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I have one particular page that is being sorted according to the 3rd segment. If that segment doesn't exist, I'd like to have orderby revert to it's default. Basically, if {segment_3} doesn't exist, then sort this way. How would I acheive this?

   {exp:channel:entries channel="news" orderby="{segment_3}|author_id" sort="desc" limit="9" paginate="bottom"}

or 

{exp:channel:entries channel="news" orderby="{segment_3} OR author_id" sort="desc" limit="9" paginate="bottom"}
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1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

You can wrap channel:entries tag parameters in simple conditionals. So a conditional based on a segment variable will work.

This is just an example since I'm not entirely sure I interpreted what you're after, but should give you an idea.

{exp:channel:entries 
    channel="news" 
    limit="9" 
    paginate="bottom"
    sort="desc"
    {if segment_3}
        orderby="{segment_3}"
    {/if}
    {if segment_3 == ""}
        orderby="author_id"
    {/if}
}
    {title}<br>

{/exp:channel:entries}

Now that I think about it, though, since pagination is involved you will run into some troubles with this method. Because even when segment_3 is blank to begin with, segment_3 won't be blank on subsequent pages (it will by P10, P20, etc).

There are other ways to accomplish this, though. Switchee should do the trick:

{exp:switchee variable = "{segment_3}" parse="inward"}

    {case default="yes"}
        {exp:channel:entries 
            channel="news" 
            limit="9" 
            paginate="bottom"
            sort="desc"
            orderby="{segment_3}"
        }
            {title}<br>

        {/exp:channel:entries}
    {/case}

    {!-- segment_3 is pagination or empty --}
    {case value="#^P(\\d+)$#|''"}
        {exp:channel:entries 
            channel="news" 
            limit="9" 
            paginate="bottom"
            sort="desc"
            orderby="author_id"
        }
            {title}<br>

        {/exp:channel:entries}
    {/case}

{/exp:switchee}

For the segment_3-based sorting to work you'd obviosuly want to be sure that segment_3 contained a valid value for the channel:entries order_by parameter.

OR if this seems like too much segment-based tomfoolery...

Your suggestion in the comments to use GET variables is a good idea. Mo' Variables will work great for that. So with a URL of http://example.com/foo/bar?orderby=title you could do:

{exp:channel:entries 
    channel="news" 
    limit="9" 
    paginate="bottom"
    sort="desc"
    {if get:orderby}
        orderby="{get:orderby}"
    {/if}
}
    {title}<br>

{/exp:channel:entries}
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2
  • Thanks Alex, this is a great answer. You are right, the pagination causes the first solution to run into errors. I am sure your second proposed solution will work just fine, but perhaps I should be asking another question. Should I be using GET params maybe to handle the sort/orderby arguments? I feel like relying on the URL structure for these can be problematic for me in the future on other pages. Thanks again for taking the time to respond!
    – Chris M
    Commented Oct 30, 2013 at 21:17
  • Yeah, sometimes this can start you down the road of jumping through too many segment-based hoops in your templates. GET params is a great idea! Mo' Variables (add early parsed global variables, including GET) will be indispensable if you want to go that route. I updated my answer with a note on that.
    – Alex Kendrick ♦
    Commented Oct 30, 2013 at 21:26

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