ExpressionEngine: Single entry template - php

Question

I have created a channel called credit cards. So I have created a template group called credit-cards with an index which loops through all the credit cards and output them. This aspect works fine, here is my code for the index.html file inside credit-cards.group folder:
{exp:channel:categories category_group="1" style="linear" dynamic="no"}
<div class="card-list tab" id="{category_url_title}">
<h2 class="category-title">{category_name} Credit Cards</h2>
<div class="cards">
{exp:channel:entries channel="credit_cards" category="{category_id}" dynamic="no"}
<article>
<h4>{title}<span class="web-exclusive">MBNA Website Exclusive</span></h4>
<ul>
<li class="col-img">
<img width="116" height="84" alt="MBNA Platinum Credit Card" src="../lib-ui/img/cards/core/core_116x84/mbna_platinum_card_116x84.png">
</li>
<li class="col-bt">{balance_transfer_rate}</li>
<li class="col-purchases">{purchases_rate}</li>
<li class="col-features">{key_features}</li>
<li class="col-apply">
<a rel="blank" class="btn btn-success" href="{apply_url}">
Apply Now<span class="hide"> for the {title}</span>
</a>
<a class="cta" href="{url_title_path='credit-cards'}">
Learn more<span class="hide"> about the {title}</span>
</a>
<label class="mbna-credit-card checkbox" for="compare_1">
<span tabindex="0">
<input type="checkbox" value="mbna-credit-card" id="compare_1">
</span>
<span class="hide"> Add the {title} to </span>Compare
</label>
</li>
</ul>
<p class="rep-ex">{representative_example}</p>
</article>
{/exp:channel:entries}
</div>
</div>
{/exp:channel:categories}
So my question is this. Say I have a credit card called visa credit card, the url that is being generated for it is /credit-cards/visa-credit-card. When I click this link though I just get my index page again. I have created another template file inside my group called single.html that has the code to output a single credit card. This looks like so:
<h1>Credit Card Page</h1>
{exp:channel:entries channel="credit_cards" limit="1"}
{if no_results}
{redirect="404"}
{/if}
So how do I get it to use this template file instead for a single entry?

Answer 1

This is actually a pretty easy to shore up issue. What you have going on is that line 5 of your code has no way to tell if it should limit the entry information. With dynamic='no', you've said "EE, you don't need to use the URL here to figure out what entries to limit this by"
My suggestion would be the following code:
{if segment_2 == ""}
{exp:channel:categories category_group="1" style="linear" dynamic="no"}
<div class="card-list tab" id="{category_url_title}">
<h2 class="category-title">{category_name} Credit Cards</h2>
<div class="cards">
{exp:channel:entries channel="credit_cards" category="{category_id}" dynamic="no" disable="category_fields|member_data|pagination|trackbacks"}
<article>
<h4>{title}<span class="web-exclusive">MBNA Website Exclusive</span></h4>
<ul>
<li class="col-img">
<img width="116" height="84" alt="MBNA Platinum Credit Card" src="../lib-ui/img/cards/core/core_116x84/mbna_platinum_card_116x84.png">
</li>
<li class="col-bt">{balance_transfer_rate}</li>
<li class="col-purchases">{purchases_rate}</li>
<li class="col-features">{key_features}</li>
<li class="col-apply">
<a rel="blank" class="btn btn-success" href="{apply_url}">
Apply Now<span class="hide"> for the {title}</span>
</a>
<a class="cta" href="{url_title_path='credit-cards'}">
Learn more<span class="hide"> about the {title}</span>
</a>
<label class="mbna-credit-card checkbox" for="compare_1">
<span tabindex="0">
<input type="checkbox" value="mbna-credit-card" id="compare_1">
</span>
<span class="hide"> Add the {title} to </span>Compare
</label>
</li>
</ul>
<p class="rep-ex">{representative_example}</p>
</article>
{/exp:channel:entries}
</div>
</div>
{/exp:channel:categories}
{/if}
{if segment_2}
{exp:channel:entries channel="credit_cards" limit="1" disable="category_fields|member_data|pagination|trackbacks"}
<article>
<h4>{title}<span class="web-exclusive">MBNA Website Exclusive</span></h4>
<ul>
<li class="col-img">
<img width="116" height="84" alt="MBNA Platinum Credit Card" src="../lib-ui/img/cards/core/core_116x84/mbna_platinum_card_116x84.png">
</li>
<li class="col-bt">{balance_transfer_rate}</li>
<li class="col-purchases">{purchases_rate}</li>
<li class="col-features">{key_features}</li>
<li class="col-apply">
<a rel="blank" class="btn btn-success" href="{apply_url}">
Apply Now<span class="hide"> for the {title}</span>
</a>
<a class="cta" href="{url_title_path='credit-cards'}">
Learn more<span class="hide"> about the {title}</span>
</a>
<label class="mbna-credit-card checkbox" for="compare_1">
<span tabindex="0">
<input type="checkbox" value="mbna-credit-card" id="compare_1">
</span>
<span class="hide"> Add the {title} to </span>Compare
</label>
</li>
</ul>
<p class="rep-ex">{representative_example}</p>
</article>
{/exp:channel:entries}
{/if}
Mind you, this isn't 100% accurate, as I stripped out your exp:channel:categories tag, but this should get you a result that limits based on a shortened URL like you've specified.

Answer 2

So how do I get it to use this template file instead for a single
entry?
Instead of:
{url_title_path='credit-cards'}
Use
{title_permalink="credit-cards/single"}

Answer 3

There are two primary ways you can use the template 'credit-cards/single' for the VISA credit card category entry.
First Option
'credit-cards/index' template would have:
{if segment_2 != ""}
{embed="credit-cards/single" entry_id="{entry_id}"}
{/if}
'credit-cards/single' template would have:
<h1>Credit Card Page</h1>
{exp:channel:entries channel="credit_cards" limit="1" entry_id="{embed:entry_id}"}
{if no_results}
{redirect="404"}
{/if}
... your code ...
{/exp:channel:entries}
Second Option
Rename 'credit-cards/single' to 'credit-cards/company' (or something more SEO relevant) and use it the default EE way.
'credit-cards/index' template would stay the same.
'credit-cards/company' template would have:
<h1>Credit Card Page</h1>
{exp:channel:entries channel="credit_cards" limit="1" entry_id="{entry_id}"}
{if no_results}
{redirect="404"}
{/if}
... your code ...
{/exp:channel:entries}
In this second option the url would be site.com/credit-cards/company/visa-credit-card
I hope that helps. Let me know if I've misunderstood anything.

Answer 4

You'll probably want something like this in the index template:
{if segment_2 != ""}
{exp:channel:entries channel="credit_cards"}
[single entry code...]
{/exp:channel:entries}
{if:else}
{exp:channel:categories category_group="1" style="linear" dynamic="no"}
[your code for all credit cards]
{/exp:channel:entries}
{/if}
What's happening is the URL /credit-cards/visa-credit-card is loading the index template of the credit-cards template group, but the visa-credit-card URL title at the end tells ExpressionEngine to treat the template as a single entry page.
But the the dynamic="no" in your exp:channel:entries tag is why EE is still showing all the credit cards on that page. This free video about dynamic="off" might explain it better.

Answer 5

Thanks for all the great suggestions. I used the pages modules in the end which allows you to specify which template to use.