Magento 1.9 Custom Module – How to Add Category Multiselect Option

magento-1.9module

I've created a module that has an option to select the categories which should have the module enabled to. For this I'm using a multiselect option and is created in my system.xml as follows:

<includecats>
  <label>Select categories</label>
  <frontend_type>multiselect</frontend_type>
  <source_model>admininfo/categories</source_model>
  <sort_order>30</sort_order>
  <show_in_default>1</show_in_default>
  <show_in_website>1</show_in_website>
  <show_in_store>1</show_in_store>
  <comment>Select categories you would like to include. Use Command + Click (Mac) or Ctrl + Click (Windows).</comment>
</includecats>

In "Model/Categories.php" I have included:

<?php
class Mymodule_admininfo_Model_Categories extends Mage_Core_Model_Abstract {

public function toOptionArray()
{
$categoriesArray = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')
    ->getCollection()
    ->addAttributeToSelect('name')
    ->addAttributeToSelect('url_path')
    ->addAttributeToSort('name', 'asc')
    ->addFieldToFilter('is_active', array('eq'=>'1'))
    ->load()
    ->toArray();

foreach ($categoriesArray as $categoryId => $category) {
    if (isset($category['name'])) {
        $categories[] = array(
            'value' => $categoryId,
            'label' => $category['name']
        );
    }
}

return $categories;
} 
}

This all works like a charm. However in my module I get a list of all categories without any reference to its possible parent categories. This makes this list extremely hard to use since some categories used several times in the catalog. Without a reference to a parent or the actual id of the category it's pretty much unusable.

Current situation (example):

  • Shoes
  • Shoes
  • Shoes

Desired situation:

  • Men | Shoes
  • Women | Shoes
  • Childeren | Shoes

Or:

  • Shoes (9)
  • Shoes (10)
  • Shoes (11)

Best Answer

We had the same issue with a hackathon module. This is the solution we came up with. It defines the path per category separated with / 

class Mymodule_admininfo_Model_Categories extends Mage_Core_Model_Abstract {

    public function toOptionArray()
    {
        $categories = array();
        $allCategoriesCollection = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')
            ->getCollection()
            ->addAttributeToSelect('name')
            ->addFieldToFilter('level', array('gt'=>'0'));
        $allCategoriesArray = $allCategoriesCollection->load()->toArray();
        $categoriesArray = $allCategoriesCollection
            ->addAttributeToSelect('level')
            ->addAttributeToSort('path', 'asc')
            ->addFieldToFilter('is_active', array('eq'=>'1'))
            ->addFieldToFilter('level', array('gt'=>'1'))
            ->load()
            ->toArray();
        foreach ($categoriesArray as $categoryId => $category)
        {
            if (!isset($category['name'])) {
                continue;
            }
            $categoryIds = explode('/', $category['path']);
            $nameParts = array();
            foreach($categoryIds as $catId) {
                if($catId == 1) {
                    continue;
                }
                $nameParts[] = $allCategoriesArray[$catId]['name'];
            }
            $categories[$categoryId] = array(
                'value' => $categoryId,
                'label' => implode(' / ', $nameParts)
            );
        }

        return $categories;
    } 
}
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