Dynamic Entry Limit

Question

Is it possible to change the limit of a loop, dynamically?

I'm currently using CartThrob for my eCommerce site, and want to add the option to show, 10, 20, 30 or All products on a page. How easy is it to do this?

Would it require some PHP?

Also - I want to do a "Showing 1 - 10 of 330 Products", how could I go about doing this?

Answer 1

Is it possible to change the limit of a loop, dynamically?

Would it require some PHP?

You can do it without using PHP. Here are two ways that come to mind, but I'm sure there are others.

Method 1: Using a segment variable

The following loop for a products listing will set a default limit of 10, but uses segment_2 to set a different limit dynamically.

{exp:channel:entries
    channel="products"
    disable="categories|category_fields|member_data"
    limit="{if segment_2 != ''}{segment_2}{/if}{if segment_2 == ''}10{/if}"
    dynamic="no"
    paginate="bottom"
}

        {title}<br>

        {paginate}
            <div>Page {current_page} of {total_pages} pages {pagination_links}</div>
        {/paginate}

{/exp:channel:entries} 

Then to allow the user to show a different number of results per page, you just provide some links like

<a href="/products/10">Show 10 results per page</a> 
<a href="/products/20">Show 20 results per page</a>

etc (building your links according to your preferences). The pagination will continue to work, but with a different limit.

Method 2: Using a form, POST data, and Dynamic Parameters

{exp:channel:entries
    channel="products"
    disable="categories|category_fields|member_data"
    limit="10"
    dynamic="no"
    paginate="bottom"
    dynamic_parameters="limit"
}

        {title}<br>

        {paginate}
            <div>Page {current_page} of {total_pages} pages {pagination_links}</div>
        {/paginate}

{/exp:channel:entries} 

<form method="post" action="/products">
    <select name="limit">
        <option value="10">Result Limit:</option>
        <option value="10">10</option>
        <option value="20">20</option>
        <option value="30">30</option>
    </select>
    <input type="submit" value="Go!" />
</form>

Answer 2

Jason,

You could do this easily by using an embed for your channel entries tag like this.

First have the link to change the limit number end up placing that number as the last segment by doing something like this:

<a href="/template_group/template/20">view 20</a>

Then create your embed

{embed="store/_embedded_template" my_limit="{last_segment}"}

Then in your embedded templated your channnel entries tag would look like this

{exp:channel:entries channel="foo" limit="{embed:my_limit}"}

If you wish to avoid embeds you can use Low Variables with pre:parse and set it up essentially the same way.