Magento

I’ve searched and searched for why my products (categories) won’t show up in the nav. So this is kind of a reminder for myself, since this is my second cart I’m setting up (For some reason simplehelix could not get my cart updated from ver. 1.0.19870.1 to ver. 1.1.6 over a 4 or 5 day period), they suggested a fresh install and to enter everything in again. I’m a designer but I’m not used to, or really know anything about php or any programing languages. I know html and CSS, that’s about it. So when talking about roots and categories and such, I take them at their simplest form. A “Root” would be the main and a “Sub” would be a sub. What they don’t seem to explain very well is that you create (for a single store) 1 Root Category and Subcategories of the Root.

And in case this is what I’ve seen so many others asking but not finding any answers too, this is how I got it to work. 
This is way easier than it looks so don’t be intimidated.

From Magento Admin Panel
Under Catalog (Ver. 1.1.6, it’s seems a bit different for older versions for some reason?),
Step #1
But… Go to
Catalog > Manage Categories
Click “Add Root Category” Upper Left hand side (Now keep in mind you will not see this in the nav at all, I don’t know why, you just don’t)
Name it (insert own name here, main, company name, ???) > Set “Is Active” to yes
Fill out all other info Description, Page Title, e.t.c.
I left the “Display Mode,” “CMS Block” and “Is Anchor” unchanged
Click “Save Category” (Upper right)

Now this is where you would think you would set up another “Root Category” or at least I would. Remember you are not going to see that last one in the nav.

So next, make sure your “Root Cat” is selected, the one you just created, and click… you ready for this “Add Subcategory”
This is the first product or link that will pop up for your category nav. But not just yet, we’re getting to how to make it show up.

Step #2
So we’re at Add Subcategory
Name it (You have too there’s a little Red Star) > Set “Is Active” to yes
Fill out all other info Description, Page Title, e.t.c.
I left the “Display Mode,” “CMS Block” and “Is Anchor” unchanged
Click “Save Category” (Upper right)

So now you have the first link that will show up (Don’t check just yet, trust me). If you need to add a “Sub Link” to the link (sub category) you just created make sure you have it selected and repeat Step #2.

But if you’re good on that link and you’re ready to add another link, select your main “Root Category” again and click “Add Subcategory” once again and then start from Step #2.

Maybe look at your links or subcategories as “Main Subcategories” if you will, these are going to act as your product navs or links or whatever you want to call them. That’s where I have a hard time is all the different names for things. I’ve never been good with names.

I think you’ll see how to set up the structure of it at this point. I’ve attached a img, showing you the structure of my product nav.

Now to get it all to show up.

Go to System > Configuration
Now in the upper left of the page click “Manage Stores”
A window with 3 colums comes up, I clicked the middle one “Main Website Store”
Website - Should say “Main Website” (at least mine did)
Name - I named this our brands name
Root Category - Pull the drop down and select the name you named your “Root Category” from Step #1
Default Store View - I just left the same
Click “Save Store” Upper right hand.

That should be it. Go test the Frontend of your store. If still nothing show’s up, you’re screwed… kidding, go back to the admin area and go system > cache management
where it says “All Cache” click the drop down menu and select “Refresh” you shouldn’t have to select anything else on the page, but just in case, I have everything check marked. Now click “Save Cache Settings” upper right hand side and you should be good to go.

Hopefully some find this and in turn find it useful. If there are any further questions feel free to hit me up.

Click thumbnail to see full-size image

I’m surprised no one else has said it yet, thanks!

Not sure if you mentioend this after a quick skimming, but you can click and drag your categories around in that category tree. It’s useful for getting your new categories under the root category in order to get your nav to work

Thank you so very much! Just went from demo store to blank install and I could not find how to make my links show up!

This work perfectly!

Thanks..was so confused!

I’ve tried following these instructions
I basically have a “Default Category” as my root directory and under that I have all my product categories and products are associated with those.

I’ve tried these instructions and others I’ve found around the forum and although I see the categories links up top when I click on them I don’t see any products listed at all.

What could be setup wrong? I’ve checked everything here three times, all seem fine.

Thanks. This really helped me get up and running!

If anyone hasn’t had success yes importing their products manually, I created a script that helped me with the nutrional product database I had to import. The code should be pretty obvious but if you have any questions let me know.

2nd part of the code, I would also Like to mention I noticed that you should have a fresh magento installation and for best results do not remove any of the root categories that are first created and use those to your needs, otherwise you might have some issues unfortunately.

I wanted to thank the original poster for laying this out for us noobs to Magento. I was struggling with category setup, and this got me on the right track to get the categories I wanted to show in the nav menu.

Thank you solomfb!

Guys.
I’m having a similar problem. I have manage_stock set to 1, but my products in the admin import with manage_stock set to NO!!!!  This makes it impossible for people to order the product, although it does show up on the front end. Can someone help me what values the qty and inventory attributes need to be set to?

This is a part of my code.

$newProductData = array(
#
‘name’ => str_replace(’“‘,’’,$ProductData[’name’]),
#
// websites - Array of website ids to which you want to assign a new product
#
‘websites’ => array(1),
#
‘short_description’ => $short_description,
#
‘description’ => $description,
‘visibility’ => ‘Catalog, Search’,
//’visibility’ => $ProductData[’visibility’],
‘price’ => $ProductData[’price’],
‘sku’ => $ProductData[’sku’],
‘meta_title’ => $ProductData[’meta_title’],
‘cost’ => $ProductData[’cost’],
‘meta_description’ => $ProductData[’meta_description’],
‘thumbnail’ => $ProductData[’thumbnail’],
‘image’ => $ProductData[’image’],
‘small_image’ => $ProductData[’small_image’],
‘manufacturer’ => $ProductData[’manufacturer’],
‘options_container’ => $ProductData[’options_container’],
‘gift_message_available’ => $ProductData[’gift_message_available’],
‘weight’ => ‘1’,
‘minimal_price’ => $ProductData[’minimal_price’],
‘gender’ => $ProductData[’gender’],
‘color’ => $ProductData[’color’],
//’status’ => $ProductData[’status’],
‘status’ => ‘1’,
‘tax_class_id’ => ‘None’,
‘model’ => $ProductData[’model’],
‘in_depth’ => $ProductData[’in_depth’],
‘meta_keyword’ => $ProductData[’meta_keyword’],
‘manage_stock’ => $ProductData[’manage_stock’],
‘qty’ => $ProductData[’qty’],
‘min_qty’ => $ProductData[’min_qty’],
‘use_config_min_qty’ => $ProductData[’use_config_min_qty’],
‘use_config_max_sale_qty’ => $ProductData[’use_config_max_sale_qty’],
‘is_in_stock’ => $ProductData[’is_in_stock’],
‘use_config_notify_stock_qty’ => $ProductData[’use_config_notify_stock_qty’],
‘use_config_manage_stock’ => $ProductData[’use_config_manage_stock’],
‘stock_status_changed_automatically’ => $ProductData[’stock_status_changed_automatically’]

);

Thanks a million solomfb !!!

Thank you so much for this.. was starting to pull my lil’ hairs out!! Gah.. what a pain… true hero, thank you!!

Thank you SOOOO MUCH for this, I’ve been having a heck of a time figuring this out and have even taken it so far to delete the store and reupload it thinking I missed something.

Thanks again!

Freakin A! Thank you so much!!!

Thank you so much.  8 hours I have been trying to figure this out.