From Shopp Documentation

Categories serve as the traditional taxonomy (system of organization) for your catalog of products. They have heirarchy, meaning a category can have sub-categories and/or exist as a sub-category of a parent category.

Contents 1 Category Name 2 Category Parent 3 Description 4 Category Images 5 Settings 6 Product Template Settings 7 Price Range Search 8 Product Details 9 Variation Options

Category Name

The category name is used to identify the category in your catalog. It shows up as a link in your category widget or category menu. It is also used in the browser title when specifically viewing the category.

All of these uses make it very important to develop good product names. Depending on your product marketing strategy, you may wish to include the manufacturer in the name of the product, or maybe shorthand some of the highlighted features or specs of the product.

If pretty permalinks are set in your WordPress Permalinks Settings, the category permalink is shown below the category name. By default, the permalink is generated from the category name and turned into a clean, URL-safe name. You can adjust the category's permalink "slug" to shorten it or make it more effective at including your marketing keywords.

Category Parent

Used to set the category as a sub-category of a specific parent category.

Description

A full write-up describing the category.

Category Images

You can upload multiple images for a category. To add new images:

• Click the Add New Image button
• Select the image file from your computer
• Click the Select button to begin uploading

When the image has finished uploading and processing, a thumbnail will appear.

If your store settings are set to sort images in a custom order, the first image (top-left) becomes the default image for the category. You can drag the images around to re-order them and set a new default image (when custom order is set for the image order).

Settings

• Product Details Template – When enabled, allows you to configure preset details to be copied into a product when the product is assigned this category.
• Facted Menus – Allows you to configure a faceted navigation menu for the category, also known as drill-down product filters that help shoppers find products by price range or specific product details.
• Variations – Enable to define preset product variation options for products assigned to this category.

Product Template Settings

The product template settings allow you to define preset details and product variations to speed data entry of common product configurations. Any template information you setup for the category will be copied into a product when it is assigned to this category.

Price Range Search

When Faceted Menus is enabled, this setting allows you to configure how the price ranges appear.

• Price ranges diabled – Disables any price range menu in the faceted menu
• Build price ranges automatically – Builds a dynamic price menu based on the products in the category
• Use custom price ranges – Allows you to set each price level. Click the Add Price Range button to add a new price level. The first price level will be used for all product prices less than or equal to the amount specified. The last price level will be used for all product prices greater than the amount specified. Specify single amounts per level such as $10.00, $20.00, $30.00 and $40.00. That will result in a menu that looks something like:
  • Under $10.00
  • $10.00 – $19.99
  • $20.00 – $29.99
  • $30.00 – $39.99
  • $40.00 and up

Product Details

Used to configure product details. The interface works the same as adding details to a product in the product editor with the exception that you do not specify the contents for the detail as that will change from product-to-product.

If Faceted Menus is enabled, you can setup how the product detail will be used in the faceted navigation menu:

• Faceted menu disabled – Disables the detail from being included in the category's faceted menu.
• Build faceted menu automatically – Automatically generates a menu based on the product details included. If numbers are detected, a range-based menu is built. Otherwise, it includes each of the distinct values used across the products in the category.
• Build as custom number ranges – Works similarly to price ranges and allows you to specify ranges by level numbers. You can include any units you want included. For televison screen sizes, for example, you might want to set a custom set of screen size ranges as in: 20", 30", 40", 50" which would build a menu like:
  • Under 20"
  • 20" – 29"
  • 30" – 39"
  • 40" – 49"
  • 50" and up
• Build as preset options – Allows you to specify custom preset values that are used as the menu options. Using presets also changes how the product editor details work by displaying the presets in a drop-down menu for faster data entry.

Variation Options

Variation Options templates work the exact same way as the product editor variations. You define the variation options by pre-configuring menus.

Each variation price line that corresponds to the menu option combinations allows you to preset the Price and Shipping (for Shipped product types).

This is very useful for setting up similarly structure products quickly and easily.