Check for boolean return from Channel Field of type 'matrix'

Question

Using EE v2.4 and Matrix v2.2

I'm trying to check if the matrix '{article_images}' rows are != '0'.

Within the channel:

{if article_images}   
 <div class="left article_image  hide-for-small">
  <ul data-orbit>
    {article_images}
      {exp:ce_img:pair disable_xss_check="yes" src="{image_matrix_image}" width="500" quality="80" allow_scale_larger="yes"} 
       <li>
         <img src="{image_matrix_image}" alt="">
         <div class="caption">
           <p>{image_matrix_cutline}{if image_matrix_byline}<em>  ({image_matrix_byline})</em>{/if}</p>
         </div>
       </li>
      {/exp:ce_img:pair} 
    {/article_images}
 </ul>  
</div>  
{/if}

'{article_images}' never evaluates to false.

I've tried:

{if article_images}   
 {article_images}
 {if '{image_matrix_image}' != '0'}
 <div class="left article_image  hide-for-small">
  <ul data-orbit>
      {exp:ce_img:pair disable_xss_check="yes" src="{image_matrix_image}" width="500" quality="80" allow_scale_larger="yes"} 
       <li>
         <img src="{image_matrix_image}" alt="">
         <div class="caption">
           <p>{image_matrix_cutline}{if image_matrix_byline}<em>  ({image_matrix_byline})</em>{/if}</p>
         </div>
       </li>
      {/exp:ce_img:pair} 
 </ul>  
</div>  
{/if}
{/article_images}
{/if}

Which works as desired but means that the div containing the orbit plugin is displayed within the loop for as many images as exist.

Is there a way to check the number of rows in the matrix prior to entering '{article_images}'?

Thanks for any input.

Answer 1

You can use the :total_rows tag in a conditional like this:

{if article_images:total_rows > 0}

    // other code here

{/if}