It’s a pretty common requirement to show a list of sub categories inside a parent category page, instead of products. Who knows why this wasn’t a standard function of Magento, but thankfully there’s a simple workaround.
So let’s begin at the top.
1. In Magento admin navigate to CMS>Static Blocks
2. Click “Add New Block” at the top right
3. Create the new static block with the following details:
Block Title: Sub Category Listing
Identifier: Sub Category Listing
Status: Enabled
Content:
{{block type="catalog/navigation" template="catalog/navigation/subcategory_listing.phtml"}}4. Click Save Block in the top right
Display mode: Static Block only
5. Navigate to the parent category under Catalog>Manage Categories and within the Display Settings Tab set to the following:
CMS Block:Sub Category Listing
Is Anchor:No
6. Click Save Category in the top right
7. Create a new file called subcategory_listing.phtml in:
app/design/frontend/yourpackagename/yourthemename/template/catalog/navigation/
Containing the following code:
getCurrentCategory();
$_categories = $_category->getCollection()->addAttributeToSelect(array('url_key','name','image','all_children','is_anchor','description'))
->addAttributeToFilter('is_active', 1)
->addIdFilter($_category->getChildren())
->setOrder('position', 'ASC')
->joinUrlRewrite();
?>
getIsActive()): ?>
debug(), null, 'mylogfile.log'); ?>
htmlEscape($_category->getName()) ?>