Section 14 — Category List View
The Category List View provides merchants with a structured, low-cognitive overview of all categories detected in their catalog and their relationship to enriched products. While categories are not enriched in isolation, they play a critical role in how product discovery, indexing, and navigation are structured across the storefront.
This view mirrors the Product List View in layout and behavior, with category-specific controls layered on top.
Purpose of the Category List View
The Category List View allows merchants to:
- See which categories are eligible for enrichment
- Control whether enriched category metadata is delivered to the storefront
- Navigate directly to related products within a category
- Review enrichment status without managing categories independently from products
Important: Categories exist to support and amplify product discovery. Only categories that contain products are eligible for enrichment.
Category Rows & Columns
Each row represents a single category and includes the following elements:
- Image
Displays the category image when available.
- Enabled Toggle
Controls whether enriched category metadata is actively delivered.
- Green: Enrichment delivery enabled.
- Orange: Enrichment delivery disabled (original storefront behavior only).
- Title
The category name as defined by the platform.
- Language
Indicates the language associated with the category record.
- Status
- Orange/Brown page icon: Category not yet enriched.
- Green checkmark: Category enriched and approved.
- Approved / Synced Date
Shows when the category was last approved and delivered.
- Storefront Link Icon
Opens the category directly on the live storefront.
Category → Product Relationship (Key Feature)
On the far right of each row is a purple eye icon with a number:
- The number indicates how many products belong to that category.
- Clicking the eye icon filters the Product List View to show only products within that category.
- Clicking the row itself opens the Category Gallery view.
This reinforces an important design principle:
Categories are not managed independently — they are always viewed in relation to their products.
Empty or Historical Categories
Some categories may appear with zero products. These are typically:
- Historical categories
- Legacy platform artifacts
- Empty organizational groupings
Categories with no products:
- Are displayed for visibility
- Are never enriched
- Do not affect billing or delivery
Delete Behavior
A red trash icon (left of the image column) allows merchants to delete a category record from CatalogPilot.
- Deleting a category removes it from CatalogPilot only.
- If the category still exists on the platform, it will be re-synced automatically and become eligible again in the future.
Header Controls & Filters
The Category List View includes the same global controls found in the Product List View:
- Not Yet Enriched (orange outline)
- View All Approved (green outline)
- Show All (neutral/gray outline)
Additional features include:
- Search field
- Filter drawer (status, inactive items)
- Column visibility selector
- Pagination controls at the bottom of the list
Review Awareness
If any products within categories are awaiting review:
- A blue badge appears in the header with the count.
- Clicking it redirects merchants to the Review Queue.
If no items are pending review:
- The badge turns green and displays zero.
Key Concept to Remember
Categories are structural amplifiers, not standalone entities.
They exist to:
- Support product discovery
- Improve crawler understanding of catalog hierarchy
- Extend enriched metadata across grouped products
Merchants are not expected to “manage” categories actively — the system handles this automatically based on product relationships.
