know where to begin. I would really appreciate some help. I am not tech savy.

  16. Kelly johnson says:

    Is there any shortcode that would allow mt to post all categories with product counts, ie.
    Shirts (3)
    Pants (5)
    Ties (1)

  17. edi says:

    I tried using the plugin, I tried to make the product category but it appears all the categories, I I tried using the plugin, I tried to make the product category but it appears all the categories, I created a category and synthetic stronghold but the data all show, but I want to display per category so you can easily manage its
    I am using version 1.2.9.8
    [catablog category = "faction"]
    [catablog category = "Synthetic"]
    all images in all categories are displayed. What am I doing wrong?

    one more if I use another template that Lightbox does not work, so create a new page. why, what’s wrong there

    pls help
    thanks

  18. Duncan says:

    Hi Zach,

    Really useful plugin, I’m wondering the same thing as David in the first comment, if there’s a way to create an active list of catablog categories, in order to filter the gallery items while on the page?

    Cheers!

  19. Jc says:

    Hi Zach,
    Thanks for this nice plugin.
    I have the following problem: I have around 20 products in my demo site. They belong to one of 3 categories I created. When I use the shortcode to display one page per category, I always get all the products. I checked the problems mentioned earlier (text formating, spaces around =). Seems good. Then I found that the filtering option of the plugin (in the “Library” entry) doesn’t work too: whichever category I select, I get all the products, except if I select “uncategorized” (the pre-existing category).
    Any clue ?
    Thanks a lot !
    (WordPress 3.2.1 + Catablog 1.2.9.8)

    • Jc says:

      Problem solved: apparently another (unused) plugin was interfering with Catablog. Since I desactivated a few plugins I tested previously, it works like a charm.

  20. GAUTIER says:

    Hi Zach,

    Thank’s for your pluging, it’s great.

    Is it possible to have a multi criteria filter system in order to have just one page to display items, filter them with one or several categories ?

    Thank’s a lot.

    Thomas

  21. Rich says:

    Is it possible to add columns to the csv file? I want to add a column for Media, which is what is used in a painting, like “Acrylic on Canvas” I tried doing this and then adding a %MEDIA% to a template but it does not work so far. Thanks!

    • Zach says:

      Unfortunately it is not possible to add your own columns into the CSV file. The way CataBlog stores data, it needs to have all data stored in one of the currently supported columns.

  22. Jacqui says:

    Great plug-in!

    Question: Is there a way to alphabetize without having to individually change the order of each item?

    • Zach says:

      Sorry for the super delayed response, the quick answer is yes. Read up on all the CataBlog parameters and their options in the documentation section of this blog. Something like this: [catablog order="title"]

  23. Marty says:

    Zach — Hi. Not sure where to put this one, really. Kind of a use-case question. Would catalog be appropriate for course or curriculum catalogs? I see where you have a university example in your showcase, but it doesn’t quite match what I’m looking for. I don’t really need to illustrate these — just looking at something that would allow browsing a course catalog by curriculum, subject, course name, course ID, etc… I’ve tried repository with Joomla, but found your plug-in and was wondering if it could be used for this. Thx.

    • Zach says:

      Currently CataBlog does not support custom fields, such as curriculum, subject or course name. You may easily combine all this data into the description field, but sorting and filtering by these fields will not be possible in CataBlog. In fact, WordPress makes you jump through quite a few hoops to sort and filter by meta data, this is because of the database schema which is designed well, but is more advanced then your standard flat 2D data table.

  24. Eugene says:

    Hi, Zach!
    When I click to some category I have 404 problem…
    I flushed my permalinks etc… Maybe you will help me.

    • Zach says:

      Try these steps in order

      1. go to admin > settings > permalinks and click save, don’t make any changes.
      2. go to admin > catablog options > public tab and make sure its enabled and click save.
      3. go to admin > appearance > widgets and add the catablog categories widget to your sidebar.
      4. go to your site and click a category link to view the catablog category page.

      Hope that helps.

      • Eugene says:

        Did. Still 404…
        By the way it worked earlier. But i did not change anything serious…
        It’s a pity because your addon is really helpful.

        • Zach says:

          What is the complete URL of the 404 page?

