Manually building a category showcase page one column at a time doesn’t scale, and it doesn’t update itself when a category is added or renamed.
The Dynamic Categories widget pulls any taxonomy’s terms live and lays them out as a grid, masonry, metro or carousel listing.
Requirement – This widget is a part of The Plus Addons for Elementor, make sure it’s installed & activated to enjoy all its powers.
Before You Start
- Prerequisite: Elementor (free) installed and active.
- Edition: Dynamic Categories is a free widget – it works with just The Plus Addons for Elementor installed, no Pro licence required.
- Widget to enable: go to The Plus Addons > Widgets, search for Dynamic Categories and turn its toggle on.
Steps
- Add the Dynamic Categories widget to the page.
- From Style, choose Style 1 (the default), Style 2, Style 3 or a fully Custom layout.
From Layout (Content tab), choose Grid (the default), Masonry, Metro or Carousel. Each has its own dedicated how-to doc, linked below.
From Taxonomies, pick which taxonomy’s terms to list – this dropdown is populated live from the site’s own registered taxonomies (Category by default, plus Tag and any WooCommerce or custom taxonomies present).
Content Settings
- Hide Empty (on by default) – skips terms with zero posts.
- Hide Sub Categories – shows only top-level terms.
- Maximum Categories Display – how many terms to show (default 8).
- Order By / Order – sort terms by date, name, count and more, ascending or descending.
Columns
Set independent column counts for Desktop, Tablet and Mobile, plus a separate column count for the Metro layout.
Settings Overview
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Style | Style 1/2/3 or a fully Custom layout. | Style 1 |
| Layout | Grid, Masonry, Metro or Carousel arrangement. | Grid |
| Taxonomies | Which taxonomy’s terms to list. | Category |
| Hide Empty | Skips terms with no posts. | Yes |
| Maximum Categories Display | How many terms to show. | 8 |
Not verified
So you know exactly what has and has not been checked:
- Live rendering of Style 2, Style 3 and Custom – no existing doc in this 9-doc set covers them explicitly, so they were not re-tested in this rewrite; flagged in findings as a possible content gap for Rushit to decide on, not added here since the doc count is fixed by the wave plan.
