Cattree for specific categories

[ids]

I have a client that is ignoring the power and flexibility of the cattree or they simply don't understand it. On top of that, they are having trouble explaining/showing what they want. Seems it comes down to a mashup on any given page and there is no pattern. The only common idea is the list will be a mix of parent and child all presented as if they are parent categories. The tool needed is more like being able to "pin" a/any category to the cattree regardless of its parent/child status. In the place of that, is there a way to have a specific category act like it has its own cattree?

CTGY1
--cat1 tree

CTGY2
--cat2 tree

CTGY3 (NOT DISPLAYED)
--cat3 tree (The expanded tree is displayed but not display the parent of this ctgy)

They want to be able to edit themselves later. CTGY 3 of course is the typical higher level CTGY that has 1000 child ctgys assigned. I've already tried using facets to come close, but no joy yet.

Any thoughts on handling this kind of chaos?

My current thoughts:
I would like to be able to specify something like this:

<mvt:item name="cattree" param="CTGY2_tree" />

Where the param options tell the cattree item what to do; such as display only the name or the expanded tree or both.

Realistically though, what I am contemplating is using a delimited list to manipulate the cattree array to either insert or remove valid cat codes for that specific page. Then there is the detail of the tree being displayed expanded.

Offhand background: the client already had me burn their budget on other tasks.

Thanks,

Scott

[Kent Multer]

If this project was on my desk, I might use a custom category field to specify what to display in the tree, instead of a long param string on the mvt:item tag. That would allow the client (or you) to set it up and make changes without editing page templates.

[ids]

I had thought about that, of course. Checkboxes would be easier for them to manage. However, I have the added complication in the logic of some category pages showing specific categories only.
I requested ctgy lists from the client to find out if there is a pattern of conditionals. I'm hoping they can illustrate what they actually want on the page.

Scott

[Kent Multer]

Instead of checkboxes, I was thinking of a text area (multi-line), where they could just enter the codes of the cats that they want displayed in the tree. That'll be quicker than trying to figure out the logic; and it will work for any combination of categories in any order that they want, now or in the future.

Custom fields have the advantage that, if there's a large number to enter, you can put them in a file and import it.

[habreu]

Capture2.JPG

Not a programmer so may be a dumb point but we have a Miva modified version of Levels and in addition to the cattree there is a main navigation drop down that uses Ready Theme navigation sets. If you could use this in place of the cattree or as a supplemental menu couldn't they just build whatever it is they want?


Capture.JPG

[Kent Multer]

Yes, they can create a collection of small nav sets, and use mvt:item tags to pull them in on the various categories. It can all be done by any admin user; so if the total number of categories is small, and they don't expect to change them very often, maybe it's the best way to go. But it takes a fair amount of typing and clicking to enter all the links, and each category's header or footer will need to be edited to contain the correct mvt:item tag. The template for the nav set will have to be copied and pasted into each set; and if they ever want to change the look of the nav sets, they'll have to change them all.

With the custom-field approach, you just need one chunk of template code for all the nav sets; and it can be on the CTGY page, instead of having a separate mvt:item for every category. The per-category setup is reduced to a set of cat codes typed into a text box, or imported from CSV. So it's less work if there are a lot of categories, and it's much easier to make changes later.