The Category Catalog allows administrators to view and manage categories. The grid allows admins to view categories, child categories, enabled/disabled status and add new informational columns as needed. The system also includes sorting and paging options which may be saved per administrator as preferences to increase productivity. The category system has performance options which allow administrators to cache information in the category to increase page rendering speed.

Comrogen allows administrators to create category attributes that can store information related to category management. Some examples of built-in attributes include meta tags (SEO) as well as description and summary attributes that retain information regarding the category.

Unlike traditional e-commerce systems where product classification is fixed via an organizational structure such as categories or departments, Comrogen supports an unlimited number of organizational structures called Category Classes. Classes allow you to create structures such as categories, manufacturers, departments, sections, seasons, etcetera based on criteria that you specify from category attributes.

Comrogen uses product attributes to create categories on the fly, this allows administrators to dynamically create categories without the hassle of manually mapping items to categories. E.G. to create a category for shoes that have the color red, comrogen will find all matching products that have the attribute value of red and create the category on the fly. The system will also periodically check the database for any new products that fit this criteria and add them to the category.

Comrogen’s Category systems allows administrators to decide how products are displayed in category display packages; this includes mechanisms such as sorting options, display orders, and more. Category Display providers may further enhance this with custom logic with category plugins.

Comrogen includes filtering logic that dictates how and what filtering options are available inside category pages. Administrators can enable/disable attributes as well as individual values inside attributes from displaying. Filtering controls include checkboxes, radio button selection, drop downs, search textboxes, and can even display media like pictures, color boxes, or speciality controls like sliders (price range).

Comrogen includes support for category level display providers. These display providers function similar to product display providers in that they can be customized to suit the category functionality needed. Generally settings for category display level providers include sorting options, filtering options, cart functionality, different views, and options that are designed to function in conjunction with the site template.

Comrogen supports unlimited levels of category taxonomy and hierarchy (e.g. sub categories/parent). This may be tweaked as needed and can cross category classes (e.g. a category may be a child of a department).

Comrogen supports category level plugins that can be installed/uninstalled as needed. These are needed in cases where functionality is needed that is beyond the capabilities of the built-in system and display provider options.

Category performance/caching may be set per category, this is useful in case you have a category where is it is critical to get live data on every request vs. a caching scenario where information may be held in memory for faster delivery.