I love this software but some of this is so non-intuitive. Like it was written by developers… lol
Seriously… you should just be able to “add categories” and it show up. That simple. The end user should be oblivious to what’s happening on the backend.
i really need help because this is driving me crazy....
1. Current Configuration Scope:
I have the following…
Default Config and Default Store View.. what should this be set as?
2. Manage Categories
The only choice i’m getting is “Root Catalog” and the categories I entered.
for custom design i enterd “modern” because I’m using the modern template
even when i don’t select anything.. I still don’t see the categories…
3. Manage Store
I see “create webstie” ,"create store” , and “create store view”
imagine another topic with a hundred of the same questions and no real answers… I have the same problem. no categories, no products, no links that go to any other pages. NOTHING. Maybe the potential is there for this system, but it has been horrible for me. I even have a bit of experience building some other ecommerce site
Repeatedly bashing Magento isn’t going to make things better....
Im not constantly bashing Magento. And by the way, when it is ZERO help, things don’t can’t get any worse so after 20 people as the same question and get NO answers, what else do you say other than let them know what is lacking. I hope when I do something that is frustrating to others they ask and ask and ask and then right before they go somewhere else, they tell me why they are going and what the other companies are doing better.
Furthermore, I searched a hundred places before I picked Magento and if I would have noticed people having such headaches, i might have thought twice. Afterall, the support is the ONLY reason I selected Magento over Facecart. I guess Im in the same boat as I would have been with FC. Except I would have products showing up on my home page and links that worked out of the box.
I’m sure I’ll get a hundred responses that it’s free. so are all the rest.
@Hoodgrown: the first level of categories is used for store root category. The categories in top navigation are 2nd level categories.
After creating at least one 1st level category with parent “Root”, go to Admin > System > Manage Stores, click on “Main Website Store” link in the middle column, and make sure that “Root Category” is correct.
But why do we need to do that ... can’t you make it so that you don’t have to create a default category or something unless you are using more than 1 store.
It took me a day to figure out how to add a category. Now Magento is some powerful software ... but it needs to be easy to use from when you download it, without too much fiddling ... thats why osCommerce is so popular ... you just download, delete the old stuff and add new stuff no hassles ... so people with no experience can do it easily.
Maybe make it that if I only have 1 store, 1 website, etc ... than I don’t need the whole default category thing ... that way ... when I create a category it works straight away.
Perhaps revise your user manual and make it more userfriendly and simplify many steps ... maybe have two manuals ... “How to create a simple production website” ... so thats for the layman ... easy to use, quick to get going ... and explains all the difficult stuff in detail that has to be done ... for example the category set-up (Because I didn’t know about the default category thing, and many other people also didn’t). Then you can have ... “How to create an advanced production website”.
Perhaps also turn the manuals into a PDF and include them with every download so you don’t have to visit the site everytime you wanna quickly check something.
I’ve found another way to your products may not be displaying.
My symptoms were: navigation was fine, products were visible ( as numbers in parenthesis in category structure) and my category hierarchy was checked and ok. products were enabled, in stock, and i hadn’t changed notification.
For me, everything people listed above was ok - except i hadn’t selected my main site under “websites” for each of my products!
go to catalog>manage products
view as many if not all products by selecting qty viewed
select all products.
modify>attributes - select
left navigation, select “websites”
“Add product to websites”
mark your website name and save
it may take a while.
one way to improve this process is to remove the amount of things we must tick in order to have a product show up. if as many of these were defaulted to aid us in getting the products on the screen, then we could work backwards and learn to remove them when that time was at hand.
i have been thinking about starting a thread that highlights some of the ways you can make this process easier if you know what to avoid to begin with. the right hosting, database setup, image preparation, category strategy, fine tuning your database while dealing with magento’s youthful quirks.
this one step did take me a few hours to figure out - perhaps a new thread could be made from this, or someone can pull out all the ways to check to get your products up.
thanks for all the input, talk about a team effort!
please feel free to correct this, i am a beginner at this too!
if you are not receiving error messages, just no products showing up:
Problem 1:
I have set up a test category and loaded a product into it via store admin. The category is “active” and the product is “Enabled” but the the category (and the product) is not showing up in the store front-end. I go to the homepage (which loads fine - but it’s category and product-less!). Any idea what I’m doing wrong.....?
Solution:
1. Make sure you set the category as an anchor, and it will show up on the top menu.
2.
a) You have to have a “Default Category” under “root”, then, under “Default Category” add the categories that you want to appear in the menu. Make sure they all are enabled and “anchors”.
b) Then, go to “System” -> “Manage Store”, and click on your main store. Mine is “Main Website Store” and make sure that “Defaut Category” is selected as your “Root Category”.
3. Make sure you have php-gd
Problem 2:
My categories show fine and say there are products listed but wont show said products??? I’ve tried everything, the products are enabled!
or
After installing Magento I deleted the “Default Category” because I thought it was part of the DEMO, but after reading this board I put it back.
1) Have you verified that the items are listed as in-stock
2) That the in-stock quantity is above the “Minimum Qty for Item’s Status to be Out of Stock”.
3) Is the “Stock Availability” set to “In Stock”?
4) What is the Product Type for the item “Simple Product”?
5) Is the Item Status “Enabled”?
6) What is the “Visibility” of the item set to?
7) Have you attached a website to the product? (manage products, select all products, “actions: update attributes” drop down menu, then hit submit.
@Hoodgrown: the first level of categories is used for store root category. The categories in top navigation are 2nd level categories.
After creating at least one 1st level category with parent “Root”, go to Admin > System > Manage Stores, click on “Main Website Store” link in the middle column, and make sure that “Root Category” is correct.
Being that this is the case, and it’s not obvious (unless you knew this was the case ahead of time), I suggest magento update the admin UI so that we can change the parent category for categories. Having to deactivate and recreate categories is time consuming
@spire: default Magento setup contains a store and store root category.
Please specify how we can improve this.
This is a pretty easy thing to make more intuitive. You guys have done such a terrific job of making things modular that tracking the paths of connecting modules is very difficult. It is not clear that the “root” category does not show up in navigation, and it is not clear that you have to edit the store view to show a particular category. Hence
1. Remove the concept of root category all together. It is redundant when combined with the requirement of adding categories to store views.
2. Edit the add new category functionality to add the new category to a store view
3. add text to the add / edit categories that says “you must add this category to a store view in order for your products and navigation to appear on your pages (including home page). For more information on store views, insert link here”
4. if you need a usability tester for your documentation, (hint, this is not a suggestion), I am available as I do this professionally for a very large software company.
I deleted the default category as I thought it was an example… I spent 2 hours already putting products in the store… I would hate to have to delete the database and start over…
anyone kind enough to help or point me in the right direction?
Just had to deal with the same problem after deleting the “Default Category”, but it’s easy to solve:
Go to System -> Manage Stores and click on your Store Name. There you can select the Root Category
Now it should work again.
Godsend, this got everything working after I deleted the ‘Default Category’ as well.
Just one additional note, the option to change the Root Category within the Manage Store area is the 2nd link (middle) of your store name… gave me a brief scare before I realized that one.
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