joomla category list override to add id to each list item

Question

I am trying to add a custom style to each list item within Joomla!s Category List output which gives me the following html

<div class="blog">
  <div class="cat-children">    
    <ul>
      <li class="first">
        <span class="item-title"><a href="/hyt-hand-held-license-free">HYT</a>
        </span>
      </li>
      <li></li>
    </ul>
  </div>
</div>

I think what I need to do is add something like:

<li id="myID<?php echo $this->item->catid; ?> ">

The trouble is I can't find which file to override. I have looked in /templates/mytemplate/html/com_content/category/ as well as /components/com_content/views/category/tmpl yet none of the files seem to have a an unordered list within them that relates to cat-chidren.

So my first question is which file should I edit? And my second is what is the best syntax of this->item->[correct'Method'?] (is method the correct term or variable, I'm a little shaky on this!) to use so that each list item will have an id="myID[nameofarticle/subcatagory]"

Answer 1

You'll see cat-children in /components/com_content/views/category/tmpl/default.php

The ul is in another loaded subtemplate, loadTemplate('children'); ?> , i.e.

/components/com_content/views/category/tmpl/default_children.php

If you want to modify the li class you could stick something like this at line 26 (of your override not core file - but fine to just test on a core file)

<?php $class = ' class="cmyId' . $this->escape($child->title) . '"';?>

That would make each li appear as

So this

<li<?php echo $class; ?>>
    <?php $class = ''; ?>

becomes this

<?php $class =  ' class="cmyId' . $this->escape($child->title) . '"';?>
    <li<?php echo $class; ?>>
    <?php //$class = ''; ?>

Have tested it out on a 2.5 installation.