Magento – Remove empty categories from magento menu

category-tree

(Apologies for posting this here, and if people think this should be deleted, please do.

I posted this question on stackoverflow, having completely forgotten this forum, which of course is more appropriate for a Magento question. I'd prefer to move it here but… how?!

In order to keep only one version, I've posted the link to it here.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22822997/remove-empty-categories-from-magento-menu

Btw, I found an answer although I'm sure it can be improved.)

I want my main menu to not include any categories that are empty. I've done this for the layered navigation very easily in the relevant phtml file by using

$_category->getProductCount().

However, for the navigation menu, I'm finding it impossible to do this as easily (I have seen the Prattski example but it does seem rather OTT).

The main menu seems to be built in Mage_Page_Block_Html_Topmenu.php, specifically in the function _getHtml. This gets all the children in the menu and if I try something like $child->getId(), I get something like category-node-36.

It doesn't seem like I'm too far from being able to use getProductCount() and so test if it's more than zero.

Is it possible to do this? Can somebody point me to how?

If I can, I'll extend the class with my version.

Best Answer

cronjob

If you ask me, filtering the categories on the menu is bad for the performance and deactivating them is a better idea.

So my suggestion is to implement a cronjob that checks all categories and child categories for products and if there are no, set the status to disabled.

And implement an observer which does the same for only one category on the event catalog_category_save_before

while loading collection

You can implement an observer which listens on catalog_category_collection_load_before and add a setLoadProductCount(true) to the collection, then you can use $category->getProductCount() in the menu template... Ah, btw when you filter the categories, the counts do mismatch, maybe this is a problem somewhere, e.g. while paging (what you don't do) this makes problems if you show fewer items than you selected.

I think you have to change the block for the top menu. I would change the reference in the layout.xml instead of rewriting the block, but this is up to you, then change _getHtml and immediately in the foreach just check the count and continue; when 0

Related Solutions

Magento – a Taxonothe attribute

If it's too complex, than fake the feature.

1) You could try to have a multi-select attribute. The options in admin should be padded. Padding spaces are levels to that node. Like categories in multi-select but with +1 space before childs categories. Or you can have a custom renderer in admin for that attribute which is not hard to make. On frontend you can render in layer navigation all values in a html/js tree. Values can be expandable and selectable. The values of this multiselect are searchable. If you want urls for this attribute have an extension that creates attribute_value.html pages like 'Shop by Brand' extensions. It will be a hassle to customize it for your exact needs. A variation of the attribute solution is to use a custom source table. In this table you can have a hierarchy of rows defined as you see fit.

2) A real solution would be to define a whole new module with a new EAV entity. Try to use Varien_Data_Tree. Plenty of examples in Category module. You'd not have to duplicate Category module entirely. This implementation is very complex in my opinion. It is a Magento developer nightmare - mine at least.

3) A simpler variation of 3) is to have a new entity (not EAV). Have it like the classic way of creating categories in sql tables. (parent_id, child_id) table or a column with parents of the current row. Products will be linked through an additional table with the taxonomy entity (taxonomy_id, product_id). Do use indexers and do cache most of the blocks for this taxonomy entity. Their data won't change too often.

4) I don't see customers using two trees that are in fact 2 different ways of reaching a product. The ones that don't know what to look for will have a harder time navigating in both trees. I guess you can have 2 'main' categories. One will be used in navigation and the other for 'taxonomy'. For all categories products ca be assigned. You'd have to make sure to use in navigation and layered navigation only the categories from the first 'main category'.

People that take decisions lose touch with reality now and than. Magento is a complex eCommerce platform. Merchants tend to bring their complex business logic in customers minds. Magento is a complex eCommerce platform. Implementing an extremely complex feature takes time and resources. A successful Magento store is a fast one and easy to use. If you approach this matter they'll come to their senses. Look for a different feature that addresses the main concern and that would replace the original feature (taxonomy tree).

Remove Specific Href from Top-Menu Link in Magento – How to

To remove url, href functionality of the top menu categories, you can take the following steps:

Create some folder as this path: app/code/local/Mage/Catalog/Block
Copy file Navigation.php from app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Block to app/code/local/Mage/Catalog/Block
Go to function _renderCategoryMenuItemHtml()

Replace this code

$html[] = '<a href="'.$this->getCategoryUrl($category).'"'.$linkClass.'>';
$html[] = '<span>' . $this->escapeHtml($category->getName()) . '</span>';
$html[] = '</a>';

with this code

if($category->getLevel()== 2 && $hasActiveChildren) {
            $html[] = '<a href="[removed]void(0);"'.$linkClass.'>';
            $html[] = '<span>' . $this->escapeHtml($category->getName()) . '</span>';
            $html[] = '</a>';
} else {
            $html[] = '<a href="'.$this->getCategoryUrl($category).'"'.$linkClass.'>';
            $html[] = '<span>' . $this->escapeHtml($category->getName()) . '</span>';
            $html[] = '</a>';
}