Change category links from Shop module

Hello,

I have HikaShop Business 1.5.4 installed on Joomla 1.5.23

I have a regular drop-down navigation menu set up on my site with links to pages for each category of my site's products. I am relatively satisfied with the layout of these pages at the moment.

The end of the url for one of these pages (after index.php?), for example, is:
option=com_hikashop&view=product&layout=listing&Itemid=37&lang=en

However, the shop module in the left position of my template also has category links, but this links to different category pages. I don't like the layout of these pages at the moment and I can't find where it's parameters are to change the layout. However, much better, I would like the links from this module to go to exactly the same pages as the above, my menu items. I want to avoid having duplicate pages on my site that serve the same function.

An example of the end of a url from a category page for the same product category as the above is:

option=com_hikashop&ctrl=category&task=listing&cid=10&name=jamon-cat&Itemid=40&lang=en

How can I change the links from the product catgories that appear on my module to go to pages like the above URL, rather than the one below?

I am attaching a screen shot of how I have the module set up to display at present in case that helps.

Thanks very much,

Dave

Hi Nicolas, this is great and so logical, thanks!

I have changed the "Menu" selection for the online shop to be the same as the title of the drop-down menu of the shop. This is the menu where the sub-items go to the pages that I want them to.

(One suggestion for improvement to the coders: in the menu to select these things, items from various menus and at various levels of the menu hierarchy were all mixed up. It would be much more helpful to see each one in its proper place in the menu hierarchy. For instance, I have a few items in different menus that are named the same, it is the context of which menu you are looking at that gives meaning to which one is which -- this context is absent in this menu selection area of the HikaShop Options interface.)

Anyway, now the shop module on the side and the top-level Shop menu at the top of the page, both display each of the product categories beautifully and in the same way.

However, the problem is still with what happens when you click on one of those categories, which in both cases takes you to pages that I don't like and don't know how to control.

The items on the drop-down menu, on the other hand, take you to well-formatted pages that I can control. However, both the module in the Left position and the page you land on if you select the top-level shop menu's title, display category items that take you to pages whose layout I don't like and I don't know how to control (they're both the same).

So I still need to find a way to change what happens when you click on one of the categories in either place -- the shop module in the Left position, or the main Shop page that displays when you click on the shop menu's title. I need both of those to go to the same product category page that displays when you choose an item from the shop's drop-down menu in the main navigation.

Where can I make this adjustment? (I hope I've explained myself clearly, if there's any other info I can provide to make it clear what I'm trying to do, please let me know!)

Thanks, Dave

Thanks Nicolas, I appreciate your speedy replies.

Anyway, I can't find the place to do what you say.

I go into my Joomla Module manager and click on the HikaShop module in the Left position (see screenshot). I can't see any option there to do what you describe.

I then click on HikaShop Options for the module, and I see the second screen attached here (or in the next post if I can't upload two).

Sorry to be awkward, I'm new to HikaShop. Am I looking in the wrong place? It will help if you can be very graphic in your instructions (like you were speaking to a 5-year-old child! . "Go to this menu, click on this link, in the next screen in the XYZ area look for an option that says ABC" etc.

second screen shot

Hi Nicolas,

Sorry, I find the language used in the HikaShop interface to be quite unclear in this respect and your instructions are still not getting me the results I want (see last paragraphs below).

In the interface, the area of Display > Content Modules and Display > Content Menus is confusing. There seems to be an endless circle of "associated module for menu item XX" and "menu item for module XX," sometimes with multiple instances, and it is very unclear to me what options I am actually editing when I am changing them, and trial and error here is not getting me the results I need either. I would suggest this area for improvement in a future version.

This is what I need:

The Joomla drop-down menu for the shop works perfectly. On the drop down menu are each of my product category names. Each of these is set up as a HikaShop Products Listing type, with the following options (example for one menu item in screenshot).

However, the two places that visually display all the categories will not link to these same pages. The HikaShop module in the Left position of the template, and the main page for the Shop, accessed by clicking on the menu's title, are still a problem. The initial display is fine: There is a photo and an image title representing each of my categories.

*****What I need is that the links from these two areas, when you click on one of the categories, go to exactly the same (HikaShop Products Listing) pages as the links from my drop-down shop menu.****** Is this possible?

I tried what seemed the logical place to make this change: the HikaShop Options for the Left module, starting from Joomla Module Manager. I have done that, and with the options I will show here or in another post immediately after this one (pic no. 2). I set the "Menu" setting there to "Tienda" ("Shop" in Spanish -- that's the title of my shop's drop-down menu). And the links from the Left module do display the same as the links from the main Shop/"Tienda" page. However, they're not the same as the Product Listing pages available from choosing a drop-down menu item, and they need to be exactly the same.

Of course, I have followed your advice and gone into my Joomla menu. The main Shop/Tienda menu title is set up as a HikaShop Category Listing, with the options you see in pic no. 3. For the associated modules from this screen, I chose the options you see in pic no. 4.

However, besides the difference in URL, which may make the site lose page rank with Google (duplicate pages with the same content), there is also another difference, the title of the shop which I cannot seem to make disappear from these pages. If I could do this, the pages would at least look the same even if the URL is different.

But the simple question is: Can't I simply link from the category pix in this Left module and the main Shop/Tiena page to the drop-down menu page views that I like?

I would like to be able to control where these links go directly, and the process seems convoluted!

Thanks, Dave

pic no. 2 - Module

pic no. 3 - Shop ("Tienda") Menu HS Options

pic no. 4 - Associated module options, link from Menu options (pic no. 3)

Hi Nicolas,

Thanks again for your usual prompt response.

In trying this out, I find that the "Show Title" option from pic no. 2, both within Joomla Module options and HS Module Options, turns on and off only the title of the Module itself, in the Left position of every page. In both places changing the option has the same effect, not on the place I'm concerned about.

Neither of these "Show Title" options has any effect on the unwanted display of the shop's page title as an H1 header on the page listing the products in the category (the pages which appear when you click on one of the categories, either in the Left Module or in the main shop Categories Listing page). (I will call these pages my "Top-level Product Pages")

Could this be a bug?

In any case, they way my shop is structured is that most of my categories have exactly two products in them, and one of those products has several variants. So there are not really sub-categories in the categories, just products.

In pic2, you can see that there is no "associated products listing module" to control how the products are displayed, just an "associated category", which is set obviously to the Products Category.

Where should I be looking for the proper associated products listing module to control these Top-level Product Pages?

Thanks again for your help.

Dave

Ok, that makes more sense.

And the associated module from pic3 is pic4. In that module, "Show Title" is set to "No", but it still displays.

Anything else I can do?