Populating a CTGY page using a custom product field

[lesliekirk]

The EmporiumPlus Toolkit has the ability to populate products on to a CTGY page with something like this:

<mvt:item name="toolkit" param="sassign|cat_code|new-fabric" />
<mvt:item name="toolkit" param="randomcat|pcount|g.cat_code|40" />
<mvt:if expr="pcount GT 0">
<mvt:foreach iterator="sub_product" array="sub_products">
<li><a href="/&mvta:sub_product:code;.html"><img src="&mvt:sub_product:thumbnail;" width="110" height="110" alt="alt text" /><span class="caption">&mvt:sub_product:formatted_price;</span></a></li>
 </mvt:foreach>
</mvt:if>

The products have to be assigned to a category for this to work.

Is is possible to populate a category page with products based on a Product Custom Field?

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

There's this:

<mvt:do name="l.result" file="g.Module_Library_DB" value="Category_Load_Code( 'category_code', l.settings:current_category )" /> 
<mvt:do name="l.result" file="g.Module_Library_DB" value="Runtime_ProductList_Load_Offset_Category( l.settings:current_category:id, g.Offset, 100, g.NextOffset, l.settings:products )" /> 

<mvt:foreach iterator="product" array="products">
   &mvt:product:code;<br>
</mvt:foreach>

But not quite sure what you mean by "based on product code" since you then mention being on the category page...but you if you know the product code, you can retrieve its custom field with Read_Product_Code() CustomFields statement.

[lesliekirk]

There's this:

<mvt:do name="l.result" file="g.Module_Library_DB" value="Category_Load_Code( 'category_code', l.settings:current_category )" />
<mvt:do name="l.result" file="g.Module_Library_DB" value="Runtime_ProductList_Load_Offset_Category( l.settings:current_category:id, g.Offset, 100, g.NextOffset, l.settings:products )" />

<mvt:foreach iterator="product" array="products">
&mvt:product:code;<br>
</mvt:foreach>

But not quite sure what you mean by "based on product code" since you then mention being on the category page...but you if you know the product code, you can retrieve its custom field with Read_Product_Code() CustomFields statement.

Based on a Product Custom Field.

I'm wanting to try and build a page that will display products based on Product Custom Field. For example, there may be 100 products that have Product Custom Field (that is tied to the EP Power Search) and I want to populate a page based on the content of that field.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

OK, if you want to get all the Products that have, say a custom field of "LeslieWants" with the value "ShowMe"? If so, you'd need to run through an ALL products loop and look for that custom field one by one. If that's it, I don't think you can do it any other way. Might be easier to assign them to a non-display category.

[lesliekirk]

OK, if you want to get all the Products that have, say a custom field of "LeslieWants" with the value "ShowMe"? If so, you'd need to run through an ALL products loop and look for that custom field one by one. If that's it, I don't think you can do it any other way. Might be easier to assign them to a non-display category.

Yeah, that was my first suggestion to the store owner. I'm trying to come up with some way to replace the customized Power Search links that will do exactly this. The link includes every variable, populates the page perfectly and the SEO people say that the search engines are penalizing the site for these type of long links...

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Well, if you didn't have too many products, you could set up a template that ran the product_list and feed it variables for the specific custom field


<foreach in the product list>


<mvt:item name="customfields" param="Read_Product_Code(g.theProductCodePassedThr ough, g.theCustomFieldPassedThrough, g.theFilterValue)">
<mvt:if expr="g.theFilterValue">

write product info

</mvt:if>

</foreach>

[lesliekirk]

Here's an example of an ASP site - my ASP.net foo has grown weak - but I'm pretty sure a page like this is using fields from the database to load the blue products on this page:

https://www.onlinefabricstore.net/color-blue.aspx

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Well, sort of...its loading 9000+ products that all have the word/tag blue in them :) Sounds like you want a bit more 'refinement'. Have you thought of just using htaccess or URI rules to get over the SEO firms complaints?

[lesliekirk]

Well, sort of...its loading 9000+ products that all have the word/tag blue in them :) Sounds like you want a bit more 'refinement'. Have you thought of just using htaccess or URI rules to get over the SEO firms complaints?

I did try the the htaccess route but I must have done it wrong because it didn't work for me - that was the first idea that came to mind. Using the URI rules was the next possibility but I would need some input on how to make that even work.