Contributions

A small modification to this nice and neat contribution - I wanted to have a sum of all the products in the top category and its subcategories displayed after the top category name.

With the following corrections:
-correct count even if product is in multiple categories
-no longer counts disabled products

So if you don't want a product count behind the category name then use Christian's contribution below.

Installation:
1) Unzip in catalog/includes/boxes.
2) Edit catalog/includes/column_left.php and change 'categories.php' to 'top_categories.php'

elementary error in my below package. This is the correct one.

A small modification to this nice and neat contribution - I wanted to have a sum of all the products in the top category and its subcategories displayed after the top category name. Just a drop-in replacement file for the below file. For first-time installation, follow the instructions below but use this file instead.

This is my first contribution to the community - let me know if it doesn't work out for you.

This "Categories" box displays only top-level categories.

1) Unzip in catalog/includes/boxes.
2) Edit catalog/includes/column_left.php and change 'categories.php' to 'top_categories.php'

That's it!