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Worked examples
Build a product or services catalog
Build a catalog of products with images, prices and categories, with a listing page, a page per product and links between products and categories.
In this tutorial you build a cake catalog. You'll have two collections: Categories (such as Birthday and Wedding) and Cakes. Each cake has a photo, a price and a link to its category. The AI builds a catalog page and a page for each cake.
The same approach works for services, menus, team members or anything else you list many of.
Before you start
- You need a site. Any site works.
- Upload a few product photos to the image library: click Images in the left icon rail and drag the files in. Give each a clear description, which becomes its default alt text.
Ask the AI for the catalog
- 01
Describe the two collections
Open the AI panel and send:
Create a catalog of our cakes. First make a Categories collection with a name, a slug and a short description. Then make a Cakes collection with: name, slug, photo (with alt text), price in US dollars, a category that links to an item in Categories, serves (a number of people), a short description and a longer Markdown description. Add sample categories (Birthday, Wedding, Everyday) and six sample cakes. - 02
Ask for the pages
When it finishes, send:
Build a /cakes page that shows all cakes in a grid with photo, name, price and category, with buttons to filter by category. Build a page for each cake with a large photo, price, serves, category and the long description, plus a link back to /cakes. Show prices as $45.00. Add "Cakes" to the header. - 03
Check the result
Open the Pages panel and look at the catalog page and the cake page. On the cake page, use the item menu in the top bar to preview different cakes.
- 04
Save
Click Save in the AI Session bar.
Look at the collections in the CMS
- 01
Open the CMS
In the top bar, switch the view from Canvas to CMS. Under Collections, you see Categories and Cakes.
- 02
Look at the fields
Open Cakes and click Edit Schema. You see each field and its type: Text for the name, Slug, Image with its alt text field, Number for the price and serves, Reference for the category, Long text and Markdown.
Add your real products
- 01
Create a cake
In Cakes, click the + button (New item). Type the name; the slug fills in from it. Enter the price as a plain number, such as
45. - 02
Add the photo
Click the image field and pick a photo from your library. Check the alt text describes the photo.
- 03
Choose the category
Click the category field and pick a category from the list. You can also create a new category from the picker.
- 04
Publish the cake
Click Publish. The dialog lists anything that goes along with it, such as a category that isn't live yet. Linked items publish together, so a live cake never points at a category that isn't live. Click Publish to confirm.
Publish the site
The catalog pages are part of your site's code. Publish the site once so they exist on your live site: click Publish at the top right, then Publish or Republish in the panel.
After that, publishing a cake or a category in the CMS puts it on your live site within a few seconds, without republishing the site.
Generate more sample items
To try the layout with more products, open the collection and click Generate. Choose how many items, optionally describe them, and generate. The new items are drafts until you publish them. Generating uses credits.
If something goes wrong
| Problem | What to do |
|---|---|
| The catalog page on your live site is empty. | Publish the cakes in the CMS. Visitors only see published items. |
| A cake's page shows your 404 page. | The cake isn't published, or its slug changed. |
| The publish dialog says something needs attention first. | A linked item can't be published, for example a category missing a required field. Open it from the link in the dialog and fix it. |
| Unpublish is blocked on a category. | Live cakes still link to it. Change or unpublish those cakes first. |
| You can't delete a category. | Something links to it. The message names what. |
Prices show as 45 instead of $45.00. |
Ask the AI to format the price on the catalog and cake pages. |
| A new field doesn't show on the live site. | Changes to a collection's fields reach the live site when you next publish the site. |