[Resolved] WooCommerce views layout is not being used

[Author]

Posts

[Marcel]

I am trying to: design a custom WooCommerce product archive with Toolset Blocks, but the website still uses the themes archive. I already set the WooCommerce Views setting for Product Archive Template File to WooCommerce Views plugin default product archive template.

[Nigel]

I don't recognise the theme from your debug info, so I tried to visit your site to perform a simply test, namely to switch theme to twentynineteen to see if the custom archive works.

If it does then it would be a compatibility issue with your theme, which likely uses a non-standard means of displaying the archive.

But the link to your site doesn't appear to work. Could you check the same yourself?

[Marcel]

Hi Nigel,

The link should work (works fine from here). I tested it with Astra theme myself, doesn't work either.

[Nigel]

I'm unable to test this, I'm afraid.

[Marcel]

Hmm that's strange.. maybe access is limited to certain regions by the clients host. I'll inform about that.

[Marcel]

Sorry, my bad. The URL isn't linked to the ip of the new server yet, since it's a make over. I've adjusted the IP adres in my Windows host file, that's why I'm able to see it. If I gave you the IP in a PM, can you access it than?

[Nigel]

I can certainly try, let me set another private reply for you.

[Marcel]

EDIT whoops I think the IP wasn't in a private reply. But it is probably in your mail now right?

[Nigel]

Sorry, did I not set up a private reply?

Let me try again now.

[Nigel]

Hi Marcel

You should find it working now.

Your shop page was showing product categories instead of products.

It took me a long time to remember/work out where the setting for that is, and it's in the Customizer (screenshot).

Reverting that setting to display products allows the custom product archive from Toolset to be used.

[Marcel]

Hi Nigel,

Thanks, but does my own design only apply to the shop page? I need it to work on the home page as well, and for the related products too. Previously, I would just make a view and insert it where I needed it with Elementor, but I can't do that with a Blocks layout right? So do I have to revert back to views then?

[Nigel]

You can update the usage for the custom archive, so that it is also used for the home/blog archive, for example, and the product category archive. So you can use the same archive design in more than one place.

But "related products" is something else, it's not an archive, so you would need a View for something like that.

Archives are built-in WordPress concepts, dynamic lists of posts automatically generated at certain URLs, which is very different to a View which is a custom query you can insert anywhere.

[Marcel]

I didn't mean that I want to use this design on the blog archive. I have a static homepage, and I want to include a "popular products" section on that homepage (between other content).

I could create a view for that, but that means I have to create the same template twice: once as an archive, and once as a view. I would expect to be able to use the existing archive template as a view?

[Nigel]

Archives and Views are similar but different, and not interchangeable.

They can both refer to the same template in the output section, though, so that you don't have to redesign the output twice.

But the input part of the archive and View are handled very differently, so you need a separate View and a separate custom archive, even if they use the same template for the output.