Dynamic Template Name in URL

Question

On a single entry page, I want to display a list of categories an entry is assigned to, and these categories should link back to their respective pages. Now those categories are attached to different templates so I need to display the template name dynamically for each category (finance, corporate, real-estate, etc.)

I created this query:

{exp:query sql="SELECT template_name FROM exp_templates WHERE template_id = ‘{template_group}’”}{template_name}{/exp:query}

but unfortunately it still doesn’t display my template name.

To give you an idea, if I use this query:

{exp:query sql="SELECT group_name FROM exp_category_groups WHERE group_id = '{category_group}’”}{group_name}{/exp:query}

Then the group name shows correctly (Finance, Corporate, Real Estate, etc.), but I don’t need the group name, I need the template name!

Any suggestions to point to the right direction?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Are the separate templates really different enough to warrant being separate? Usually you could code in the logic for slightly different views within a single template - much simpler and more maintainable than duplicating lots of code.

Anyway, assuming you want to keep them as separate templates, I can think of 3 options:

1. As suggested by @AllInOne, specify which template should be used via a custom category field

2. Use a naming convention ensuring that your category_url_titles match your template group names

3. Use something like Template Routes (or third party Resource Router is even better!) to route certain URI requests to the right template.

Like I said, my personal preference would be to re-arrange things so that just a single dynamic template is used instead of lots of different ones, but it really depends how different they are from each other. (You would then feed that single template with a category name and take different actions depending on that).