Use the SOBI extended menu to create menu links to your SOBI categories.

To explain this new behavior, I will create three different links.

The first link will be a normal SOBI component link. On the right side select Categories. This results in a category id 0 which won't be added to the link. We will call this link Trinity's Directory as this is the main directory menu link. In our example we will get the Joomla! menu ID 53 for the normal SOBI component link.

Our second link will be a link to Category AA, which is a sub sub category of First Category. This results in a menu link with category id 7 added. We will call this link Important Category. In our example we will get the Joomla! menu ID 64 for the SOBI category link Important Category.

Our third link will be a link to Second Category, which is a main category. This results in a menu link with category id 3 added. We will call this link Second. In our example we will get the Joomla! menu ID 54 for the SOBI category link Second.

Summary of the Joomla! menu items for SOBI categories we have created:

This results in the following front-end menu:

What happens now for all other categories in our directory?
We will take a look to the resulting menu tree:

The categories linked in the Joomla! menu have the menu ID (Itemid) which is assigned to their menu links. So Category AA which is assigned to the Joomla! menu item Important Category gets the menu ID 64. Second Category which is assigned to the Joomla! menu item Second gets the menu ID 54.

Each category will get the menu ID of its parent category. That means that Category AAA, which is a sub category of Category AA will get also the menu ID 64. And Category B which is a sub category of Second Category will get the menu ID 54 of its parent.

First Category is not assigned to a specific Joomla! menu item. Therefore it gets the category id of the component menu link, which is ID 53. Category A gets the menu ID of its parent which is 53. Third Category is also not assigned to a specific Joomla! menu item and will get also component menu ID 53.

What are the benefits of having separate menu items to SOBI categories?
Besides the fact that you can select a specific category directly from the Joomla! menu using a different name, you have now the possibility to assign a module only to a specific directory category. In the module settings you will find now your category links in the Menu Assignment box: