Sorting categories in Magento according to the position in admin - magento

Question

I would like to know how to sort this list of categories (I followed this tutorial here http://www.devinrolsen.com/magento-custom-category-listing-block/) in magento by position in the admin panel? Currently it is sorted by id
<?php
$cats = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load(3)->getChildren();
$catIds = explode(',',$cats);
?>
<ul>
<?php foreach($catIds as $catId): ?>
<li>
<?php
$category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($catId);
echo '<a href="' . $category->getUrl() . '">';
echo $category->getName() . '</a>';
?>
</li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>

Answer 1

You're making way too much work for yourself trying to deal with IDs and stuff. The following is already sorted by position as standard.
<?php
$cats = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load(3)->getChildrenCategories();
?>
<ul>
<?php foreach($cats as $category): ?>
<li>
<?php echo $category->getName() ?>
</li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>

Answer 2

If you want to sort the categories by the position created in adminhtml you can then, since catalog/category is an instance of Mage_Catalog_Model_Resource_Category_Collection, make a query where you specify what you want to select, filter and/or sort.
The case here is getting categories from catalog_category_entity select only the name, filtering after the id and sort the query on the position.
<?php
$subcategories = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->getCollection()
->addAttributeToSelect('name')
->addFieldToFilter('parent_id', $categoryId)
->addAttributeToSort('position', ASC);
?>

Answer 3

This is what I did:
$allCategories = Mage::getModel('catalog/category');
$CategoriesTree = $allCategories->getTreeModel()->load();
$categoriesIds =
$CategoriesTree->getCollection()->addAttributeToSort('position', 'asc')->getAllIds();
after to retrieve the categories:
$categoryChildren = array();
if ($categoriesIds) {
foreach ($categoriesIds as $categoryId){
$category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($categoryId);
$categoryChildren[] = $category;
}
}
and then:
// Sort by position
function comparePosition($a, $b) {
if ($a->position == $b->position)
return 0;
return ($a->position > $b->position) ? 1 : -1;
}
usort($categoryChildren, 'comparePosition');
Inverting the return (1 and -1) would obviously change the order.
It worked just fine for me.
Hope it helps someone.

Answer 4

I strongly suggest to lok here first http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/magento-for-dev-part-8-varien-data-collections and also other articles in knowledge base are a must read for any magento dev.
<?php
$cats = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->addAttributeToSort('yourfield', 'desc')->getCollection()->getChildren();
$catIds = explode(',',$cats);
?>

Answer 5

<?php
$model_category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($_category->getEntityId());
$sub_categories = $model_category->getCollection();
$sub_categories -> addAttributeToSelect('url_key')
-> addAttributeToSelect('name')
-> addAttributeToFilter('is_active',1)
-> addIdFilter($model_category->getChildren())
-> setOrder('position', 'ASC')
-> load();
?>
<?php foreach($sub_categories->getData() as $each_subcat): ?>
<?php $model_subcat = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($each_subcat['entity_id']); ?>
<?php endforeach; ?>