How can I create a category listing which has its own template?

Question

Use custom category listing template 'news/category':

/site/news/category

Use custom template to present “Legal Politics” 'news/category-legal-politics' entries:

/site/news/category/politics/legal

I assume that I must create a custom template called "news/category" which then dynamically picks between:

• category-listing
• articles-in-category
• special-news-category

And I am also guessing that custom URL fragments will need to come into play to achieve this. But what I do not understand how to convert the URL into the category ID:

<!-- Template Group: news   Template: category -->
{exp:channel:entries channel="news" category="??{get-from-url}??"}
    <h1><a href="{path='news/index'}">{title}</a></h1>
    <div class="summary">{summary}</div>
{/exp:channel:entries}

Interestingly I find that the following URL works (almost) for regular category listing

/site/news/category/category/politics/legal

when using the following template:

{exp:channel:entries channel="news"}
    <h1><a href="{path='news/index'}">{title}</a></h1>
    <div class="summary">{summary}</div>
    <ul class="categories">
        {categories}
            <li>{category_name}</li>
        {/categories}
    </ul>
{/exp:channel:entries}

If I could somehow skip the second category slug in the URL then this would be half way there!

In WordPress this would be achieved by providing a custom template "category.php" and special categories "category-legal-politics.php" or "category-42.php". What would the equivalent be for EE?

Answer 1

Why not use a single template for your news items with a conditional to check for the "/politics" or "/legal" URI segments? Your template would look something like this:

{!-- Category Index --}
{if !segment_3}
    Show overview of all content instead of simple listing...

{!-- Specific Category --}
{if:elseif segment_3 == "politics"}
    Specialised template for politics...

    {exp:channel:entries channel="news" category="3"} {!-- this assumes the "politics" category id is 3 --}
        <h1><a href="{path='news/index'}">{title}</a></h1>
        <div class="summary">{summary}</div>
    {/exp:channel:entries}

{!-- Default Category Listing --}
{if:else}
    Generic template for anything else...

    {exp:channel:entries channel="news" category="{segment_3_category_id}"}
        <h1><a href="{path='news/index'}">{title}</a></h1>
        <div class="summary">{summary}</div>
    {/exp:channel:entries}
{/if}