          • Eugene says:

            url of 404-page is correct: http://dm-ltd.ru/sitenew/cat/catablog-term-%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5/

            where ‘cat’ is from catablog options/public:
            Individual Pages Slug: and Category Pages Slug: have ‘cat’ value

            %D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5 – it is bidet on Russian) it is my category name.

          • Zach says:

            I want to clarify if you said both your individual page and category slugs are both ‘cat’?

            If this is the case, you will need to change it. The individual page and category slugs must not be the same value. Let me know if that helps you fix your problem.

            This is something that CataBlog should warn you about and a test will be put in a future version of CataBlog.

          • Zach says:

            Eugene, I just realized that ‘cat’ is a reserved term in WordPress. You may not use the word ‘cat’ as either of your CataBlog slugs unfortunately. Try changing the slug to a non reserved term.

            Here is a list of all reserved terms.

  25. Eugene says:

    Ahahahaha))) i’m a looser)))
    That was helpful! Thank you!

    Another question. How can I get path like that: // ?

    • Eugene says:

      … like slash name of category slash name of catablog element ?

      • Zach says:

        I think what you want is not yet possible with CataBlog. I think you want a URL hierarchy like this:

        Category Page:
        mywebsite.com/catablog-category-name/

        Single Item Page:
        mywebsite.com/catablog-category-name/catablog-item-name/

        Unfortunately I do not know how to accomplish this, I’m pretty sure its possible with carefully planned category names, but CataBlog cannot do this currently.

  26. Alexander says:

    How can I reorder the list of categories in menu: as I understood it is defined by the date of creation the category. For example I have two cats: 1) Toys 2)Other. The first was “Toys” the second “Other”. For now the order in the menu is: 1)Other 2) Toys. and I need the reverse order.

    • Zach says:

      Just like the WordPress categories CataBlog categories do not have an order value. This means you must sort your categories by one of three fields: id, name or slug. Typically it should sort by name, right now I think it is sorting by id. Going to have to fix this, thanks. 🙂

    • Zach says:

      So I reread your question, and realized that I didn’t properly answer it. I just did a few tests, and CataBlog 1.4.1 is ordering the categories by name. There would need to be a switch or option to change how CataBlog orders its categories. Sounds like a new feature.

  27. Rehan says:

    Can i delete and add a subcategory ?

  28. Csf97 says:

    Hi Zach,

    What is the best way to create a menu structure that will allow the users to see all available categories and select the category they want to view?

    For example, I have six online learning courses. Some are specifically for office personnel, some are for management personnel and some are for both. I want the user to click on “courses for office personnel” on the menu and see only the courses for them, or “courses for everyone” and see all the courses that they could take, and exclude those that are specifically for managers.

    I’d really appreciate any guidance you could offer on how to set this up. I plan to contribute if we implement CataBlog on our website.

    Thanks!

    • Csf97 says:

      I figured out how to make the menu. I had not activated the “public” option and when I did that and created a custom menu the ability to display the catablog categories was available under the “Screen Options” in WP.

      Is there a setting that will allow the category items to be displayed like they are in CataBlog instead of going to the page that looks more like a blog post that lists them?

      Thanks!

  29. Marie says:

    Hi, how would it be possible to let the user make its own filter?
    For exemple, the user wants blue + short sleeves
    As I undersand, to use the categories or the new galleries according to what the user select, I would display buttons and make a new page for every galleries and link the button to that page. Is it? but then I cannot use all the AND combinations
    Thank you!

    • Zach says:

      Marie, what you mention is currently not possible. You can combine the categories in your Shortcodes, but that is all for now. Have you looked into the ‘Public’ feature, it makes pages for each catablog category and catablog item. It can be helpful in not needing to make individual pages for each catagory, but you will most likely need to modify your theme to get it to work how you want.

      • Marie says:

        Thank you, I didn’t know that function. I tried but it doesn’t display with the catablog templates and as you say, I would have to work around to much with my theme, I am a bit lost here. I think I will make multiple pages…

  30. Adrian says:

    Hi Zach,

    I am using the CataBlog categories widget to select a categorie on the website. When the categorie is selected a new page is loaded. This page does not show images of the items in the categorie (anymore). I tried to find a “show images in categorie view option”, but I did not find it. Can you help me out?

