When preparing catalogs it is normally required to display only items from selected category. Items are normally organized in hierarchical groups, for example:
Home (root category)
.Electronics (main category)
.Audio (sub category)
.Video (sub category)
.TV (sub category)
.LCD TV (sub category)
.Plasma TV (sub category)
Sony 32KV (item)
Panasonic Viera (item)
.Special offer
Sony 32KV (item)
We can see that any category have its own parent category and are organized hierarchically.
In such cases we would like to enable at least following options ((click on Plasma TV link in first grid to test):
· Display all records from single main or sub category (either using link or category dropdown list) including all items in all sub categories of selected category (items are displayed in second grid) - when selecting Home category all existing items are displayed
· Display category title bar (in blue on the top of second grid)
· Filter category (enter "tv" in filter of first grid)
· Search in multiple categories simultaneously
· Single Item can be in one or more categories (let’s say in up to 3 categories)
On this page we have two modules - first one is category module and the second is items module. Item module should be on product main page. Items in single category are available using one of the following options:
a) Clicking on single category: in second grid items in this category will be displayed. We can put category grid in left content pane for example.
b) Using link with appropriate arguments – for example if we want to build link to show all items in category Plasma TV, we should use this structure:
/Default.aspx?tabid=215&catid=7
where 7 is id of category Plasma TV in Categories table. You can copy first part of the link (before Default.aspx) from address bar of you browser. We can then combine such links with original DotNetNuke menu links, for example we define Electronics, Video, Audio etc. in main menu.