Bulk Category Editor for WooCommerce

Bulk Category Editor enables you to add, update and delete categories in bulk. Set, add and remove categories on products. Use the included product filters such as categories, attributes and search. And also to export and import categories.

Installation

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1. Download the .zip file from your WooCommerce account.
2. Go to: WordPress Admin > Plugins > Add New and Upload Plugin > Choose File (for the file that was downloaded).
3. Activate the extension.

More information at: Installing and Managing Plugins.

External documentation from developer is found here..

Setup and Configuration

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Bulk Category Editor Settings

Settings are under WooCommerce > Settings >  Bulk Category Editor and includes two sections, General and Products.

General settings allows you to configure the following options for Categories:

• Categories per page: Set the amount of categories to display in the table (subcategories are excluded).
• Show add category: Select the checkbox if for example, you have to add many categories at once. If this is not enabled,  you will need to click the + Add button to add a new category.
• Hide description: This option will default hide category description, click in name or slug to show description or uncheck Hide description on category page to show all. 
•  Filter by main category: Default the category filter shows all categories, if you have many categories this option make it more easy to use the filter.
• Custom Field 1: Enter a custom meta field (e.g. brand) – if it do not exist it will be created and be used on your categories.
• Custom Field 1 label: Enter a label for the field, this will be used as column heading on the category table.
• Custom Field 2: Enter a custom meta field (e.g. brand) – if it do not exist it will be created and be used on your categories.
• Custom Field 2 label: Enter a label for the field, this will be used as column heading on the category table.
• Note: Custom fields is included in filters(search) and in bulk edit (regex functions) on the categories tab.

Products settings apply to the Move products tab:

• Products per page: Set the amount of products per page in the Move products tab
• Default product category: Set a default category. If you do not set a category, the default product category will be used (Uncategorized is common). Category is used when moving default products.
• Custom Field 1: Add a custom product field (meta or taxonomy) if you like to see e.g. Vendor in the product table.
• Is Taxonomy (Field 1): Check this if this is an integration field like e.g. Vendor (if you are not sure, try first with this uncheked)
• Custom Field 1 label: Use this to set a label / column heading for the custom field (so you know what it is in the product table)
• Custom Field 2: Add a custom product field (meta or taxonomy) if you like to see e.g. Vendor in the product table.
• Is Taxonomy (Field 2): Check this if this is an integration field like e.g. Vendor (if you are not sure, try first with this uncheked)
• Custom Field 2 label: Use this to set a label / column heading for the custom field (so you know what it is in the product table)
 

Example integration: In the example we have added an integration for WooCommerce Vendor (sold on WooCommerce.com marketplace). The custom field here is a taxonomy named: wcpv_product_vendors – so just add this and check the Is Taxonomy field + e.g. set Vendor as label and you have this integration done.

Usage

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To start using Bulk Category Editor, go to: WooCommerce > Bulk Category Editor.

Bulk Category Editor

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The editor has tabs for: Categories, Move Products, Product filters and Import & Export. The following options are available within the Categories tab:

• Cogs button takes you to Bulk Category Editor Settings  (WooCommerce > Settings > Bulk Category Editor).
• Add Categories button opens a table form to add or bulk add new categories.
• Delete button deletes selected categories individually or in bulk.

The Bulk edit and Function buttons allow you to edit categories using Search and replace, Add text before and Add text after functions.

Add categories

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1. To add a category, click the ‘Show / hide add’ button and the Add Category table will display.
2. To create a parent category, enter the category name and save, the slug will be automatically created for you.  (Note: The description field has the option to be resized.)
3. To set an image for the newly created category, click the Image edit button and upload an image or select from your Media Library. 
4. After saving, the Add Category table editor closes automatically, but if you would like to have this visible, you can set this by going to WooCommerce > Settings > Bulk Category Editor and select Show add category.

Delete categories

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1. To delete categories, select the checkbox for the rows of the categories you are deleting. 
2. Click Delete. An alert will display confirming that you wish to delete, click OK and the categories will be deleted.

Please note:  Bulk Category Editor will not delete your default category. By default, the category will be Uncategorized (unless you have set it to something else).

Bulk edit categories

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Bulk edit has several options – first, select the field you want to bulk edit. Select name, description or slug. Then, select one of the functions:

• Search and replace: Enter a text phrase you want to replace using the Find input field. The table will automatically filter based on your text phrase. Next, enter the value you want to replace the text phrase with in the Replace value field. Select the Do button to replace and Select undo button if you wish to undo the changes. Then click Save.
• Add text before: Enter a text phrase that you want to add text before in the Find input field. Then, enter the text phrase you want to add in the Replace value field. Click Do > Save.
• Add text after: Enter a text phrase that you want to add text after in the Find input field. Next, enter the text phrase you want to add in the Replace value function. Click Do > Save.

These functions will let you easily make changes to several categories. Filtering by categories allows you to quickly make bulk updates to categories. 

Paging

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Paging for categories will show up if you have many categories.  In settings, you can set the number of categories to display on each page. 