    Thank you!
    Adrian

    • Zach says:

      You need to modify the Archive CataBlog Template, this template controls how catalog items are rendered on archive pages. Go to the CataBlog Templates Admin Panel and click the Archive tab. If there is no %MAIN-IMAGE% token or similar token in an <img /> tag then you need to add it. Here is the standard default Archive Template:

      <div class='catablog-row catablog-single'>
        <div class="catablog-images-column">
          %MAIN-IMAGE%
        </div>
        <div class="catablog-description">
          %EXCERPT%
        </div>
      </div>
      

      • Adrian says:

        Hi Zach, Thanks for your reply.
        Do I understand correctly? If I use the default Archive template, images are NOT shown?

        • Adrian says:

          I added: with no succes.
          When I replaced %MAIN-IMAGE% with %IMAGE-THUMBNAIL% the full URL to the image file was shown on the categorie page.
          What is it that i do wrong?

          • Zach says:

            The %IMAGE-THUMBNAIL% token is only a path to the image, you must place it in an <img /> tag, ex:

            <img src="%IMAGE-THUMBNAIL%" class="catablog-image" />
            

        • Zach says:

          Images are shown by default.

          • Adrian says:

            I must be doing something very wrong.
            I have used your default Archive Template and images do not show. I also tried to add the image tag, but images still do not show. Please have a look at: http://maanrover.nl/nl/?catablog-terms=catablog-term-band-en-as-asdelen

            My WordPress and CataBlog are updated to the latest version…

          • Zach says:

            Adrian, I think you have a theme conflict. The page you sent me is not using the CataBlog Template to render your catalog entries. Perhaps your theme is configured to render custom post types it’s own way. Can you try switching themes to twenty-ten to see if it works then. Thanks.

          • Adrian says:

            That is:

            <div class='catablog-row catablog-single'>
              <div class="catablog-images-column">
                %MAIN-IMAGE%
              </div>
              <div class="catablog-description">
                %EXCERPT%
              </div>
            </div>
            

          • Zach says:

            Thanks for sending the complete code, I removed the partial code from your last comment.

          • Adrian says:

            You are right Zach. It is a theme issue. With the ‘standard’ theme’s images are shown. I used the PressWork theme. know now where to look for a solution! Thank you very much!

  31. judy says:

    Thanks for all of your helpful advice/comments. Now I have question. I tried to use the following code hoping I could display all of my 20 categories that have a long description.
    I want to see at a quick glance all of the categories I have created and the long description I have for each so when I add items to each category I can easily decide which categories I should add the item to.. catablog-gallery-title does not display my category title nor my category description. What should I be using to pick up gallery title and gallery description?
    */// (Not part of template code)

    
    <div class="catablog-row catablog-gallery">
      <div class="catablog-gallery-title">%TITLE%</div>  
      <div class="catablog-gallery-description">%DESCRIPTION%</div>
    </div>
    */// (Not part of template code)
    

    Thank you.

  32. ebinezer says:

    how to display category images in catablog plugin

  33. D Laurent says:

    Thank you SO MUCH for this plugin. Its wonderful and does just what I was looking for.

    I’ve been able to set up my catablog gallery using the single-catablog-page.php to display each item on it’s own page and your templates to make a little menu that adds a block of tiny thumbnails on one side of the main image, to provide a navigation menu on each page too. It all works very nicely! I’ve been searching for something that does this for ages.

    But now I’ve added a second gallery and I’ve discovered that the little side menu will load all the thumbnails from both galleries in every page. So I need to either make a second single page and tell catablog which one to use (but I don’t think that’s possible?) or find a way to change the menu on the fly.

    I thought about changing the menu depending on the category of the main catablog item on the page. I saw your example using

    php  catablog_show_items(('category'), ('template'))
    and tried it with my category ‘dogs’ and my template ‘menu’ and it all works beautifully in single-catablg-item.php. So now I need to find a bit of php that’ll will do something like; if the category is ‘dogs’ do this and if it’s ‘cats’ do this instead. I found a couple of examples on the wordpress web site and tried them but they don’t work. I’ve no php skills so I’ve no idea why, although maybe it’s because they’re looking for wp categories and not catablog categories? Or more likely because I’ve no clue what I’m doing with php! 🙂

    Can you suggest a way to do this?
    Many thanks

    • Zach says:

      Let me say, that you are on the right path. I am not near my development computer, so I don’t want to suggest you use PHP code that might be wrong. I will get back to you shortly with a little more advice, cheers 🙂

      • D Laurent says:

        Thanks Zack

        Something somebody said yesterday made me wonder if there was a way to make different single.php pages for different catablog galleries? If so I could customize my menus that way as I have the images organized into galleries inside catablog. But again, I’ve no idea if that’s even possible or how I go about it.

