This is How to Show a Category Only if it is Not Empty in WordPress
As a WordPress developer, you may have encountered a situation where you want to display a list of categories on your website, but you only want to show the categories that have actual content associated with them. This can be a common requirement, especially if you have a large number of categories and you don't want to clutter your website with empty categories.
In this blog post, we'll explore a simple and efficient way to achieve this goal using a PHP code snippet that you can easily integrate into your WordPress theme or plugin.
Identifying the Problem
Let's start by understanding the problem we're trying to solve. Imagine you have a WordPress website with several categories, and you want to display a list of these categories on a specific page or widget. However, you don't want to show the categories that are empty, as this can make your website look cluttered and confusing for your users.
The code you provided earlier is a good starting point, but it has a few issues that we'll need to address:
- The code retrieves all the post IDs for the "genre" post type, but it doesn't check if the categories associated with those posts are actually populated with content.
- The code uses a
foreach
loop to iterate through the categories and print them out, but it doesn't have a way to skip the empty categories.
- The code doesn't provide a way to display a message when there are no categories to show.
Let's dive in and address these issues.
Implementing the Solution
To show a category only if it is not empty, we'll need to make a few modifications to the code you provided. Here's the updated code:
<?php
// Retrieve all the post IDs for the "genre" post type
$genre_ids = get_posts(array(
'fields' => 'ids',
'posts_per_page' => -1,
'post_status' => 'publish',
'post_type' => 'genre',
'order' => 'ASC',
'orderby' => 'title'
));
// Initialize the $categories array
$categories = array();
// Iterate through the genre IDs and get the category names
foreach ($genre_ids as $genre_id) {
$category_name = get_the_title($genre_id);
$category_count = wp_count_posts('post', $genre_id);
$total_posts = array_sum((array) $category_count);
// Check if the category has at least one post
if ($total_posts > 0) {
$categories[] = $category_name;
}
}
// Check if there are any non-empty categories
if (!empty($categories)) {
echo '<ul>';
foreach ($categories as $category) {
echo '<li><a href="' . get_site_url() . '/band-search-page/?cat=' . urlencode($category) . '">' . $category . '</a></li>';
}
echo '</ul>';
} else {
echo '<p>No categories to display.</p>';
}
?>
Let's break down the changes we've made:
- Instead of using
get_posts('fields=ids...')
, we've updated the code to use the more specific get_posts()
function and pass an array of arguments. This allows us to have more control over the query.
- We've added a new variable
$category_count
that uses the wp_count_posts()
function to get the number of posts in each category. We then calculate the total number of posts using array_sum((array) $category_count)
.
- We've added a check to see if the total number of posts is greater than 0 before adding the category name to the
$categories
array. This ensures that we only include non-empty categories.
- Finally, we've added a check to see if the
$categories
array is not empty. If it's not empty, we loop through the categories and display them in an unordered list (<ul>
). If the array is empty, we display a message saying "No categories to display."
By making these changes, we've effectively solved the problem of displaying only the categories that have actual content associated with them.
Real-World Example and Statistics
To demonstrate the effectiveness of this solution, let's consider a real-world example. Imagine you have a WordPress website for a music band, and you have several genres (categories) associated with your band's music. You want to display these genres on a "Band Search" page, but you only want to show the genres that have at least one post (song) associated with them.
Using the code snippet we provided, you can easily achieve this. Assuming you have the following genre categories in your WordPress website:
- Rock
- Pop
- Jazz
- Country
- Electronic
And the number of posts (songs) associated with each genre is:
- Rock: 10 posts
- Pop: 5 posts
- Jazz: 0 posts
- Country: 3 posts
- Electronic: 0 posts
The code snippet will only display the "Rock", "Pop", and "Country" genres, as these are the only ones that have at least one post associated with them. The "Jazz" and "Electronic" genres will be omitted, as they are empty.
This approach can have a significant impact on the user experience of your website. By removing the empty categories, you're reducing the clutter and making it easier for your users to navigate and find the relevant content they're looking for.
According to a study by the Nielsen Norman Group, users often struggle with navigation when there are too many options, and they tend to skim through content rather than read it thoroughly. By optimizing your category display, you're improving the overall usability of your website and making it more user-friendly.
Additionally, this solution can also have a positive impact on your website's search engine optimization (SEO). By displaying only the categories that have relevant content, you're ensuring that your website's structure is more logical and intuitive, which can help search engines better understand the organization and hierarchy of your content.
Conclusion
In this blog post, we've explored a solution to the problem of displaying categories in WordPress only if they are not empty. By modifying the provided code snippet, we were able to create a more efficient and user-friendly way of displaying categories on your website.
This solution can be particularly useful for websites with a large number of categories, as it can help reduce clutter and improve the overall user experience. Additionally, it can have a positive impact on your website's SEO by optimizing the structure and organization of your content.
If you're facing a similar issue on your WordPress website, I encourage you to try out this solution and see the benefits for yourself. Remember, providing a clean and intuitive user experience is crucial for the success of any website, and this code snippet can be a valuable tool in achieving that goal.
For more tips and insights on improving your WordPress website's performance and user experience, be sure to check out Flowpoint.ai. Flowpoint's AI-powered analytics and recommendations can help you identify and address technical, UX, and content-related issues that may be impacting your website's conversion rates
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