In our store we're currently using the Standard Categories but would also like to employ Advanced Categories to create more nuance on the site. However, we don't understanding the relationship between Standard and Advanced Categories.

The standard categories we have are imported from an Informix database that we use for our brick and mortar stores. However, we want to create some different categories for our online store without breaking any links to the Informix database (we synchronize the product data on a daily basis).


As an example:
1. We have a title under the category "Children's Prayers" that we would like to also find under a new category "Coloring Books"

2. We have a second title under the category "Children's Bibles" which we would also like to find under the category "Coloring Books"


Is it possible to do such a crossover, and is there any other documentation in addition to the CataLook Manual that would describe the relationship of Standard and Advanced Categories?

Thank you.

Hi D Maria,

Some background first.

Catalook started with just Standard Categories and discovered that this functionality was not enough to support an item belonging to multiple categories so Advanced Categories were added into later versions.

The result is that they are quite independent and you run Catalook in either standard category mode or Advanced Category mode.

You will see toggle switches when you look into menu's etc.

In your scenario, you would have the book "Children's Prayers" belonging to the advanced categories "Children's Bibles" and "Coloring Books". The standard category could be anything you like. However, it must exist to one Standard Category.

If you were starting from scratch, I would create a standard category "Books" and assign every book to this category. You would then assign multiple advanced categories to each book.

As you have already assigned your books to various standard categories, you might as well leave the standard category for each book (as this is irrelevant in Advanced Category mode) and then assign multiple advanced categories to each book.

You can run sql inserts into the Cat_AdvCatProducts to assign a product to multiple adv categories.

Thanks for this explanation and for providing context. We'll look further at our existing structure to see what might be done.

Is there a source that would give us instructions for the sql coding if we were to go that route?

There is no source for this SQL. But basically, you could do the following pseudo code :-

-- Insert Adv Cat descriptions same as Std Cat Descriptions

Create a cursor to loop thru all Std Categories
Start Loop
Start cursor
Insert adv cat description same as std category description
Next
Close


-- Insert Adv Cat for each Product

Create a cursor to loop thru all Products
Start Loop
Start cursor
Insert advcat_ID, productID into Cat_AdvCatProducts
Next
Close


If you need further this SQL written for you, contact us to give you a quote for the work.

Thanks very much!