Filter out entries belonging to a parent category

Question

I'm certain this question must have come up before, but can't find any mention of it.

I need to filter out entries that are assigned to a parent category. I'm using this tag

{exp:channel:entries channel="blog" dynamic="no" limit="3" category="not 32"}

but this includes those entries categorised with child categories of category 32, and will only filter out those entries that are assigned just that one specific category. I want to retain the Auto-assign parent category functionality for my entries.

Any ideas how I could achieve this?

Answer 1

We really need a parameter to do this. Unfortunately, we don't have. So, while this:

{embed="pages/.entries"
    to_exclude="{exp:channel:categories style='linear' backspace='1' show='32'}{category_id}|{/exp:channel:categories}"
}

On your embed:

{exp:channel:entries channel="blog" dynamic="no" limit="3" category="not {embed:to_exclude}"}

Answer 2

I had a very similar issue a few months ago. We resolved it by using Solspace Primary Category and a custom plugin. Barring a plugin, you can accomplish it with the Active Record plugin and Stash:

First, use Primary Category to assign the main category for each entry. Then drop this in your template (note how the Stash code at the top is all on one line):

{exp:stash:entry_ids parse_tags='yes' parse_conditionals='yes' no_results_prefix='ar'}{exp:activerecord select='entry_id' from='exp_primary_category' where="primary_category_id != '32'"}{entry_id}{if total_results > 1}|{/if}{if ar:no_results}0{/if}{/exp:activerecord}{/exp:stash:entry_ids}

{exp:stash:parse process='end'}
    {exp:channel:entries
        entry_id='{stash:entry_ids}'
    }
        {!-- channel entry data --}
    {/exp:channel:entries}
{/exp:stash:parse}

That will output only the entries that do not have category 32 assigned as their primary category.

Stash is used so we can create a pipe-delimited list of entry IDs early in the template parsing, then use it later on in the channel entries tag.

Answer 3

In the end I used the Child Categories plugin to query all the child categories of a given parent, an feed that into the category="" param in exp:channel:entries. Not very elegant but works.

http://devot-ee.com/add-ons/child-categories