Create collections from a model

One model, one collection per value

A collection model has no page of its own. It describes a series of collections that differ by one value only: the city, the brand, the category… It creates a collection for each value you choose, at the URL its pattern gives, and keeps it up to date as you edit the model.

Each collection has the model’s conditions, plus its own value. Its other fields (name, texts, image, template, SEO) come from the model as long as it has none of its own: editing the model edits them all at once.

Create a model

1. Open Settings › Collections, then click New model.
2. In the Model card, enter the model’s Name, check its Alias, and choose what Its collections present: Listings or Users. The alias and that choice are set once, at creation.
3. In Shared conditions, add the conditions every collection of the model meets, as for a collection.
4. In Varying criterion, choose in Varies on what changes from one collection to the next, then its values (see below).
5. In Slug and name of the collections, write the patterns of the Slug and of the Collection name, with {value} where the value goes. An Example line shows the result for the first value.
6. Fill in, if you need them, Texts of the collections (page title, subtitle, description), Search engine optimizations, and, on the right, Templates, Featured Image and Sitemap. {value} works in every text.
7. Click Save, then check the preview and click Confirm and save.

The Alias lets your theme find the model to show its collections, for instance as a list of links on the home page.

The varying criterion and its values

For listings, a model can vary on an Attribute, a Category, the Seller group, the Transaction type, the City, the Country, the Department or a Tag. For users: the User group, the City, the Country or the Department.

• For an attribute, a category, a group, a transaction type or a department, click Add values and tick them in the list. For an attribute, choose which one first: only attributes whose values are picked from a list are offered.
• For a city, a country or a tag, type the value, then press Enter or click Add.

Each value shows on a line: its original name, in grey, then its label, which you can edit. The label is what replaces {value}: write “Lyon” rather than “LYON”, for instance. The cross takes the value out of the model.

Order and empty collections

Under the values, Order of the collections sets the order in which your theme shows the links to the model’s collections:

• Alphabetical;
• By number of items, from the fullest to the emptiest;
• Manual: the order of the values, which you set by dragging the handle of each line, or with the arrow keys.

Switched on, the Hide empty collections toggle removes from those links the collections without any listing or user. Their pages stay online.

The preview before saving

When saving changes collections, the Before saving dialog lists them first, by group: Will be created, Conditions will change, Will go offline, Will come back online. Each line gives the collection’s name and URL.

A URL already held is never taken over: the line says what holds it and the URL used instead, such as “/listings-nantes is already a page: /listings-nantes-2 instead.”

Click Confirm and save, or Back to the form. When no collection changes, for instance after a mere fix to the model’s name, the model is saved without this step.

Edit a model

• Adding a value creates its collection.
• Taking a value out puts its collection offline, with its texts; putting the value back brings it online again.
• Editing a pattern or a shared condition applies to every collection, except the fields a collection replaces (see the locks, below).
• Editing the slug pattern only applies to collections still to come: collections already created keep their slug.

The Collections of this model card, on the right, counts the collections online and offline; See the collections opens the list of collections filtered on the model.

A collection made by a model

Its form opens on a line that recalls where it comes from:

Its Conditions card points to the model: its conditions are the model’s, and change with it.

Each field it takes from the model carries a lock next to its label:

• To replace a value, click into the field and edit it: the lock opens. Brought back to the model’s value, the field closes again by itself.
• To follow the model again, click the open lock : the model’s value comes back and the lock closes .

The inherited fields are the name, the page title, the subtitle, the description, the image and its alternative text, the page template, the thumbnail, the SEO title, the meta description, the meta keywords, No index, No follow and the sitemap settings. The URL, the canonical URL and the visibility belong to the collection.

Detach a collection

Click Detach, at the top of the form, then confirm. The collection keeps everything it shows (texts, conditions, URL) and becomes a collection like any other; its value leaves the model.

A collection made by a model can be deleted once detached: the form says so with “To delete it, detach it from its model.” The last collection of a model stays attached: to part with it, delete the model.

Delete a model

1. At the bottom of the model’s form, click Delete model.
2. Click Delete model in the confirmation dialog.

Its collections stay online, detached: they keep their texts, conditions and URL.

Models in the list of collections

On the Collections screen, models come first, folded, on a grey ground. Click a model’s name to unfold its collections, in the model’s order; the other collections follow, under Other collections.

• The orange lock marks a collection with at least one field that differs from the model. Hover over it: the tooltip names them, such as “Different from the model: Page title, Subtitle”.
• Edit the model opens the model’s form.
• The name and the page title can be edited in place, as for any collection (see Create a collection). On a collection of a model, a text entered this way becomes its own; a field emptied follows the model again.

What your users see

Each collection of the model is a page like any other, at its own URL. Wherever your theme shows the model’s links, they follow the chosen order, without the offline collections, nor the empty ones when they are hidden.

Edge cases and limits

• Number of conditions: a model holds at most 59 shared conditions; the value of each collection makes the sixtieth.
• Number of items: the By number of items order and the Hide empty collections toggle use a count refreshed every fifteen minutes, and each time the model is saved.
• Name or URL changed: a collection stays in its model when you change its name or its URL, since it is tied to the model by its value.
• Department: offered on French marketplaces.
• API and AI agents: models can also be created and edited through the Admin API and by an AI agent (see Connect an AI agent to your marketplace with MCP).