category_heading and GWcode Categories

Question

I don't seem to be able to use ExpressionEngine's native {exp:channel:category_heading} feature in combination with GWcode Categories.

I would like to display a simple category results page which displays all entries within a particular category, with the category name at the top as a page header. There will also be a list of all the categories in the sidebar (which I'm using GWcode for).

My code, simplified:

<!--Page heading-->      
{exp:channel:category_heading}
    <h2>{category_name}</h2>
{/exp:channel:category_heading}


<!--List of all the categories-->
<ul class="tags">
    {exp:gwcode_categories channel="project|miscellany" entry_count="yes" orderby="entry_count|cat_name" sort="desc" style="linear"}
    <li>{cat_name}</li>
    {/exp:gwcode_categories}
</ul>


<!--Results of selected category-->
{exp:channel:entries channel="project"}
    <img src="{project_thumbnail}" />
    <h2>{title}</h2>
{/exp:channel:entries}

The only bit that doesn't work is the page heading. Does anyone know why this might be?

Thanks.

Answer 1

That's one of the limitations of native category handling in EE. You can grab it with some PHP but even easier is to use Low Seg2Cat which is to remedy this type of case.

You can simple use {segment_n_category_name} to output the category name from the segment in the URL where it is displayed. So if you have a URL such as:

mysite.com/products/category

You can then output the category heading with:

<h2>{segment_2_category_name}</h2>

It is certainly very useful when working within the limitations of the native EE category handling.

EDIT: Updated to show an alternative method using the Query Module.

{exp:query sql="SELECT cat_name FROM exp_categories WHERE cat_url_title = '{segment_3}'"}
    {exp:channel:category_heading}

        <h2>{category_name}</h2>

    {/exp:channel:category_heading}
{/exp:query} 

Something like that should work if you didn't want to use Seg2Cat specifically. Just be sure to swap out {segment_3} with whatever segment variable contains your category URL title.