Filter Manager

Overview

The Filter Manager builds the product filters shoppers use on the front end of your store — the checkbox lists, dropdowns and price controls on shop and category pages. You build filters here, group them into a Filter Widget, and place that widget anywhere with a shortcode. One global Style Editor controls how every widget looks.

The tab is laid out top to bottom in three sections — Filters, Filter Widgets, and the Filter Widget Style Editor — matching the three building blocks:

The three building blocks

Filters — individual filter controls (a Colour attribute list, a Brand list, a Price slider). Managed as rows in the filter table.
Filter Widgets — named, ordered collections of filters (optionally split into collapsible groups) that render as one block. Each widget has its own shortcode.
Style Editor — one global set of styles applied to every widget on the front end.

1. The Filters table

The top section is a grid of individual filters. Its toolbar has a search, a type filter, an Items / Page control, a blue + Create Filter button and a purple + Bulk Create button. Each row is one filter; the columns expose that filter's settings, and edits are staged until Save Changes.

Filter Manager — Filters section

Items / Page

Attribute	Display Type	Query Type	Price Style	Smart Sort
			—
—		—	—	—
—	—	—		—

The table has more columns than shown here (Show Children, Hide Empty, Collapsed, Item Limit, See More / See Less text); the full set is covered in Creating & Managing Filters. Which columns are relevant depends on the filter's type — a Price filter has no Attribute or Query Type, so those cells read “—”.

2. Filter Widgets

The middle section collects filters into Filter Widgets. Each widget is a card showing its name and how many filters it contains; + Create Filter Widget opens its editor. A saved widget is what you place on the storefront via its shortcode.

Filter Manager — Filter Widgets section

Sort:

Widget #1

4 filters

Widget #2

3 filters

Widget #3

1 filter

Cards can be switched to a list view. The highlighted card is the one currently open in the editor. Opening a widget reveals its filters, grouping, reset button and its shortcode ([wcbat_filters id="set_…"]) — all covered in Filter Widgets.

3. Filter Widget Style Editor

The bottom section is one global Style Editor. Its white toolbar carries the Style Presets on the left and Save Styles on the right; whatever you save applies to every filter widget on the storefront at once.

Filter Manager — Style Editor toolbar

Style Presets

The full set of style controls (Panel, Header, Toggle Icon, Colour Swatches, Price Range, Reset Button and more) and the live preview are covered in Filter Styling.

The five filter types

Type	Filters by	Notes
Attribute	A global product attribute (`pa_` taxonomy)	Supports List or Dropdown display and AND/OR logic. Optional Smart Sort.
Category	Product categories	Renders the category tree; clicking navigates to that category archive (no `filter_` parameter).
Brand	Product brands	Uses `product_brand`, falling back to Perfect Brands (`pwb-brand`).
Tag	Product tags	Standard `product_tag` taxonomy. Always OR logic.
Price Range	Product price	Min/Max input boxes or a draggable slider.

How a filter reaches the front end

Create filters

Add rows in the filter table — one at a time, or many at once with Bulk Create. Edits are staged and committed together with Save Changes.

Build a Filter Widget

Create a widget, add the filters you want, order and optionally group them, set the reset button.

Place the shortcode

Each saved widget gives a shortcode like [wcbat_filters id="set_123"]. Put it in a sidebar, block, or page content.

Style once

Use the Style Editor to set the look for every widget at once.

Where filters appear

The front-end stylesheet and markup load on shop pages, product archives, and any singular page containing the [wcbat_filters] shortcode. On an archive, the filters narrow the products already shown on that page.

⚙

Counts are context-awareEach option shows a count reflecting the in-stock products that match the other active filters — not a fixed total. Ticking “Red” updates the counts on the “Size” filter next to it. Out-of-stock products are excluded.

The filter URL

Ticking an option builds a URL parameter rather than reloading via AJAX:

Parameter	Example	Meaning
`filter_{slug}`	`?filter_colour=red,blue`	Attribute filter (slug without the `pa_` prefix); values comma-separated.
`query_type_{slug}`	`&query_type_colour=and`	AND or OR matching for that attribute.
`filter_brand`	`?filter_brand=brand-1`	Brand filter.
`filter_tag`	`?filter_tag=sale`	Tag filter.
`min_price` / `max_price`	`?min_price=100&max_price=500`	Price bounds.

ℹ

Built for WooCommerce layered navCommas are written un-encoded and WooCommerce's attribute lookup-table query hook is removed while a filter is active, so the filters behave consistently with WooCommerce's own layered navigation. Automatic — nothing to configure.