Using IF with Ditto Placeholders in Evolution CMS

This donor case is a good reminder that placeholder-driven logic in Evolution CMS depends on when each piece of output is parsed. Ditto may already know the total number of pages, but IF cannot compare that value correctly if the placeholder has not been resolved at the moment the condition runs.

Example Pattern

[!Ditto? &tpl=`news_tpl` &parents=`2` &id=`cat` &paginate=`1` &display=`3`!]
[!if? &is=`[+cat_totalPages+]:is:1` &then=`true` &else=`false`!]

Why It Fails

• The placeholder belongs to Ditto output.
• The IF call may be evaluated before the placeholder becomes a final value.
• Numeric comparisons such as >= or <= fail for the same reason.

Safer Approaches

• Move the condition into a later parsing stage.
• Let Ditto expose the needed markup directly through templates or wrappers.
• Store the placeholder into a structure that is rendered after Ditto pagination has been built.

The rule is simple: if a placeholder comes from a listing snippet, any logic that depends on it must run after that listing has already populated its placeholders.