Magento Custom Category Listing Block

Here I wanted to show you how to build a custom Magento category listing block that you can use on your own Magento store. We will go over each step at getting a category listing of your magneto categories and even a sub category listing.

Here is the finished code for your new category listing block.

<?php
$cats = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load(2)->getChildren();
$catIds = explode(',',$cats);
?>
<ul>
<?php foreach($catIds as $catId): ?>
	<li>
    	<?php
			$category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($catId);
			echo $category->getName();

			$subCats = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($category->getId())->getChildren();
			$subCatIds = explode(',',$subCats);
		?>
            <?php if(count($subCatIds) > 1):?>
                <ul>
                <?php foreach($subCatIds as $subCat) :?>
                    <li>
                    <?php
                        $subCategory = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($subCat);
                        echo $subCategory->getName();
                    ?>
                    </li>
                <?php endforeach;?>
                </ul>
            <?php endif; ?>
    </li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>

And The XML Block Code:

<block type="catalog/navigation" name="catalog.category" template="catalog/navigation/category.phtml" />

NOTE:
After loading each category you have a whole array of different attributes you can use. If you wanted to make each category listing be a link, simply use the getUrl() function in a similar fashion:

<a href="<?php echo $category->getUrl()?>">
	<?php echo $category->getName()?>
</a>

Enjoy everyone!
Devin R. Olsen