Customizing The Categpry Tree Helper In Adminproductcontroller

[Rulian]

Lets say my category tree is like this:

├Men
|  ├ Shirts
|  └ Pants
└Women	
   ├ Dresses	
   └ Tops

In AdminProductController's default view (listing products), I'd like to customize the category tree helper (above the list, at the top of the page) in order to achieve such a behaviour:

1. Only shows "1st level" categories (ie. in our case: 'Men' and 'Women')
2. When a category is selected, the controller would list each and every product from the category and also all sub-categories.

Example: I check "Men" and the AdminProductController lists all shirts and pants

 

Does anyone ever worked on such a thing ?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

 

[Rulian]

Ok, I went the SQL way...

In order to display product from subcategories, in AdminProductController.php (approx. line190) I modified the _join line:

        if ($join_category) {
            $this->_join .= ' INNER JOIN `'._DB_PREFIX_.'category_product` cp ON (cp.`id_product` = a.`id_product` AND cp.`id_category` = '.(int)$this->_category->id.') ';
            $this->_select .= ' , cp.`position`, ';
        }

...and added another join in order to retrieve sub categories:

        if ($join_category) {
            //$this->_join .= ' INNER JOIN `'._DB_PREFIX_.'category_product` cp ON (cp.`id_product` = a.`id_product` AND cp.`id_category` = '.(int)$this->_category->id.') ';
	    $this->_join .= ' INNER JOIN `'._DB_PREFIX_.'category_product` cp ON ( cp.`id_product` = a.`id_product` )';
	    $this->_join .= ' JOIN `'._DB_PREFIX_.'category` c2 ON ( cp.`id_category` = c2.`id_category` AND c2.id_parent = '.(int)$this->_category->id.') ';
            $this->_select .= ' , cp.`position`, ';
        }

Edited March 18, 2016 by Rulian (see edit history)