  34. ebinezer says:

    How to remove the in product title?

  35. ebinezer says:

    How to display the categoryname and product name?
    eg:-

    Category1
    Product1
    Product2
    Category2
    Product1
    product2
    etc..

  36. Micha Karmann says:

    Hi Zach,
    sorry for the circumstances but I have a simple question because I found no tip here in this forum.

    I created a couple of images filtered in two categories.
    “men” and “women” 😉
    Then i create a new template:

    %DESCRIPTION%

    My question is how can I separate my template with this %CATEGORY% slug?
    Means, I like to have 2 different galleries filtered with the categories.
    Many thanks and greetings,
    Micha

    • Micha Karmann says:

      Hmmmm … can’t see my template code.
      Again 🙂

      <div class="catablog-row catablog-gallery">
        <a href="#" class="catablog-image" >
          <img src="%IMAGE-THUMBNAIL%" alt="" />
          <strong class="catablog-title">%DESCRIPTION%</strong>  
        </a>  
      </div>
      
      

  37. Micha Karmann says:

    Puuuh … sorry. I got it:

     [catablog template="newtemp" category="men"]

    But sorry again, I have an additional question.
    Can I have different image sizes in the 2 galleries?
    🙂

    • Micha Karmann says:

      Juuuhuuuu… I fixed this problem, too.

      I copied the Gallery Template CSS Classes lines, changed the ‘catablog-gallery’ into ‘catablog-homepage’ and made my different sizes here:
      .catablog-homepage.catablog-row .catablog-image {
      display: block;
      float: none;
      position: relative;
      width: 195px !important;
      height: 195px !important;
      }

      The I changed the template:

      By the way. One of the greatest and awesome plugin.
      I think I’ll dio a donation.
      Cheers, Micha

  38. Matt says:

    I’m using the 1.6.3 version
    if I put this in a page
    [catablog category="manchester"]

    or
    [catablog category="chester"]

    all images in all categories are displayed. What am I doing wrong?

  39. Seb says:

    Hello,

    I’d like to add the ‘Categories Catablog” widget inside a page to filter the products directly in the content of my last releases and not in any sidebar.
    Is there any shortcodes for that ?

    Thanks 🙂

  40. sarah says:

    Because I was trying to understand how catablog worked, I made up some fake items and some fake categories, just to use as a test. Now I have removed the fake items, but how do I get rid of the fake categories? They all show up in the dropdown menu of searching by category. I even deleted the plugin and reinstalled it – but it didn’t work.

    • Sarah,

      I know this is a little late, but to delete a category in Catablog just hover over it after you put a product in edit mode and an “X” will appear over to the right. Click the X to delete the category.

  41. Zach, I posted over on the WP support page but your moderator suggest I contact you here. You can view the thread I’m referencing here: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-catablog-categories-will-not-stick-or-save?replies=14#post-3144424

    I’m having trouble getting current version of Catablog working with WPML CMS, a translation plugin. WPML suggests the two of you work together to make them play nice together. I understand your plugin is donationware, but being able to advertise that it plays well with WPML would open it up to totally new markets for you.

    Would you consider contacting WPML at http://wpml.org/documentation/theme-compatibility/go-global-program/ to discuss?

  42. Chris says:

    Hi Zach,

    thanks for this great plugin.

    I have one problem to set up my need of gallery. I use this shortcode:

    [catablog category="Candidates,Customs,Article" limit="1" navigation="disable" template="gallery"]

    I use this set up shown above. But it did not work as I like.

    It is correct that I need only one thumbnail shown on my page for each gallery category BUT when I click the thumbnail with the shortcode above it is only this on wich will appear as Big Pic and Lightbox. But what about the other pictures from each gallery?

    Is there a shortcode I can use instead?

