Attributes — screen and types

Open this screen from Catalog → Attributes. It has two tabs, and the selected tab is saved in the URL, so a link takes you right back to where you were.

Both tabs look the same: a list on the left and an editor for the selected item on the right. The former Attribute groups tab is now part of the tree; old links to it still work.

What the editor looks like

The Attributes and groups tab always has two columns: a tree of groups and their attributes on the left, and an editor for the selected group or attribute on the right. On a wide screen, the first group opens automatically. On a phone, the list fills the screen and the editor opens in its place. The whole page scrolls; the list of names and the Cancel / Save bar at the bottom stay in place.

Above the list you will find:

• a search field and a round + button (for a new attribute or group),
• the Active / Inactive / All switch, which filters attributes; groups are always shown, and inactive ones are grayed out,
• the Filters button for type, group, population, and catalog; the number on the button tells you how many filters are active.

Search or a filter turns the tree into a flat list of results (groups matching the search appear above attributes); below it you will see the page number and result count. The tree returns when you clear the search and filters. Move an attribute to another group by dragging it onto that group in the tree; see Attribute groups for details.

Actions on multiple attributes

Hover over the type icon beside a name and it turns into a checkbox. After you select the first attribute, a bar appears above the list showing the number selected and a Bulk actions menu: activate, deactivate, assign catalogs, change group, set flags (required, unique, filterable…), run AI analysis, and Delete. You can undo a deletion for a few seconds with the Undo button.

The editor heading contains the attribute name and description, links to its Group and variant family (which open their editors), an Active switch, and AI buttons. Below the heading is a sentence describing the attribute, for example: “Brand is a select list in the COLLECTION group with 7 values, populated once per product… Visible on the product card.” The sentence only reports the settings. Click a bold, underlined part to jump to the field that changes it (on the Advanced tab); click “with 7 values” or the catalog list to open the Values or Catalogs tab. An orange part indicates a problem.

The tabs below the sentence are:

On Advanced, you see only settings that make sense for the selected type. For example, the number of decimal places appears only for a decimal number.

Step by step: create an attribute

1. Go to Catalog → Attributes, on the Attributes and groups tab.
2. Click the round + button above the tree and choose Add attribute. Or hover over a group in the tree and click its + button; the new attribute will be placed in that group straight away.
3. Enter a name where it says New attribute. The AI Suggest from name button proposes a type, group, population, and values. It only fills in the form; it does not save anything.
4. On Advanced, choose the Type and Group. Choose a group now: an ungrouped attribute will not appear on any product card (Attribute pitfalls).
5. On Catalogs, assign the attribute to the catalogs where it should be used (Attribute requirements and completeness weight).
6. Click Save.

Add values to a select list only after saving the attribute. Until then, the Values tab says Save the attribute first, then add values. Save an individual value with Save value in its panel or the editor's main Save button. The latter also saves a value whose edit panel you left open (Entering attribute values — five ways).

Attribute types

There are twenty types to choose from:

• text — text, textarea, wysiwyg
• numeric — number, decimal, price
• selection — boolean, select, multiselect
• dates — date, datetime
• files — image, file, gallery
• special — identifier, metric, reference, table, user, computed

The type filter (the Filters button above the list) shows eighteen of them. You can create user and computed attributes, but cannot filter the list by those types.

The code is an identifier, not the name

Code is a technical identifier made of uppercase letters, digits, _, and -. Imports, formulas, and integrations refer to an attribute by its code. It must be unique within a company; two companies can have an attribute with the same code.

The Code field on the Advanced tab is locked during editing, by design: changing the code breaks everything that refers to it.

The Name is a separate thing — a translation. When an attribute is first assigned to a catalog, the system automatically derives its name from the code (PRODUCT_WEIGHT → “Product Weight”) in that catalog's default language. You can then change it in the translations window.

Change the type only on an empty attribute

Changing the type of an existing attribute does not convert saved values. Values are stored in a type-specific structure, and reads look up the key for the current type. So changing text to number leaves the old values in the database, but they are read as empty — with no error, no warning, and no way to undo the change with one click.

If the type is wrong, it is safer to create a new attribute and move the data than to switch the type on an attribute already filled in for products.

A calculated attribute needs an expression

A calculated value type with no expression cannot be saved. Validation runs on both sides, and the expression syntax is checked on save. Enter the expression on the Formula tab, which appears only for this type.

Multilingual support turns on by itself

An attribute becomes multilingual as soon as it gets a name or value in a second language; there is no switch to turn on. Once enabled, multilingual support does not turn itself off. Add name translations on the Translations tab in the editor. For a select list, the translate all… link there opens one window for translating all values at once.