Manufacturers redirecting to category page and not to every manufacturer items

[escozul]

I have a page right here: www.coffeelife.gr?online=1 (you need to add the ?online=1 to bypass the comming soon screen)

I use a manufacturers module that scrolls the manufacturers and when you click on one it redirects you to its page. However when you are browsing a category and you click on a manufacturer it doesn't show the products of that manufacturer, rather the category filtered by that manufacturer. In the module template here is the link that takes you there:

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$link = JROUTE::_('index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=category&virtuemart_manufacturer_id=' . $manufacturer->virtuemart_manufacturer_id);

From what I've seen that's the usual link for that type of redirection. However this way more ofthen than not you get a "no product found in this category" when you click on a manufacturer. I need to click and not filter the category by manufacturer. I want to click and show all the products of the manufacturer regardless the category I'm currently viewing. How do I change the link to make it disregard the category and view all products from all categories for that manufacturer? I tried removing the $view=category part but it didn't work.

Thanks for any help

(I was unsure on what forume I should post this topic so if I made a mistake please correct it and move my topic to the proper forum. Thank you)

[balai]

If you like check the Custom Filters extension
The category and the manufacturer filters are in the FREE version
http://breakdesigns.net/extensions/custom-filters

[escozul]

Well TBH I managed to get it working excellent!

I am aware of that extension. It's really cool, but mostly comprehensible by people who are "computer fluent" (so to speak). Whereas I need something that is "fool proof"! You click a manufacturer's image and bam! you see their products. No matter where you are in the website. I see that most virtuemart based websites when you click any manufacturers module you go to the manufacturer's description and then their products. I needed something new.

In any case what I did was to change the link in the manufacturer's module template which was

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$link = JROUTE::_('index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=category&virtuemart_manufacturer_id=' . $manufacturer->virtuemart_manufacturer_id);
and changed it into

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$link = JROUTE::_('index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=category&virtuemart_category_id=0&virtuemart_manufacturer_id=' . $manufacturer->virtuemart_manufacturer_id);
as described in http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=98224.0
That did it! Now whenever you click on a manufacturer's image on the module it always takes you to the all products page which I made in a hidden menu. I will also fix the template to not display categories and it's complete.
So happy now! 

[escozul]

I now come faced with another challenge though

In the template to display the manufacturers I removed the code that displays the child categories and all is well.
I also managed to add text that displays the name of the manufacturer. It seems that manufacturer is treated like a category so this

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$this->category->category_name actually returns the name of the manufacturer.
So first thing that my template displays is this:

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<h3 class="module-title"><span><span><?php echo $this->category->category_name; ?>&nbsp;</span></span></h3>
It should display the category title but instead it displays the manufacturer's title since we view all the manufacturer's products.
Why the "nbsp;" well because I want to add the manufacturer's image after the title. I can't seem to be able to do that though.

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$this->category->file_url_thumb or similar attempts proved futile!

Any idea how to make the manufacturer's image display when viewing all his products?

[tonis]

Thanks for this super clear solution! 

[Roger Lightening]

Thank you! This has saved me hours.