Ajaxify your WooCommerce product categories

One aspect I find quite limiting with WooCommerce is the lack of options around how you filter product categories. This nifty little plugin changes all that.

One question I get asked a lot by our customers is how to extend WooCommerce product category filtering options. At the moment with WooCommerce out of the box there is pretty much only one way you can present your WooCommerce categories – and that’s using the default WooCommerce Product Categories widget.

For many online stores this widget will do just fine. But for certain types of stores with lots of categories and large catalogs you can quickly bump up against the limitations of this widget. Frankly, I think it’s one area of WooCommerce that I think the fine folks over at Woothemes need to spend some time improving in order for larger stores to really embrace WooCommerce.

In the meantime the WooCommerce AJAX Product Filter plugin gives WooCommerce store owners a whole new plethora of options when it comes to displaying product categories. The plugin adds some Ajax goodness to things you’re probably already using like Price filters. But it also allows users to quickly filter multiple product categories without requiring a full page refresh which is pretty cool for large catalogs.

Here’s the full feature list.

• Add Unlimited Filters: There is no limitation, let the customers filter all the way through their needs.
• Three Types of UI: Slider, Drop Down & Checkbox (Toggle effect).
• Reset All Filters: Users can reset all filters to default by a single click.
• Merge Sidebars: Merge sidebars to save space of shop sidebar.
• Filter by Color, Pattern and Image: Assign an image for each attribute so users can see image instead of text for products filtering.
• Search Engine Optimized (SEO friendly): Filtered products are indexable and users can share links of filtered results.
• HTML5 PushState & HTML4 HashTag Fallback: Best experience in modern browsers beside supporting old browsers.
• Cross Browser Compatibility: AJAX loading, PushState,… has been test with all major browsers old versions to latest versions.
• Unlimited Filter for Specific Attributes archive/Categories archive: If you sell different products with different attributes this feature is for you. By using this feature selected categories or selected attributes can have their own filters without affecting the rest of the shop.
• Sidebar, Shortcode and PHP function generator
• AJAX Loading Results: Users can see filtered results at real time.
• Sort by AJAX: Sort and change order of products by 6 parameters and see results at real time.
• Drag and Drop Filter Building: Shop admin can drag and drop unlimited widgets and build filters in a minute, each widget with its own different settings.
• Auto Blends With Shop Theme: Automatically adapts with your shop theme styling so you need no styling.
• Hierarchical Category Navigation: Users can navigate through hierarchical categories; eg: Clothing > Women > Outwear > Jacket.
• Multiple Categories/Attributes Filtering: Users can filter product by selecting multiple categories and multiple attributes at the same time (Supports “AND”, “OR” Parameters)
• Built with WordPress Best Practices If a task has multiple approaches the best one is selected. E.g: Product Filtering functionality only activates at WooCommerce area not everywhere, this makes the plugin fast and small footprint.

I really like this plugin. There’s a few other similar plugins out there but this one is really well put together. If you need something a bit more powerful for your WooCommerce product category filters be sure to check it out.