The Category Page in a SharePoint Blog Site
In this blog post, I’ll not only go over how to fix the category.aspx page when it breaks, but how to associate an image with each blog category, and have that image displayed each time you view that category’s page.
On each site created using the Blog Site template in SharePoint, there is list for blog categories. On the left side of the Blog’s main page, the categories are listed, along with a button to add a new category. The default categories are Category 1, 2, and 3. When one of these category names is clicked, you are taken to category.aspx. This page automatically filters your blog entries by the name of the category that was clicked. Unfortunately, it appears that any time you go into edit mode on this category.aspx page, and modify / mess with the web part view, the automatic filter functionality is broken.
This can be fixed using the Query String (URL) filter web part:
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Add the Query String (URL) filter web part to the category.aspx page.
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Query String Parameter name = Category
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Create a connection from the filter web part to the Posts web part, to the posts’ category field.
How To Associate An Image With Each Blog Category
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Create a picture library
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In this image library, create a new column, called “Category”, as a lookup field to the Category list.
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If you haven’t already, go to the category.aspx page and do steps 1 through 3 in the first part of this blog.
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Upload your images, and associate each image with a category.
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Create a blank web part page on this site. It doesn’t matter which library it’s in, because you can delete it when you’re done.
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Open this page in SP Designer, and click in a zone, and add a data view web part. Pick your image library where the category-associated images are stored.
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In the data source library pane on the right, click the drop-down on your image library, and choose “Show data”. Select only the Name field, and choose to insert selected field as… Multiple item view.
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Put your aspx page in split screen in SPD, so you can see the code. Select the first cell that contains the name of the first image in the library.
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In the code, within the <td> (that cell), paste this:
<img border=”0″ src=”{@FileRef}” /> -
Then, this will display only the images in your table.
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Save, and go open this web part page in your browser. Export the web part.
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Go to the category.aspx page. Import the web part there. It will look nice in the Right zone.
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Create a new web part connection from your Query String URL filter to this new image library web part. For the filter field, choose “Category”.
Done! Now, each time you click on a category page, you see the image associated with that category.
Laura- I am trying to use the Blog template to fix an issue that has come up. Our Blog template works when you click on the various categories on the Quick Launch to display the first 10 posts in that category. However, when you click on the arrow on the bottom of the page to get to the next 10 posts (11-20), it says There are no posts in this category even though I know that there are more posts. I’ve tried to change the Item Limit through the view of the Posts web part, but that just breaks the whole category.aspx page. Any ideas on how to get it to display the next page of posts? Colleen
I’m trying to implement the QueryString filter web part you described but not having any luck. It’s very basic to setup but it isn’t working. Here’s what we have – Query String web part – Filter Name: Category, Query String Parameter Name: Category, check radio button to send first value. A few things I noticed: the Query String parameter is actually called “Name” – does that matter? Also – the Category shows up in the web part view as a checked field but does not display on the web part at all. Ideas?
To post a solution for Rebecca’s problem. I did the following to get it to work for me: 1) Used whatever is before the =, for me it was Name also, as your Query String Parameter Name 2) Make sure the View used for the web part has “Show all items in this view” selected in the filter section Hope this helps someone else. Thanks Laura for this blog.
actually you can add a Parameter in Category pages. Select “Query String” as source, Variable to “Name”. and then you can use this parameter in setting up the filter. You don’t need to set up this web part to fix the filter function!!
Thanks Jessie, good to know!
Doesn’t work for me…
That post is from 8 years ago. Not surprised it doesn’t work anymore. 😉