How Do I group entries by Category and retain fixed Category Order?

Question

I found a solution to grouping entries by category here which is working perfectly but I need the categories in the order they were arranged in the categories tab in the Admin panel.

Currently, the categories are outputting in the order they were entered but they've been re-ordered since then.

I tried using .fixedOrder(true) in a few places but nothing good happened. This is the current code:

{% set entries = craft.entries({
  section: 'projects'
}).find() %}

{% for category, catEntries in entries|group('projectCategory.first().title') %}
    <h4 class="sc">{{ category }}</h4>

    <ul class="no-bullet">
        {% for entry in catEntries %}
            <li><a href="{{ entry.url }}">{{ entry.title }}</a></li>
        {% endfor %} {# -- // for entry -- #}
    </ul>
{% endfor %}{# -- // for category -- #}

Answer 1

Twig is a templating language, and in my opinion this is pushing what it's comfortably meant to do. You might want to consider handling the heavy lifting w/ PHP by writing a small business logic plugin, or take a look at third party plugins like Micheal Rog's SuperSort to help out.

That being said, if you want to go plugin-less the following should work (note that you'll need to change "myProjectCategoryHandle" to the actual handle of the category group used for the projectCategory field):

{# Pull entries, group by category field "projectCategory" #}
{% set entries = craft.entries.section( 'projects' ) | group( 'projectCategory.first().title' ) %}

{# Get all category titles for the category group "yourProjectCategoryHandle" #}
{% set categories = craft.categories.group( 'yourProjectCategoryHandle' ).titles %}

{# Loop through the category title array #}
{% for category in categories %}

    {# Get the entries grouped under the current category title (if any) #}
    {% set catEntries = entries[ '' ~ category ] | default( [] ) %}

    {# Print the category title and entries #}
    {% if catEntries | length %}
    <h4 class="sc">{{ category }}</h4>
    <ul class="no-bullet">
        {% for entry in catEntries %}
            <li><a href="{{ entry.url }}">{{ entry.title }}</a></li>
        {% endfor %} {# -- // for entry -- #}
    </ul>
    {% endif %}

{% endfor %}

Answer 2

Depending on your needs, you may be able to ditch the group() filter and sort your list however you need.

Get all your entries and categories. Then use the relatedTo functions to filter those lists.

{% set categories = craft.categories.group('projectCategories') %}
{% set projects = craft.entries.section('projects').order('title').limit(null) %}

{% for category in categories.relatedTo(projects) %}
  <h3>{{ category.title }}</h3>

  <ul class="no-bullet">
    {% for entry in projects.relatedTo(category) %}
      <li><a href="{{ entry.url }}">{{ entry.title }}</a></li>
    {% endfor %}
  </ul>
{% endfor %}

One caveat might be that this solution pulls all your entries and categories. This worked for my situation where I had around 50 categories and under 200 entries. I also knew these numbers wouldn't get bigger in the future.

This also makes a few other assumptions too...

• You DON'T need to show entries with NO related categories like this:

Category A

• entry
• entry

Category B

• entry

(No Categories)

• entry

Also, your entries can show up under EACH category they're related to, instead of just the FIRST category like your original code. For example, if Entry 1 has Category A and Category B selected, you'll get this:

Category A

• entry 1

Category B

• entry 1