There is another rather more simple answer to the question:

$\ce{SnCl2}$ can be thought of as a salt to a much greater extent than $\ce{SnCl4}$. In fact, tin is so often thought of as a metal, that it takes some people time to understandt that $\ce{SnCl4}$ is in fact not a salt but much more a molecule.

Then, when looking at $\ce{Sn(II)}$, it becomes clear that the unaccompanied ion would have the electron configuration $\ce{[Kr] 4d^{10} 5s^2}$ — doesn’t that look stable to you? Add to chloride ions that took the electrons originally having been in the $\ce{5p}$-orbitals and voilà.



I know that this answer simplifies a lot of things that maybe shouldn’t be simplified in all cases. But to the best of my knowledge it explains the compound and its stability well, and should therefore be considered. Once the question turns into ‘why is $\ce{Sn(II)}$ ionic, while $\ce{Sn(IV)}$ better described as molecular?’, if of course becomes invalid.

Why does SnCl2 occur despite the octet rule?
Is it possible to limit the number of categories that are returned by the {exp:channel:categories} tag? If not is there an alternative (or dare I say add-on :P)

Obviously I could just use an SQL query for this, but if possible I would prefer to use one of the more standard built-in tags for this if possible.

Use Case:


Categories have been manually ordered using the control panel.
Only want the first 10 to be displayed.

