Woocommerce How To Display Main Categories Within Main Category

WooCommerce: Displaying Subcategories Within a Main Category – A Comprehensive Guide

Introduction

WooCommerce, the leading e-commerce platform for WordPress, offers a robust framework for managing online stores. A well-structured category system is crucial for user experience and SEO. While WooCommerce natively displays subcategories on category archive pages, you might want to customize how these subcategories appear, specifically displaying them *within* the main category’s description area or other strategic locations on the page. This article will explore different methods to achieve this, empowering you to create a more intuitive and visually appealing shopping experience.

Main Part: Displaying Subcategories in Main Category

There are several ways to display subcategories within a main category in WooCommerce. We’ll cover the most common and effective approaches, ranging from simple code snippets to more advanced templating.

1. Using a Code Snippet in `functions.php`

This is the most straightforward method for displaying subcategories. We’ll add a code snippet to your theme’s `functions.php` file (or preferably, a child theme’s `functions.php` to avoid losing changes during theme updates).

<?php
/**
Display subcategories within a category description.
*/
function display_woocommerce_subcategories_in_description() {
if ( is_product_category() ) {
global $wp_query;
$cat = $wp_query->get_queried_object();
$category_id = $cat->term_id;

$args = array(

‘taxonomy’ => ‘product_cat’,

‘parent’ => $category_id,

‘hide_empty’ => 1 // Hide empty subcategories. Set to 0 to show them.

);

$subcategories = get_terms( $args );

if ( $subcategories ) {

echo ‘

‘;

}

}

}

add_action( ‘woocommerce_archive_description’, ‘display_woocommerce_subcategories_in_description’ );

?>

Explanation:

• `is_product_category()`: Checks if the current page is a product category archive page.
• `global $wp_query`: Accesses the global WordPress query object to retrieve the current category.
• `$cat = $wp_query->get_queried_object()`: Retrieves the category object.
• `$category_id = $cat->term_id`: Gets the ID of the current category.
• `get_terms()`: Fetches the subcategories of the current category based on the provided arguments.
• `taxonomy`: Specifies the taxonomy to query (in this case, `product_cat`).
• `parent`: Sets the parent category ID.
• `hide_empty`: Determines whether to hide empty subcategories.
• `foreach ( $subcategories as $subcategory )`: Loops through each subcategory and generates a link to its archive page.
• `add_action( ‘woocommerce_archive_description’, ‘display_woocommerce_subcategories_in_description’ )`: Hooks the `display_woocommerce_subcategories_in_description` function into the `woocommerce_archive_description` action, which places the output after the category description.

Styling:

You can style the `subcategory-listing` class using CSS in your theme’s stylesheet to customize the appearance of the subcategory list. For example:

.subcategory-listing {

margin-top: 20px;

border: 1px solid #ddd;

padding: 10px;

}

.subcategory-listing h3 {

font-size: 1.2em;

margin-bottom: 10px;

}

.subcategory-listing ul {

list-style: none;

padding: 0;

}

.subcategory-listing li {

margin-bottom: 5px;

}

2. Editing the Category Description (Visual Approach)

This is a more basic, but sometimes sufficient, approach, especially if you only need to add a few subcategories.

1. Navigate to Products > Categories in your WordPress admin.

2. Select the category you want to edit.

3. In the Description field, manually add links to the subcategories. You can use the HTML `…` tag or the WordPress editor’s link functionality.

4. Update the category.

Limitations: This method is not dynamic. If you add, delete, or rename subcategories, you’ll need to manually update the description. It’s best suited for a small number of subcategories that rarely change.

3. Customizing the Category Template (Advanced)

For more control over the layout and presentation, you can directly customize the category template file. This requires more technical knowledge but offers the most flexibility.

1. Find the Template File: The category template file is typically located at `wp-content/themes/your-theme/woocommerce/archive-product.php`. If it doesn’t exist, you’ll need to copy it from the WooCommerce plugin directory (`wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/templates/archive-product.php`) and place it in your theme’s `woocommerce` directory. Never edit the original template files within the plugin directory, as your changes will be overwritten during updates!

2. Modify the Template: Within the template, you’ll need to add code similar to the `functions.php` snippet (from method 1) to retrieve and display the subcategories. You can insert this code within the `

<?php
// Inside archive-product.php, typically after woocommerce_page_title() or woocommerce_archive_description()

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