Preventing a double entries loop

Question

This is something that I'm wondering how you solve it:

When building a site, the index template is served with segment 1 empty. If I start an entries loop in a embed, I'll need a conditional to show the specific category for the home page and automated categories for the rest like so:

{if segment_1==""}
    {exp:channel:entries category="1"}
        All kinds of channel entry stuff
    {/exp:channel:entries}
{if:else}
    {exp:channel:entries}
        All kinds of channel entry stuff
    {/exp:channel:entries}
{/if}

The only difference between the first and second loop is the category, which is called automatically in the second loop by the URL segment. Every time I make a change in the first loop, I have to be careful to do that in the second one too. I could put the 'entry stuff' in a snippet, but I like to work with files, which snippets do not allow.

So how would you approach this? Thanks!

Answer 1

You can wrap parameters of your channel:entries tag in simple conditionals.

So instead of duplicating your channel loop (which is not very DRY), just use one loop and put the category parameter inside a conditional:

{exp:channel:entries 
    {if segment_1 == ""}category="1"{/if}
}
    {!-- channel entries template stuff --}
{/exp:channel:entries}

Or if you did want to use a snippet for the repeated template code yet still reap the benefits of working with templates as files you can use Snippet Sync. I use it on all my installs and it works great. There is a developer license available.