Category Tree- Advanced Guide

This guide is for when you need full control over how your content is organized and displayed on your website and apps: series with seasons, courses with modules, genres, and an app-style homepage. New to categories? Start with Category Tree (Basic Guide) first.

In this article:

How Bamboo reads your category tree: the two display rules
Plan your structure: containers and content categories
Multi-level trees: series, courses, and genres
App-style homepage: build a homepage with rows
Common mistakes: and how to fix them
Key takeaway: and where to go next

How Bamboo reads your category tree

Bamboo follows your category tree exactly as you build it. Two rules decide what viewers see when they open a category:

A category with sub-categories shows its sub-categories.
A category without sub-categories shows its videos.

Viewer opens a category
        ↓
Does it have sub-categories?
   Yes → its sub-categories are shown
   No  → its videos are shown

The category's View Type then decides how it looks: for example a grid, rows, a series page, or a course page. Learn more: Advanced View Types Tutorial

Tip: the same rules apply wherever you use a category: a menu item, a homepage row, or a category page. If something doesn't appear where you expect, check the tree structure first.

Plan your structure

Your category tree controls your homepage, your navigation, what viewers see when they open a category, and how series, courses, and genres behave. Before you build a complex tree:

Decide which categories are containers: they hold sub-categories, not videos.
Decide which categories are content categories: they hold videos, and have no sub-categories.
Sketch the tree, so you can see how your homepage and menu will look.

Multi-level trees

Series and seasons

Set the series category's view type to Series, and add each season as a sub-category. Assign the episodes to their season. The series page then shows the episodes grouped by season.

TV Shows
 └─ My Series        (View Type: Series)
     ├─ Season 1     → episodes
     ├─ Season 2     → episodes
     └─ Season 3     → episodes

Important: videos assigned directly to My Series won't appear, because it has sub-categories. Assign them to a season.

Courses and modules

Courses work the same way. Set the course category's view type to Course, add each module as a sub-category, and assign the lessons to their module.

Courses
 └─ My Course        (View Type: Course)
     ├─ Module 1     → lessons
     └─ Module 2     → lessons

Genres

For genres, create a container category with a content category for each genre:

Movies
 ├─ Comedy  → videos
 ├─ Drama   → videos
 └─ Kids    → videos

Tip: a video can belong to several categories, so a comedy for kids can be in both Comedy and Kids, with no duplicates.

App-style homepage

For a homepage that looks like a streaming app, create one homepage category and add it to your menu in Platform → Navigation with the Dynamic Rows (Netflix Look) type. Each direct sub-category becomes a row, in the order of your tree.

Home                 (Navigation: Dynamic Rows)
 ├─ Featured         (Hero Slider)   → videos
 ├─ Newly Added      (Gallery)       → videos
 ├─ Top Picks        (Top 10)        → videos
 ├─ TV Shows         (Poster Row)
 │   ├─ Series 1     (Series)
 │   │   ├─ Season 1
 │   │   └─ Season 2
 │   └─ Series 2     (Series)
 │       ├─ Season 1
 │       └─ Season 2
 └─ Movies           (Gallery)
     ├─ Comedy
     ├─ Drama
     └─ Kids

Why this works:

Rows appear in the order of the category tree, with featured and new content at the top.
Each row's look comes from its own category's view type.
TV Shows has sub-categories, so its row shows your series. Viewers click a series to open its series page.
Containers hold sections, and content categories hold videos, so navigation feels predictable.

Learn more: Setting Up Your Home Screen · Navigation

Common mistakes

Videos “disappear”: they're assigned to a category that has sub-categories. Assign them to a category without sub-categories.
A category opens but shows nothing: its sub-categories are empty, or the videos were added at the wrong level.
The homepage doesn't look as expected: the category order doesn't match the layout you want, or a row's category holds sub-categories instead of videos.
A row or page has the wrong look: check the view type of that category. Learn more: View types troubleshooting

Tip: review your category tree before you publish, to make sure every video is in the right place.

Key takeaway

Bamboo displays exactly what your category tree specifies. Once you know the two display rules, everything becomes predictable: series and seasons, courses and modules, genres, and your homepage rows.

Each category also has settings for privacy, sorting, images, and its view type. Learn more: Create & Edit Categories

Watch a video about category tree in Bamboo