Elementor Category Widget Support

Resolved

Requested: 9 months and 2 weeks ago

Hi Guys,

we have been trying hard to use your widget with Elementor and mostly had success with the pages menu but we now need the option to use the categories menu approach so we can cross associate pages of relevance to current page users are on.

I’ve setup a test page here: https://maindcc.nichestaging.com/visit-devonport/see-and-do/cains-category-menu-testing-delete/

1) Problem – with optional check box – ‘Keep all accordion sections closed until clicked- If this option is checked, all accordion items will remain closed until clicked. If unchecked, the menu will open the menu to the current section automatically.’

I have this unchecked in the first column in demo and checked in the second. Neither seems to be making any difference?

2) Question – Is their a way to define different levels.
Our current structure of categories is as follows;
Parents: VISIT / LIVE / BUILDING / COUNCIL
Children of VISIT: Arts, Culture & Heritage / See & Do/ Maps & Visitor Guides

We would like to be able to display the child and only the grandchildren – for example:
Arts, Culture & Heritage and all pages under that category pages under that.

Any help on the above items would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Cain Lazenby

Mat Lipe
9 months and 2 weeks ago

Good Morning Cain,

Turns out that Elementor uses the same generic widget id for every widget on a page of the same type. For instance the id of both the category widgets on this page are wp-widget-advanced_sidebar_menu_category. The problem with this is the plugin is unable to differentiate between the 2 widgets and therefore both widget receive the same treatment for things like styles and accordion.

If you have only one widget of a type on the page (only one category widget) the widget options should just fine and allow you to test different variations.

In the meantime, I’m going to work on automatically detecting duplicated widget ids and allowing multiple widgets to work within Elementor.

I will report back what I come up with over the next day or two.

Have a great day!

Mat Lipe
Cain Lazenby
9 months and 2 weeks ago

Hey Mat,

I’ve reworked my test page so it only has one category menu but it still doesn’t function like the way I would interpret from the check box.
I’ll create a short video to help clarify the problem.

here is the test page: https://maindcc.nichestaging.com/visit-devonport-2/see-and-do/cains-category-menu-testing-delete/

here is my video: https://www.loom.com/share/32af4c53d1fc4edebee177860ef52025

Thanks for the support on this.
Cheers
Cain
Mat Lipe
9 months and 2 weeks ago

Hi Cain,

To answer your second question, you may add the child categories you would like to exclude to the widget settings via “Categories to exclude (ids), comma separated:”.

For example if you entered “286,287”, the menu will display only the Arts, Culture & Heritage and all pages under that category pages under that.

Have a great day!

Mat Lipe
Mat Lipe
9 months and 2 weeks ago

Hi Cain,

Thank you so much for providing the video! It really helped me setup a test scenario which matches your site. ☺️

I was able to track down the issue to a previously unknown limitation of the plugin when displaying “pages” under categories. This limitation has now been removed and this will now work in version 3.8.4.

Have a great night!

Mat Lipe
Mat Lipe
9 months and 2 weeks ago

I also wanted to mention, the basic version has been updated to 7.6.0 which is able to support using multiple widgets of the same type on the same page with Elementor.

You will now be able to edit and test multiple widgets on the same page!
Cain Lazenby
9 months and 2 weeks ago

Exclude id’s will open up a heap of possibilities for us so thanks heaps on highlighting that one for me.
To test it I exclude the maps category so we now only have 2 – awesome flexibility.

I have upgraded the plugin to the latest version – so sorry I didn’t even check that, I have another guys manage plugins but I should have checked.

I still an unable to get the menu to open to the active page it is on.
Any ideas to what am I missing?

*https://maindcc.nichestaging.com/visit-devonport/see-and-do/cains-category-menu-testing-delete/

New Question sorry – 3) is there an option to switch the categories off – not clickable

Thanks in Advance Mat 🙂

cheers Cain
Mat Lipe
9 months and 2 weeks ago

Good Morning Cain,

It appears to now be opening to the correct page. Could you please double check? It may have been a cache or something.
Mat Lipe
9 months and 2 weeks ago

To answer question #3 – “is there an option to switch the categories off – not clickable”

This could be achieved by adding a filter to your active theme’s functions.php file.

This version will allow you to disable particular categories, you simply change the no_link_category_ids to contain which ever categories you would like to not be linked.

<?php add_filter( 'category_list_link_attributes', function ( $attributes, $category ) { $no_link_category_ids = [ 283, 286 ]; if ( in_array( $category->term_id, $no_link_category_ids, false ) ) { unset( $attributes['href'] ); } return $attributes; }, 10, 2 );

This version will remove the links for all categories:

<?php add_filter( 'category_list_link_attributes', function ( $attributes, $category ) { unset( $attributes['href'] ); return $attributes; }, 10, 2 );

Have a great day!

Mat Lipe
Cain Lazenby
9 months and 2 weeks ago

Your right – must have been cache.

I’ll also try your solution for no follow hyper links.

You have been a champion 🙂

Gotta run – but Big thank you for awesome support.
Cain Lazenby
9 months and 1 week ago

Hey Mat,

so we have launched the website and it has been well accepted and are now starting to come up for air and just improve refine.

We used that feature of yours to turn off all top accordion links but it seems to lock off some items which actually have something to see.

could you take a look at this page and tell us what we are doing wrong?

The menu on this page has been set to pull all items under the category “Live” on this page as example “Health and Wellbeing is not actively clickable: https://www.devonport.tas.gov.au/live/facilities-services/sports-grounds/

and the same when you get to the page: https://www.devonport.tas.gov.au/live/your-community/health-wellbeing/

I suspect in the rush to meet deadline with haven’t thought this through or haven’t setup the right way.

could you please take a look and advise.

cheers

Cain
Mat Lipe
9 months and 1 week ago

Hi Cain,

Looking at your site, it appear you may have used the the version which turns off all category links in the menu. If you would like to turn off just particular ones, please use the version which has no_link_category_ids to specify which categories you would like to disable.

If you would like to simply turn off linking of all top level categories which have child categories, an alternative approach would be use the following custom JavaScript to make all parent categories open/close the accordions below them when clicking. This will disable the links and also make then interact when clicked:

jQuery( function($){ setTimeout( function(){ for( var $widget_id in asm_pro.enabled_accordions ){ var el = $( document.getElementById( $widget_id ) ) if( asm_pro.enabled_accordions[$widget_id]['include_parent'] ){ parents = el.find( '> ul > li .has_children' ).has( 'ul' ); } else { parents = el.find( 'ul .has_children' ).has( 'ul' ); } parents.each( function(){ var _parent_menu = $( this ); _parent_menu.on( 'click', '> a', function( ev ){ ev.preventDefault(); asm_pro.accordion._expand_sub_menu( _parent_menu, _parent_menu.find( '> span' ) ); } ); } ); } }, 1000 ); });

Have a great night!

Mat Lipe
Cain Lazenby
9 months and 1 week ago

Hey Mat – think I solved my last question – I didn’t have it set to all categories..
Apologies if you have started looking at this one.

You can close this item.
🙂

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