Help Understanding Categories

[EcoPets]

Prestashop1.7.8.10.  I am having trouble understanding how categories work.  I will try and explainb my situation and hope that some one can help.

In my shop I have a large number of categories as provided by my product supplier, roughly 359.  So, in the backl office I have the ROOT category and HOME.  Then under HOME, there are 28 subcategories and under each of those are a number of subcategories.  I have about 8000 products in those various categories, but right now I only want to show a smaller number of products, around 2000.  I want to take those products and put them under a subcategory under HOME and then different subs there.  So that small subset would look like "ROOT>HOME>SUBa>SUB_SUBa,b,cc,etc".  My main menu would be "SUB-SUBa/SUB-SUBb/SUB-SUBc etc".

But when I categorize the products some are working fine under that menu and some are not, even though I have set the categories for those products like I want them.  I have not changing the original categories for those products, just adding them to the new ones.  And sometimes that works and sometimes it does not. 

So with 8000 products and about 400 categories, it is becoming extremely confusing.  Can anyone suggest any way of going about this that might simplify it?  ANY suggestions would be much appreciated!!

 

[AddWeb Solution]

Hi,

• Simplify your category structure. Having 359 categories can be overwhelming, and it's challenging for customers to navigate. Consider merging or reorganising categories to create a more user-friendly structure.
• Subcategories should be used to create a logical hierarchy. Avoid creating too many levels of subcategories, as it can make navigation complicated.
• When you're moving products to new categories, ensure that you're not removing them from the original categories where they should also be visible. Prestashop allows products to belong to multiple categories.
• After making changes to categories and products, clear the cache and rebuild the index to ensure that your changes are reflected accurately on the front-end.
• Prestashop allows you to add product tags. Consider using tags to categorize products without creating a separate category for each. Tags can be a flexible way to group products.

Before making significant changes, always create a backup of your store. This allows you to revert to the previous state if something goes wrong during reorganisation.

Thanks!

 

[musicmaster]

Don't forget to empty the cache after you make this kind of operations.

[EcoPets]

The number of categories are due to the suppliers product feeds.  I have no way of excluding unwanted products so I take the entire feed and just turn off the products I don't want.  But that does not turn off the categories in the tree.  I want to have those categories and want customers to find all of the products trhu searches.  But I want only a certain group of products to show on the main page.  The problem is that I can do that with some products and the new categories but not others and I can find no logical reason for why it works on some and not others.  I know to empty the cache after changes and do it all the time.  It makes no difference.  I understand about keeping the original categories and having multiple categories.  I do that and it makes no difference. Is there some hierarchy to the categories? Some order that needs to be followed?  My concept seems pretty simple: 6 menu items that coorespond to 6 categories.  Under those 6 are some subcategories.  I put products under those categories and is come cases the products display properly and is other they don't display at all.  Thscreen show no products available.  I do not understand why it works in one category and not another.

I use the Prestools app and find it VERY useful but it still does not resolve the problem.  I contacted Prestools and asked for help, but they wanted specific examples and I can't provide that.  It is a larger problem that just one example can solve.

[musicmaster]

12 minutes ago, EcoPets said:

I use the Prestools app and find it VERY useful but it still does not resolve the problem.  I contacted Prestools and asked for help, but they wanted specific examples and I can't provide that.  It is a larger problem that just one example can solve.

You are contradicting yourself. Prior you said that you had problems with specific products:

15 hours ago, EcoPets said:

But when I categorize the products some are working fine under that menu and some are not,

 

[EcoPets]

Let me be clear.  I simply CANNOT isolated this issue to one or 2 specific products or categories.  I might put 25 products into one of my preferred categories and NONE of them show up on the menus!  SO, there is not one single product or category that is a problem!  It might be dozens of products or several categories.

I have tried duplicating how one set of products is working to others and nothing works.  So, that is my confusion/frustration.  I am not stupid, I have been working with computers and languages for nearly 50 years, so I understand logic.  There is little to no documentation on how categories work in Prestashop so it is all trial and error.

Edited October 11, 2023 by EcoPets (see edit history)

[musicmaster]

If you have almost 50 years of computer experience than you should know that the core value in problem solving is "reproducible errors".

There no rocket science connected with the category system. It is a simple tree. The id_parent field in the ps_category table is enough for that.

You could easily find that out for yourself by studying the structure of some Prestashop database tables. You can move any category - except Root and Home. If start moving Root or Home you are in for big trouble and no one will be able to help you as no one tried it before.

The only thing that sometimes can give trouble is the ntree (the nleft and nright fields in the ps_category table). Don't change those fields and don't move categories with direct database manipulations. But just moving or creating a category will fix that (Prestools has function for that too). More importantly perhaps: your symptoms don't match such a problem.

My impression is that you have made some deep level changes and that you don't come clear about that.

[EcoPets]

I am happy to give you back office access for you to see if you can find what I am doing wrong.  I will be happy to explain to you what I am trying to accomplish and what categories I have created and what products I want in them.  I do not want to tinker with database tables (I am comfortable with phpadmin and mysql tables, but in my experience, tinkering with only one or 2 pieces in the database can have disastrous consequences) or any file code.  To me this is just a matter of organizing the products and categories correctly and when I have made multiple attempts to set up the categories and products the way I want AND have followed all of the steps to refresh the cache etc to no avail, then I am missing something in how prestashop wants to display products in any given category.

[musicmaster]

I once had a look and I couldn't find any problem. I don't see the point of spending hours to find just what the problem is.

Sometimes refreshing the cache is not enough as your server uses some kind of cache too.

[EcoPets]

I know.  But you never asked what I was trying to do or what products/categories I was working with, so I think it would be pretty hard for you to reach any conclusion when you never looked any deeper.  I do thank you for your interest, but, seriously, I need some assistance from someone who might take the time and be able to see it from a different perspective than mine, as I am obviously missing something.

[Zohaib-fk]

You can check PS documentation about how to manage categories on the below link. It will help in understanding more about categories and products. I feel it is not difficult but once you understand, you can implement it as per your requirements.

 

https://docs.prestashop-project.org/1.7-documentation/user-guide/selling/managing-catalog/managing-categories

[EcoPets]

Thanks. I have been thru all of this.  I understand the HOW of categories.  My confusion is the WHY.  When I put something into a category and have a menu item that is supposed to display that category, those products do not appear when a customer would click that menu item, OR only some of the products are displayed.  None of those documents explain that or explain what categories are supposed to be used.  In my site, I do not use the HOME category on the main page and use only a select group of sub categories.  That seems to be the problem and I do not know why that is the issue or how to resolve it. the site is eco-petsupplies.com.  The main menu consists of 6 times that are a sub category under HOME.  All the necessary HOME categories are still available if the user goes into the search, but if they click on one of the items on the menu, then ONLY those products should be displayed.  Righ now I might have 50 products under a menu item (sub category) but only 20 show up.  So there has to be some sort of relationship between categories and sub-categories that influences that behavior and that is what I seem to not be understanding.