Section 3. Manage categories

Overview

Categories allow you to structure the real estate catalogue. This facilitates catalog search. It is assumed that every property in phpRealestate must be bound to at least one category. This section discusses various actions that can be performed in the context of category management. It contains the following topics:

• Accessing the category management tasks
• Add a new category to the current language
• View the list of existing categories for the current language
• Edit the existing category for the current language
• Reorder categories for the current language
• Delete the existing category for the current language

Accessing the category management tasks

Use the Categories menu to manage categories. From the drop-down menu choose one of the following options:

• Add
• View / Modify

See picture 4.

Choose Add to add a new category to the current language. Choose View/Modify to view the list of existing categories, as well as edit or delete them.

Picture 4

Add a new category to the current language

Choose Categories > Add to display a form which allows you to add new categories (see picture 5).

Picture 5

This form contains the following fields:

• Parent category is a drop-down list which allows you to choose a parent category for a new category.
• Category nameis a name of the new category. This field is mandatory.

If the values are set correctly, then after you click the Add new button you will receive a message notifying that new category has been added. The newly created category is always placed at the end of the list of categories for the selected parent category.

View the list of existing categories for the current language

Choose Categories > View / Modify to see the list of existing categories for the current language. Categories are displayed in a table (see picture 6).

Picture 6

The first column of the table contains category ID. The second column contains the name of the category. For visual representation of the nested structure of categories they are displayed in a tree hierarchy. The third column lists action buttons that allow you to edit and delete any category from the list, as well as re-order them.

Edit the existing category for the current language

Click on the Edit icon in the appropriate row to edit a category. The form that appears contains the same fields that the form used to add categories. If the values are set correctly, then after you click the Save button a message is displayed notifying that the category has been changed.

Re-order categories for the current language

Categories that belong to the same parent category are displayed in the front-end interface in the same order as you see them in the list of categories in the control panel. New categories are always placed at the end of the appropriate parent category. That is why you may need to re-order categories. Use the action buttons ^ and ∨ to move a category up or down in the list. If navigation is allowed within the selected parent category, you will receive a message notifying that changes have been accepted.

Delete the existing category for the current language

Click on the Delete icon in the appropriate row to delete a category. A confirmation window will appear (see picture 7).

Picture 7

If you click OK, you will receive a message notifying that the selected category has been deleted. Click Cancel to keep the category. Be careful while deleting categories, because this operation also deletes all properties listed under the category.