same category urls in category group

Question

I need to create a categories with a parent/child structure as follows:

Category Parent 1

• Parks
• Accommodations
• Dining

Category Parent 2

• Parks
• Accommodations
• Dining

The child categories need to be the same for each parent but EE won't allow this.

Is there a way around this?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Since EE doesn't require the parent category to be in the URL in order to sort by category, your category URL titles can't be duplicates. The reason is, how would EE tell the difference between this URL for Category Parent 1:

http://mysite.com/cities/category/parks

And this URL for Category Parent 2:

http://mysite.com/cities/category/parks

As far as I'm aware, the only way to do this without hacking the core or using a custom field is to simply namespace each category:

• parent_1
  • parent_1_parks
  • parent_1_accomodations
  • parent_1_dining
• parent_2
  • parent_2_parks
  • parent_2_accomodations
  • parent_2_dining

Another option is to change how your categories are structured. So instead of duplicate categories, have separate category sub-groups:

• Cities

  • Portland
  • Seattle

• Features

  • Parks
  • Accomodations
  • Dining

Then the user picks the city, and the feature(s) to associate with the entry.