Category description at section page

[guigue]

Hi, I called a section so all the categories into this section are displayed with the number of documents, but i want too to show in each category of the list the category description.
I tried adding to the section default.php something like

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echo ''.$valueCat->category[0]->description.'';

just bellow:

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echo '<a href="'. JRoute::_(PhocaDownloadHelperRoute::getCategoryRoute($valueCat->id, $valueCat->alias, $this->section[0]->id)).'">'. $valueCat->title.'</a>';
        echo ' <small>('.$valueCat->numdoc.')</small></p>' . "\n";

but nothing happens, and is normal because I'm novice on this things.
Can I do something?
Thanks!

[Jan]

Hi, you should check if the description (which? - file, category, main) was loaded from database by model

[guigue]

Hi, thanks, but, how can I load the description from the database??
Sorry, I'm a starter in Joomla. My experience is with wordpress only, thanks.

[Jan]

Hi, I think you need to see some guide on Joomla!.org or see the other code, where other items are loaded

[jbourque]

Jan

What is the solution for this? I also want to add the category description to the right of the category title in the section layout.

I added the following to section default.php

$catOutput .=' <h2>('.$valueCat->description .')</h2>';

All I'm getting is () it's not pulling the description


Thanks,
Joe

[Jan]

Hi, sorry I don't understand:

What is the solution for this? I also want to add the category description to the right of the category title in the section layout.

I didn't any such modification so no experiences there.

Jan

[jonusc]

Hi guys,

I registered here just to share my solution. I hope the creator can create a new parameter for this in the next version, it seems like a very essential option to me. To be clear, you can see the changes in action right here - http://jonus.me/software/

Note that the description is taken from "Meta Description" and not the actual "Description" field (i.e. from the WYSIWYG editor) - this would be best practice, as the Description is probably very long and could include images - the Meta Description is ideally a one-sentence description in a nutshell. Anyway, here is the code changes:

1) File at /components/com_phocadownload/models/section.php

Replace this line (at 67 in my version)...

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$query = " SELECT  cc.id, cc.title, cc.alias, cc.access, cc.accessuserid, COUNT(c.id) AS numdoc"

...with this data...

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$query = " SELECT  cc.id, cc.title, cc.alias, cc.metadesc, cc.access, cc.accessuserid, COUNT(c.id) AS numdoc"

2) File at /components/com_phocadownload/views/section/tmpl/default.php

Replace these lines (starting at 44 in my version)...

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echo '<a href="'. JRoute::_(PhocaDownloadHelperRoute::getCategoryRoute($valueCat->id, $valueCat->alias, $this->section[0]->id)).'">'. $valueCat->title.'</a>';
echo ' <small>('.$valueCat->numdoc.')</small></p>' . "\n";

...with this data...

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echo '<a style="font-size: 1.4em;"href="'. JRoute::_(PhocaDownloadHelperRoute::getCategoryRoute($valueCat->id, $valueCat->alias, $this->section[0]->id)).'">'. $valueCat->title.'</a>';
echo ' <small>('.$valueCat->numdoc.')</small>' . "</p>";
echo '<p>'.$valueCat->metadesc.'</p>' . "<br/><br/>";

...note that I made the font-size of the title link a little bigger, just my preference; and also added a couple of new-lines after the metadesc. Customize to your own needs if you desire.

Please add this option in a future version I already have enough custom code-hacks to worry about whenever I update my extensions! Thanks for the great Phoca Download

[Jan]

Hi, added into feature request list.

Jan