Subcategory with multiple parent categories

[VisHorizons]

Is it possible to have multiple parent categories point to a single subcategory?

For many years, I've been creating custom HTML for parent categories. The parent/sub relationship didn't really matter, because all my links were hard-coded.

But now that I'm making use of the built-in subcategory feature and deleting all my custom HTML stuff, this problem arises again.

The simplest way I can think of is to create two (or more) duplicate sub categories to assign to two (or more) different parents. But this seems less than ideal.

[kocourek]

To add a single category as a child to multiple parent categories, just open the parent categories and assign each required child category. Or am I missing a requirement for your use case?

[VisHorizons]

It seems to me, if I go into PARENT1 and assign CHILD, then I go into PARENT2 and assign CHILD, then CHILD is no longer assigned to PARENT1.

[kocourek]

If you are assigning the parent to the child category, FROM the child category I can understand this confusion. I've attached an image to explain what I think you're encountering. Rather than assigning the parent category from the child categories details section, navigate to the parent category and open the "Child Categories" tab, and assign the children from there.

Capture.JPG
One thing to remember though is if you have multiple parent categories, the built-in breadcrumbs will only display the canonical parent.

[VisHorizons]

Thank you for your response.

Your description, this is what I tried. I was not doing the thing in your graphic.

I go to PARENT1, click "Child Categories" and assign CHILD. Then I go to PARENT2, click "Child Categories" and assign CHILD. Then, I revisit PARENT1 and CHILD is no longer assigned.

Is this the process that you are recommending? Have you tried this process yourself?

[kocourek]

That was, in fact, the process I was recommending. My apologies for not vetting it prior to the recommendation.

[VisHorizons]

No problem. Your effort is appreciated.

[delcorsets]

I also have cases in which it would be very useful to assign a child category to multiple parent categories. I have created separate but almost identical categories to solve my issue, but obviously only having to manage one category would be much easier than having to manage the original category and "dupes". There is a very old thread on the subject here:

https://www.miva.com/forums/forum/on...ent-categories

It would be interesting to see if somehow the "Alternated Display Page" feature could be used to mirror a Category Page.. that however may also not be possible.

[VisHorizons]

Yeah, I've seen multiple older threads about this. It definitely seems to be an issue that comes up every now and then.

The more I think about it, the bigger the nightmare becomes.

I thought the worst case scenario was as you describe, delcorsets: create duplicate subcategories.

But then I realized that some of those subcategories would have subcategories themselves, and I would have to create duplicates of those sub-subcategories. Potentially large swaths of cats and subcats would have to be duplicated.

Example
(These pages use a custom coded HTML "category header" that I'm trying to do away with for my new CSSUI site)

Two top-level categories:
Magnetic Products
Zipper Pockets

Then there's the sub category, Magnetic Zipper Pockets which should belong to both parents. Magnetic Zipper Pockets category comes with its own series of sub- and sub-sub-categories.

[delcorsets]

Maybe a good Dream Feature would be the ability to "mirror" categories... Essentially, create a new category with it's own category code, category name, SEO meta data, etc. but have the product list mirror that of a different assigned category rather than being assigned products. Sub-categories could be assigned to the parent category, and they could also potentially "mirror" the product list of another category.

I've not played around much with the new faceting features, but I wonder if it might be possible to use custom fields and faceting rules to display all the products from one category into another?

"Smart-Categories" are something that I could see being very helpful (ability to dynamically assign products to a category based on a set of rules) and have actually suggested in the Dream Features thread. It might be possible that something similar to Smart Categories could be achieved by leveraging some of the faceting features..