Listing of category names

This template is close to what you want, except it does not handle sub-categories:

<?php
/*
Template Name: listpostsbycategory
*/
?>
<?php /*
 Author: Mac McDonald
 Contact at BluegrassMiataClub.com using About->Contact Us form.

 This program creates a list of posts by categories as links to the posts.
*/?>
<?php get_header(); ?>
   <div id="content" class="narrowcolumn" role="main">

<?php
foreach (array('Articles','Booklet 1','Booklet 2') as $catname) {
   $catid = get_cat_id($catname);
   $myquery = new WP_Query("cat=$catid");
   if ($myquery->have_posts()) :
      echo "<h2>Posts for Category $catname</h2>";
      while ($myquery->have_posts()) : $myquery->the_post(); ?>
         <p><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?></a></p>
      <?php endwhile;
   endif;
}

?>
</div><!-- End content -->
<?php get_footer(); ?>

OOPS – the example above was listing thumbnails for each post. To list titles, change ‘the_post_thumbnail()’ to ‘the_title()’.

The problem that I have is getting any link for the “Booklets” category in the Sidebar dropdown list due to the fact that “Booklets” has no actual posts, but is just a parent to the booklets themselves. Apparently empty categories don’t get listed, even if they’re parents to categories that do contain posts.

I’ve tried setting the hide_empty argument for wp_list_categories to “0” (false), but that hasn’t seemed to change anything.

I guess, after researching and doing more reading on the forums and in the docs, that I’m looking for a listing of sub-category names, not the posts that are in those sub-categories so that a reader could drill down from “Booklets” to “Booklet 1” to “Chapter 1”.

Thanks.

As far as I can tell, wp_list_categories is ignoring hide_empty. You might be able to roll your own version with get_terms().

I still don’t think that I’ve been able to communicate what I’m looking for. I’m not looking for a list of POSTS, rather a list of CATEGORY NAMES, whether they contain posts or not, and only direct children of the parent category, without grandchildren, or at least with grandchildren displayed below the corresponding parent, similar to the way I have it outlined in the first post in this thread.

I know I could tweak the category template to display just titles, but they are all mixed irrespective of what parent they have and without any break in the list to indicate what parent they have, and that’s ok if a post can be categorized, for example, as a Ford (parent category) and a Mustang (child category) and a 1968 Mustang (grandchild category), but doesn’t work for the Booklets/Booklet Title/Chapter Title scenario that I’m trying to accomplish.

Thanks.

No, I think you were perfectly clear. I also think that get_terms will do what you want. Give the code below a try to see if it is close:

<?php
$catarray = get_terms('category','hide_empty=0&hierarchical=1');
foreach ($catarray as $category) {
  $id = $category->term_id;
  if ($category->parent == 0) {
    $catbyid[$id]['depth'] = 0;
  } else {
    $catbyid[$id]['depth'] = $catbyid[$category->parent]['depth'] + 1;
  }
}
$in_list = 0;
$top_category = '';
foreach ($catarray as $category) {
  $id = $category->term_id;
  $name = $category->name;
  $link = get_category_link($id);
  if ($category->parent == 0) {
    // This is a new parent
    if ($in_list) echo '</ul>';  // End the previous list
    $in_list = 0;
    $top_category = $category;
    echo "<h2>$name</h2>";
  } elseif ($top_category->name == 'Booklets' && $catbyid[$id]['depth'] == 1) {
    if ($in_list) echo '</ul>';  // End the previous list
    $in_list = 0;
    echo "<h3>$name</h3>";
  } else {
    if (!$in_list) echo '<ul>';
    $in_list = 1;
    echo "<li><a href='$link'>$name</a></li>";
  }
}
if ($in_list) echo '</ul>';
?>

Thanks. I’ll give that a try, but I think I finally found what I want by using a category specific template and wp_list_categories. That gives me a listing of Booklet Titles as links, which can then take the user to the booklet itself.

Thanks again.