Conditionals within Categories

Question

I'm attempting to get a conditional statement working within category id parameters.

Ideally, I need the title of certain entries to link to details pages but ONLY if they are in category_id 38. Then, I'd like to show just the title (without links) only when entries are not in category_id 38.

This is what I've come up with so far. I have never attempted something exactly like this before. I am getting a parse/syntax error. Could someone take a look and help me to see what I am doing wrong, please and thank you!!

{categories}

{if category id == "38"}

    <h4><a href="{url_title_path='product-support/service-centers'}">{facility_title}</a></h4>

{if:else category_id == "32|30|33|31" && category_id != "38"}

    <h4>{facility_title}</h4>

{/if}

{/categories}

Answer 1

The categories variable pair performs a loop. Always. If your entries has more than one category, it will show all of them. So, if you want to show just one, you have to limit it.

Remember that ==, !=, >, < or any other comparison operator is available just on if or elseif. else haven't operators. It executes on all possible exceptions to the previous conditions.

If you want to compare against several values at once, you gonna need something like an IN operator, which isn't currently available on EECMS template language. But, it looks like, for your question, that you just cares about the category 38 to have a link. So, you don't need to test for the others.

{categories limit="1"}
    <h4>
        {if category_id == "38"}
            <a href="{url_title_path='product-support/service-centers'}">{facility_title}</a>
        {if:else}
            {facility_title}
        {/if}
    </h4>
{/categories}

Answer 2

Try:

{categories}
    {if category_id == "38"}
        <h4><a href="{url_title_path='product-support/service-centers'}">{facility_title}</a></h4>

    {if:elseif category_id == "32" OR category_id == "30" OR category_id == "31" OR category_id == "33"}
        <h4>{facility_title}</h4>
    {/if}
{/categories}

1) missing underscore in category id 2) elseif instead of else 3) no need to check for category 38 again docs on conditionals

Answer 3

You're along the right lines.

Let's break down your code section-by-section

{categories}
{/categories}

This will work just fine.

 {if category id == "38"}

The correct variable name here is {category_id} (note the underscore). Getting the variable names correct is imperative when using conditionals - because else you're checking against the wrong thing.

 <h4><a href="{url_title_path='product-support/service-centers'}">{facility_title}</a></h4>

No problems here

 {if:else category_id == "32|30|33|31" && category_id != "38"}

This is where it starts to break down. What you have effectively written is "if it's anything but 38 do this instead". But you've hard-coded that. What if category 34 appears tomorrow? You'd be better off going for a simple {if:else} line. That does the same thing short-hand.

The second issue is that you use {if:else} here, but you wrote it as a {if:elseif} statement. Notice the second if there. That allows you to basically say "If the above conditional isn't true, try this new conditional instead".

Additionally you're using piped values (|) to check the category_id variable. This is the syntax for selecting multiple entries but it wouldn't be outputted like that. Unfortunately in conditionals you'd have to go long hand with {if:elseif category_id=="32" || category_id=="30" || [etc]} - that's no fun. For your reference though, doing a double-pipe (||) in conditionals is to OR what && is to AND.

And so if we put it all back together, this code will do the job.

{categories}
    {if category_id == "38"}
        <h4><a href="{url_title_path='product-support/service-centers'}">{facility_title}</a></h4>
    {if:else}
        <h4>{facility_title}</h4>
    {/if}
{/categories}