Filter categories

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As you perform your search and begin typing in the field,  filtering occurs automatically and filters by category (and parent), name, description and slug. For example, if you are searching by all shoes, and start by typing ‘shoe’ and then ‘women’, only those results will display.  Use spaces between phrases. Please note: the filter only filters the current page (table). If paging is enabled, you may need to do the same on several pages. 

Bulk updates from table heading

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Within the table heading:

1. Check or uncheck all rows (categories) to apply bulk edits.
2. Parent dropdown applies parent categories in bulk for your categories. 
3. Display type dropdown applies display type in bulk for your categories.

Table editor

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The table editor allows inline editing of your categories. If you make changes in any field, the checkbox for the row will be checked. When you save, all changes in all selected categories will be updated.

• Parent: Categories that have no parent category will have a dropdown with no subcategories.  Subcategories will have dropdown with the whole category tree. This enables you to move a category to another parent category (including subcategories).
• Name / description: Change name and description (below name). The description input field can be resized for easy editing.
• Slug: Change slug name. Note that the slug name must be of lowercase letters and strung together with hyphens similar to this, silk-t-shirts.
• Display type: Set display type using the following options: Default, Products, Subcategories and Both. This can also be changed in bulk in the table header.
• Image: Set or delete the category image using the edit or delete buttons (can be done in bulk – the first buttons below the label Image). The edit button opens your Media Library where you can select or upload an image for your category. Remember to click the Save changes button after you are done. 
• Sort: Drag and drop categories to where you like – make sure to drop a subcategory in the same subcategory group.

Move products

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The Move products tab includes the following sections, Get Products, Products and Move or add products to. 

Get Products 

Here, in the table header, you can filter products by categories (select dropdown multi-select) or use the search field (in rows or database). Default products will be fetched from the default product category (usually Uncategorized). To reset your product query,  click the reset button.

Products

By default, this table shows products from the default category (usually Uncategorized). If you have selected product categories in Get Products (gets products from selected categories in the dropdown or all categories if none is selected), they will show up here. The table contains a filter where you can filter out products by name, SKU and tags. To filter, either select all products (by checking the box in the first header column in the table) or manually select the products you want to move or add categories for. 

Move or add products to

In this section, you can filter categories or simply select the category or categories to move or add products to. 

1. Select the applicable products by checking the checkbox in the row.
2. Select category or categories.
3. To replace the categories with the ones you have selected, click the Set Categories button to remove the existing categories and add the new categories that you have selected.
4. To add new categories to your products, click the Add Categories button and this will add the selected categories to the products.
5. To remove categories, select categories you want to remove, then click the Remove Categories button (removes the categories if found on a product).
6. A progress bar will display until the products have been updated. 

Product filters (frontend)

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Import and Export

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Import

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If you like to import product categories to WooCommerce start by first exporting (use the Export .csv button), when you have done this you have a .csv file that can be opened in e.g. MS Excel or Apple Numbers or other spreadsheet editor.

1. Decide if you want to update the categories or want to add new
   • New categories
     • Remove term_id values
     • Remove the rows (not header and every column needs to be present)
     • Remove: parent, parent slug and term_taxonomy_id values
     • If you have many categories and subcategories we suggest you import a set of your main categories (parent categories) first, this way you will create id’s to use for your subcategories. (then export again)
     • When importing subcategories, set parent id values based on the term_id of the parent category, remember to not have any term_id values (first column) for your new subcategories
   • Update categories
     • Do your changes in your spreadsheet editor (do not edit the term_id’s)
2. Next you need to export the file as .CSV with these parameters:
   • Delimeter ;
   • Encoding: UTF-8
3. In Bulk Category Editor, go to the tab Import & Export, select the file and click the import button

Export

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The export will include all your categories and subcategories. Just use the export button and you get a .CSV file.

FAQ’s

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How does admin search and filter work?

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When you use filter or search, the editor automatically filters in the table as you type. Use spaces for several phrases to narrow your search/filter.

Can I translate the extension to my language?

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Yes, all our extensions have an included POT file that enable you to do this. Our tip is to use the Loko translate plugin.

How to set the CSS in Elementor site builder?

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Your theme has a set of CSS (Style sheets), sometimes your selected theme / WooCommerce CSS can override the CSS in the Product filter. Here is an example on how to fix the CSS (Theme: Hello / Elementor) when the Product filer is used to build the shop page. The CSS code:

.wbc-filter-input-search{
	width: calc(100% - 7px) !important;
}
.wbc-filter-cat-ul, .wbc-filter-cat-ul-hidden {
    margin-top: 15px !important;
    margin-left: -30px !important;
}
.wbc-filter-button-icon{
	background-color:#dde6eb !important;
	color:black !important;
}
.wbc-filter-button-icon:hover{
	background-color:#2e336a !important;
	color:white !important;
}
.wbc-filter-div-header-toggle{
    margin-top: -1px !important;   
}

Use this in your theme extra CSS (WP Admin > Appearance > Customize ) add this and change hex (web colors i.e #dde6eb or named colours like black, red, orange, tomato…) colours. Tip when you do this have the shop page visible.