Picture a horizontal strip of category “chips” sitting above your listing screen — that’s the category tab bar. Tap a chip and the list filters down to that category, so someone can jump straight to the records they care about instead of scrolling past everything else. On a phone, it’s the fastest way to make a multi-category listing feel browsable rather than overwhelming.

You control it with a handful of Yes/No toggles: whether the tab bar shows up at all, whether it’s always on, whether it includes an “All” option, and whether it stays pinned to the top while someone scrolls. This guide walks through each one — where to find it, and what it changes in the app.

Goal

Decide how the category filter tab bar behaves on your listing screens — show it or hide it, force it to always appear, add an “All” chip, and pin it (make it sticky) so it stays visible while scrolling — then preview the result.

Prerequisites

• You’re a WordPress admin who can manage options on the site.
• MAM Main is installed and active.
• At least one content class is set up so you have a listing screen to look at (for example, a WordPress category or a GeoDirectory directory).
• Your listing has more than one category. The tab bar only has chips to show when the underlying records span multiple categories — see the note about single-category lists below.
• You can load your app in the WP Mobile App Manager Previewer to check your changes. (See Preview your app on a device.)

Where these settings live

Most of these controls are app-wide and live together in App Settings:

1. In the WordPress admin, open the MAM App Settings page (the App Settings Manager).
2. Stay on the General Settings tab (it’s the default tab).
3. Scroll to the Listings section, or use the anchor links at the top of the page to jump straight to Listings.

The sticky behavior is configured a little differently — it’s a per-listings-screen setting rather than an app-wide one. That step calls out where to find it.

Steps

1. Decide whether to show the tab bar at all

Find Hide category tab bar on Listings? (a Yes/No toggle).

Turn this on and the category tab bar disappears from the listings screen — users browse the full list with no chips in sight. Leave it off (the default) and the tab bar shows up automatically whenever the list spans more than one category.

Leave this off if category browsing is the point of your app. Turn it on for a single, flat list where categories would just add clutter.

If you hide the tab bar but still want a way to filter, look at Hide Category Filter Button (near search) in the same section. That’s a separate control for the filter button that sits next to the search bar — a more compact alternative to the full tab bar.

2. Always show the tab bar, even with one category

Find Always show category tab bar on Listings? (a Yes/No toggle).

By default, the tab bar only shows up when there’s more than one category to switch between — a single-category list has nothing to filter, so no chips appear. Turn this on to force the tab bar to show anyway, even with just one category.

Use this when you want a consistent look across screens (so the tab bar never “disappears” on lists that happen to have one category), or when you expect more categories to be added later and don’t want the layout to shift.

This setting has no effect if you’ve hidden the tab bar in Step 1. Hiding wins.

3. Add an “All” chip

Find Show All Option on category tab bar on Listings? (a Yes/No toggle).

When this is on, MAM adds an All chip to the front of the tab bar. Tapping it clears the category filter and shows records from every category at once — a quick way back to the full list after a user has drilled into one category.

Turn this on if you want users to be able to “zoom back out” without leaving the screen. Leave it off if every record belongs to exactly one category and an unfiltered view isn’t meaningful.

4. Pin the tab bar so it stays visible (sticky)

By default, the tab bar scrolls away with the rest of the content as someone works their way down a long list. Make it sticky, and it stays pinned to the top instead — the category chips stay within reach no matter how far down the list someone has scrolled.

This control is configured per listings screen, not app-wide:

1. Open the listings screen you want to configure (the screen / button where this list is shown).
2. Find Make Category Selection on tabbar sticky? (a Yes/No toggle) in that screen’s settings.
3. Turn it on to pin the tab bar; leave it off to let it scroll with the content.

Pinning is worth it on long lists where users want to switch categories repeatedly. On short lists it makes little difference, so you can leave it off.

Because this is per-screen, you can have a sticky tab bar on one listing and a scrolling one on another. If a screen “won’t stay pinned,” check that you set this on that specific screen and not somewhere else.

5. Save and preview

Save your changes (App Settings has its own save control; per-screen settings save with that screen). Then open the WP Mobile App Manager Previewer and load your app to confirm:

• The tab bar appears (or doesn’t) as you set it in Steps 1 and 2.
• The All chip is present if you enabled it in Step 3.
• On the screen you made sticky, the tab bar stays at the top as you scroll.

Changes reach the app on its next content refresh, so give the previewer a moment (or trigger a refresh) after saving.

Notes and gotchas

• Tab bar vs. filter button vs. search. Three different controls can sit at the top of a listing: the category tab bar (the chip strip in this guide), the Category Filter Button next to search (listings_hide_category_filter_button), and the search bar itself (listings_hide_search). They’re independent — hiding one does not hide the others.
• Chips come from the records’ categories. You don’t hand-pick these chips — they’re pulled from the categories already on your records, which is why a single-category list shows none unless you turn on “Always show” (Step 2).
• Most of this is app-wide; sticky is per-screen. The show/hide, always-show, and “All” toggles apply to every listing screen. Sticky is set on each listings screen individually.
• Hiding overrides everything else. Hide the tab bar in Step 1, and the always-show, “All,” and sticky settings simply have nothing left to work on.

Related

• Style your listings: colors, stars, favorites, and row lines — the other Listings-section controls that change how the list itself looks, including the category tab bar’s selected/unselected text colors.
• Set up the bottom tab bar for your app — the app’s main navigation tab bar, which is a different thing from the category filter tab bar covered here.
• Preview your app on a device — load the app in the WP Mobile App Manager Previewer to see these changes in context.
• App Setting Reference: listings_hide_cat_tabbar, listings_always_show_cat_tabbar, listings_show_all_cat_tabbar, listings_cat_tabbar_is_sticky, listings_hide_category_filter_button.

What’s next

With category browsing sorted, it’s worth tidying up the rest of the listing header: whether to show the search bar, the compact filter button, and the record count in section headers (listings_show_section_count_in_header) — all in the same Listings area. From there, move on to the detail screen your users see after tapping a row.