How to get categories list for multiple stores on same page?

Question

I have a website which is separated into two stores: Mens and Womens. I am trying to list the categories of both stores in the footer template which is shared by both sites.

Ideally I would have:

MENS

• -MensCat1
• -MensCat2
• -MensCat3
• -MensCat4

WOMENS

• -WomensCat1
• -WomensCat2
• -WomensCat3
• -WomensCat4

etc.

I can pull the categories of a particular store with the following:

$children = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load(306)->getChildrenCategories();
                foreach($children as $child){
                    echo $child->getName() . " " . $child->getUrl() . "<br/>";
                }

where 306 is the id of the Mens Root Category.

That will give me

• -MensCat1
• -MensCat2
• -MensCat3
• -MensCat4

The problem is the URLs will be http://{{base_url}}/womens/MensCat1 if I am in the womens store.

Is there a better way to do this so that the URLs are relative to the stores they belong to, or to force the store url to change in the getUrl request?

Answer 1

To get the base url from another store there are, as far as I can see, 2 options.

Build the url yourself: building the links yourself by retrieving a specific Store's url and prepending it

$base_url = Mage::app()->getStore($storeId)->getBaseUrl(Mage_Core_Model_Store::URL_TYPE_LINK);

And then concatenating the category URL to it.

[EDIT: second solution is better (don't use first)]

Store emulation: Run a part of your code emulated under the mensstore to retrieve the right categories and URL's

$appEmulation = Mage::getSingleton('core/app_emulation');
$store_id = 1; // The ID if your men store
$initialEnvironmentInfo = $appEmulation->startEnvironmentEmulation($store_id);

$children = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load(306)->getChildrenCategories();
foreach($children as $child){
   echo $child->getName() . " " . $child->getUrl() . "<br/>";
}

$appEmulation->stopEnvironmentEmulation($initialEnvironmentInfo);