    Many thanks Chris

  43. Matteo says:

    Hello Zach, your plugin is amazing!!! thank you so much!

    I can`t figure out the right string to add to template to show all the categories a picture is in as different links.

    Example: x belongs to y and z, I need to show: “click here to show y category” | “click here to show z category”.

    I`m using this template:

    %TITLE%
    %DESCRIPTION%

    %TITLE%

    %DESCRIPTION% €%PRICE% XXX

    thank you for any help!

    Matteo

  44. Matteo says:

    sorry didn`t see the wrap thing..

     
    <h4 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3ed547;">%TITLE%</span></h4>
    <P>%DESCRIPTION%</p>
    
    <div class="catablog-row catablog-gallery">
      <a href="%LINK%" class="catablog-image" %LINK-TARGET% %LINK-REL%>
        <img src="%IMAGE-THUMBNAIL%" alt="" />
        <strong class="catablog-title">%TITLE%</strong>  
      </a>
        <div class="catablog-description"> %DESCRIPTION% €%PRICE% 
    
    </div>
    
      </div>
    

    • Manuel says:

      Hello Matteo, I am not sure if you can achieve your idea with adding tokens to the template. This is an idea that might put you on track.

      Create different post with shortcodes pointing to the different categories. Then in the default image description add some html link pointing to the page or post with the category shorcode. This will then create the example you provided above.

      Example: x belongs to y and z, I need to show: “click here to show y category” | “click here to show z category”.

      I hope this puts you on the right track.

      Kind regards

  45. Luca says:

    Thanks for this, catablog is amazing.

    I was wondering, is it possible to specific a second category operator applies to?
    For instance something like
    [catablog category="paintings,ceramics" operator="not in" opereator-category="private" ]
    so that all items in paintings and ceramicts but not in the category private would be shown.

    Please let me know
    Thanks
    Luca

    • Manuel says:

      Hello Luca if you have items in the following category paintings and ceramics then all you have to use is

      [catablog category="paintings,ceramics"]

      While you are not mentioning private category in the shortcode above, you don’t have to worry as no items belonging to the category private will show.

      Is this what you are trying to achieve?

      • Luca says:

        Sorry for the late reply Manuel,

        What I meant was a way to do a boolean operation.

        Some items in paintings and ceramics are shared by the third category “private”.

        So let’s say you have 100 paintings and 100 ceramics and 100 private items (50 are paintings and 50 are ceramics).

        [catablog category="paintings,ceramics" operator="not in" operator-category="private" ]

        Thanks for your help

  46. JW says:

    I love this plugin, however I am having a lot of problems getting the categories to work. I have two categories, “tall-charms” and “summer-charms”. The shortcodes do NOT have issues, I have cleaned them up. but they still are not filtering -- I am getting summer charms on the tall charms page, and vice versa. Help please!

  47. JW says:

    [catablog_gallery id="123" template="gallery" category="tall"]

    • Zach says:

      You cannot use category filters in a gallery…if you want to show a category from your library please do this:

      [catablog template="gallery" category="tall"]

      • JW says:

        I’ve used your code, and now none of the items are showing. 🙁

        • Zach says:

          Make sure you type in the Shortcode manually, copy and pasting the Shortcode will inadvertently add extra markup, stopping the Shortcode from working.

          Also, make sure you use the full category name into the Shortcode’s category parameter. So if you category is named “tall-charms” you should use:

          [catablog template="gallery" category="tall-charm"]

          Please make sure you have read Displaying Your Catalog in Posts if you still cannot get it working.

          • JW says:

            Still not working. Nothing shows up and there is no extra coding as I typed it in by hand and double-checked on various different pages. Looks like a bug… I also notice that when I add “limit” on a working catalog page, clicking on the page navigation (page 2, 3, etc.) doesn’t do anything. Maybe this is related?

          • Zach says:

            I am personally doubtful that it is a bug in CataBlog, not just because I’m the author, but because hundreds of other people are not complaining about the same problem. Have you tried the general WordPress Plugin troubleshooting methods? Please try these and see if it helps.

