Category Page display options

When using AIMStorefront for ecommerce, you will most likely be placing your products into groups, typically categories, that can be used by your customers to navigate through your inventory. Each category in AIM Storefront can be configured to use one of our 6 category display packages. 5 of those packages come standard with every website, and you can purchase Guided Navigation as an option if you’d like more control over your category navigation. 

Each of our display packages has been created to reflect recent changes in schema.org markup (structured data - this is helpful for Search Engine Optimization). We've also created some new options to toggle the display of SKU, SKUSuffix, and Manufacturer Part #.

Below we will break down what each of your options contains, and what types of situations it may be good for. Each category page in your website can be set to use any of the packages, so what may be great for one category of products, may not be the best for another category. 

The 5 category display options on every AIM Storefront are:

Products in a Grid - entity.grid.xml.config

Standard look for most modern eCommerce websites. This layout lists the products in a grid, shows an image for each, and can be configured to show subcategories at the top of the page as buttons, images, or a list of links.

Products in a Grid with Prices - entity.gridwithprices.xml.config

The same as “Products in a Grid” but with prices.

Products in a List - entity.simpleproductlist.xml.config

This XML Package works well for smaller sets of products as it lists each product in a full width row and includes a short description of each product next to the product image.

Products in an Order Form - entity.tableorderform.xml.config

This XML Package works well for pages where a customer would order more than one product at a time. An example would be a page of different colors of oil paint. You can imagine a customer might know they needed 4 tubes of red and 3 tubes of green and could order them all at once from an order form.

Sub-Entities in a list (No Products) - entity.rootlevel.xml.config

This package works well if you want to provide a category landing page with no products visible. You can include a description of the category, and highlight the different subcategories available within that larger category.

Every Category page layout in AIM Storefront can be configured to further assist you in your optimal presentation of your product set. The focus on many of these settings has to do with how sub-categories are shown above the products on the page. The settings below can help you customize that part of your look and feel. To change any of the settings for your category pages, log into your /aesys panel and navigate to “Configuration > Settings” and use the filter to find the specific setting you’d like to change.

Don’t forget that after changing any of these settings, you’ll need to refresh your store by clicking the “Refresh Store” button in the upper right corner of your /aesys admin panel. Otherwise your changes will not be immediately visible to customers on your site.

The settings are: 

ShowSubCatsInGrid

When this is set to Yes, entity pages will display sub-entities in a grid format:

The same page on mobile devices looks like this:

When this is set to No (this is the default setting), sub-entities will be displayed in a bullet list on desktop and mobile:

ShowSubCategoryImages

When this is set to Yes, category images will display for each sub-category. 

NOTE: ShowSubCatsInGrid must also be set to yes for this setting to be observed.