VirtueMart offers the ability to categorize products not only by manufacturer, but also by product category. Product categories may also contain subcategories enabling storekeepers to manage their products in as much detail as possible. Because products and product categories are associated to a particular vendor, it is important to create your vendor records before creating the product and product category records.
VirtueMart includes the ability to associate products to product categories and subcategories to enable better product management.
To create a new product category, open the Product Category Form: "Products" ⇒ "Add Category".
To modify an existing category, click on the name of the category you want to edit in the category list.
Product Category Fields
- Publish?
Used to specify whether the category will be published on the site.
- Category Name
The name that will be used to identify the category.
- Category Description
The description that will be displayed for the category.
- ListOrder
The Place of this category in a list with other categories.
- Parent
The parent category with which this category will be associated. If the category is to be a top level category, leave the Parent drop down list with the Default Top Level selected.If the category is to be a sub category of an existing category, choose the appropriate parent category from the Parent drop down list.
- Show x products per row
The number of products per row when displaying products of this category.
Note
The Browse Page usually has to be adjusted when the number of products per row has been changed. You can use browse_2 for 2 products per row, browse_3 for 3 products per row and so on (maximum per default: 5).
- Category Browse Page
Example: managed
The template file for displaying the products of this category in a list. "Managed" Mode looks for the Setting for "Show x Products per Row" and decides, which browse page template will be chosen.
- Category Flypage
Syntax: shop.flypage
This is the template file for displaying the Product Details of a product in this category. You can create your own templates by modifiying existing templates (in the directory
/components/com_virtuemart/themes/templates/product_details).The file for preparing the display of the Flypage is
/html/shop.product_details.php. Some of the details that you can't find in the Flypage template can be found there.Note
You should leave this field empty when you're not sure what to fill in.
You can reorder categories the way you want. There are different ways to achieve this.
Use the blue arrows in the category list to move a category up or down
Use the input fields in the rows of the category list to change the list order. If you have finished changing the values, click on the "Save" icon in the column header.
Use the "sort alphabetically" icon in the list header. You can sort all categories in your store alphabetically using this functionality. Please note that this can't be undone. Once the categories are reodered you would have to change back manually.
Before deleting an existing product category, all sub categories associated to the product category must be removed through either deletion or re-association. VirtueMart will not allow the deletion of a product category while subcategories still exist for that product category.
Categories can be removed from the store although they contain products. If products are assigned to more than one category, those products won't be removed if you delete just one category. But if a product is just assigned to one category, it will be deleted if you delete its category.
Removing a category can be done by clicking the "trash bin" icon in the last column of each row in the product category list. But you can also click the checkboxes of the categories you want to remove and click the "Remove" button in the toolbar.