            1. Disable all other WordPress plugins except for CataBlog
            2. Disable your custom theme, use TwentyTen, TwentyEleven or TwentyTwelve as your theme
            3. Try changing your permalink structure to anything but the default.
            4. Make sure you are running a compatible version of WordPress, the latest and greatest is best.
            5. Make sure your server is running PHP5, MySQL5 and that you are meeting all WordPress requirements

          • JW says:

            Ugh, just figure out that I was using the category slugs, not their names — so now the only thing not working is the pagination. Whew!

          • Zach says:

            The category slug is never mentioned as what you should be entering, please read the documentation closely. As far as pagination goes, it is well documented through many comment threads on this blog and via the support forum at WordPress.org, that you must use any other permalink structure other than default.

            You can change your permalink structure in Settings > Permalinks

  48. Rjay says:

    I have a question about this plugin can i use the 1st image that i upload to became my preview or like featured image in the post??? thanks

  49. Mickey Kelly says:

    Having a strange issue importing a CSV. Are the Categories added through the CSV import? I am importing a little over 800 products, everything comes in fine except for this one issue. The categories aren’t added or show up at all. I’ve imported with replaced data and without.

    • Zach says:

      Hi Mickey,

      Yes, import automatically makes and attaches categories to your imported catalog items. Can you post a couple lines from your csv, preferably lines with categories. Also, if you are assigning more than one category to an imported item, make sure you separate your category names with a single bar character “|”.

      More info, including example csv syntax can be found at Importing and Exporting Catalogs

      • Mickey Kelly says:

        Thanks for a quick reply, I have been using the ” | ” character, just unsure what the issue is. While I was sorting the categories field on my CSV I noticed the report I’m pulling had it renamed to cat. Re-imported worked perfectly. The pneumatic tube industry thanks you for your hard work 🙂

  50. Grace says:

    Love this plugin!

    I would like to know if there’s any way that I can edit/rename the default “Uncategorized” category. I would like it to be named as another term than to use “Uncategorized”.

    Thanks.

    • Zach says:

      Sorry Grace, but there is currently no way to rename the uncategorized category…I would suggest that you make a new category with whatever name you like, and ignore the uncategorized category.

      • Alvin says:

        Hi Zach,
        Thanks so much for the plugin. I have one question though. I have one catablog item assigned to 2 categories. However, I have no idea how I can loop through the catablog-categories, and provide the link for each of the catablog-category.

        This is my current code:

        
        <div class="catablog-description">
        Category : <a href="http://brickboxmy.com/lego-themes/%CATEGORY-SLUGS%/">%CATEGORY%</a><br/>
            %DESCRIPTION%
         <p class="catablog-price"><strong>%PRICE%</strong></p>
        

        However, this will result in a single URL even if there are 2 categories. For example, if the item is assigned to categories “General” and “Sold”, the a href will combine these 2 into 1 single category URL.

        Is there a solution to this or if I want to achieve this, I can only assign 1 item to 1 category?

        Thanks!

  51. Freon says:

    Hi there,
    Please give me some pointers whether this plugin would be suitable for our needs:

    So, stuff is we develop special motorcycle and automotive gadgets and we need a parts finder to our wordpress based site.
    Visitos should be able to search by bike make, model, year, etc. for the matching product of our own.
    Any suggestions?

    Thanks in advance,
    Cheers,
    Jerry

  52. Flor says:

    Hi Zach, i’m having a problem with the items links.
    I have some items under a category, and when i try to link them to a page (not the one generated by the plugin), it prefixs the category name to the page’s name itself and does not display antthing. How can i solve it?
    The example: http://globus-travel.com.ar/chinayjapon/ when you click on “ver itinerario”, it should go to “japon-9-noches”

  53. Zach,

    I love your plugin. Can I have separate categories AND have them in descending order? I’m not familiar with code. I’ve played around with your short codes and can’t get both to work at the same time. If so can you show me what the line of code looks like?

    Thanks.

  54. neel says:

    Can all the categories listed as menu in widget?

    • Zach says:

      Yes, there is a sidebar widget for that, though it only works if you make your CataBlog items and categories public. Read more of the documentation on this site to learn more about setting up what you want. Good luck.

  55. Clueless says:

    PLEASE HELP! I have changed a name of an existing cateblog category – and since then when I click the link I used to have for that category, an error page comes up. How can I find the link to display all of my items placed in a certain category? I am lost!! Thanks

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