How do I set up an article view that validates both article and category?

Question

I'm working with Drupal 7, and trying to get a view set up that will display blog categories and articles based on their category.

The category is a Taxonomy - Blog Categories - let's assume it's:

• rock-and-roll
• pop
• jazz
• other

I'm hoping for the following path behavior:

1. /blog/ should list all articles.
2. /blog/rock-and-roll/ should list articles that have the rock-and-roll taxonomy set.
3. /blog/non-existant-term/ should show page not found
4. /blog/rock-and-roll/real-article-title should show the relevant article
5. /blog/rock-and-roll/fake-article-title should show page not found

I've tried a ton of different combinations of relationships and contextual filters, but I just can't get it to work. The closest I can get is where all of the 'proper' urls work... I get category lists, or I get article displays... but I also still get a page when I go to a path with either an invalid taxonomy term or an invalid article name.

It seems like it should be something with the Contextual Filter validation stuff... but anything I've tried with like validation based on a taxonomy or whatever just stops anything from working. I no longer get listings or articles properly.

I'm not sure what other information to include - I'm trying to avoid adding any modules (because I've basically been told not to) and I'm trying to avoid making it multiple views.

-------- EDIT --------

I've tried some of the stuff suggested by prkos but I'm not having any more success. I've attached some screenshots of my configs... with a little bit of censored stuff. It probably doesn't matter, but I'm expected to be circumspect. The original URL/Taxonomy I used isn't actually the final stuff, it was just example... so there might be some mismatch there.

So, with these changes in place... now if I go to url/news2/ I get a Page not found. url/news2/all seems to work, but then url/news2/validterm doesn't work. validterm doesn't get any results in the view preview thing either... where it did before.

Answer 1

You can make the Validation through the Contextual filter.

When dealing with 2 Contextual filters it's always best to first fully configure each independently, make sure they work before you add both to work together.

1. First create the Category Contextual. Since you want to use term names, and not term IDs (only term IDs are stored in ER fields), you have to add the Relationship first for the ER field (require it if you want to show only the results that have this field filled in).

2. Once you add the Relationship you can add the Term Name Contextual fiter, it will use the Relationship, and configure it:
   When the filter value is NOT available
   Provide default value
   Taxonomy term ID from URL
   Load default filter from node page, that's good for related taxonomy blocks
   Limit terms by vocabulary
   Category
   Filter to items that share any term
   When the filter value IS available or a default is provided
   Specify validation criteria
   Taxonomy term name
   Category
   Transform dashes in URL to spaces in term name filter values
   Action to take if filter value does not validate
   Hide view

   Adjust the Case options, and any other option to your needs.

3. Test that it's working by entering a name of your category into the View Preview field jazz and checking the results only show nodes with that term. (Preview only tests that Views filtering is working correctly, but it doesn't test passing of the argument to Views because you're feeding them manually, that needs to be tested on a live page.)

   Test single word categories first, if they work test complex ones with dashes and adjust the settings if necessary until you get the desired result.

   Test that you can bypass it by entering all into Preview, it should show all Views results (you can change it to something else in Contextual settings).

   Entering a wrong word (notmycategory) should display No query was run in Views, which means you would get Page not found in live conditions.

4. Now create the second Contextual, for the Title. You don't have to remove the first one to test the second one without interference.

   Bypass the first filter by always entering the all as the first argument into Preview. Once you add the second Contextual you will have to enter two arguments into Preview to test it (all/some-title, or jazz/all, or all/all to bypass both contextual filters).

   When the filter value is NOT available
   Provide default value
   Raw value from URL
   3
   When the filter value IS available or a default is provided
   Specify validation criteria
   Basic validation
   Action to take if filter value does not validate
   Show "Page not found"

   Adjust the Case and other options to your needs.

5. Test the second Contextual by entering various titles in your appropriate Case in Preview: all/my-title and entering the wrong title all/notmytitle to get the "No query was run".

6. Test that the two Contextual filters are working together, although if they work on their own there shouldn't be any problems combining them (jazz/some-title, notcategory/title, jazz/not-title, etc.)

7. Once it's working in Views Preview, test everything on the live page to make sure arguments are passed through correctly.

Once all this is said, if all you need is path control in your site you can do that with Pathauto module to create aliases for your nodes based on categories and their titles.

Views only creates lists of content, it doesn't affect the core paths. You will still have the node/ID paths active on your system, and any path aliases you might have. You should take care not to create duplicate paths for the same content, as it can be considered duplicate content by search engines (it dilutes in any case), and it's confusing to users.