Ability to "Always Hide Categories" and configure the "Default View" and "Default Sort Order" for the Resources Page

It would be REALLY useful if we had the option to configure the default view of the Resources page, similar to the options we have for the Catalog and My Courses pages (see image for template configuration example). Our biggest concern is that when there are only a few resources on the page, it is completely unnecessary to have the categories, name search and tag search options available. It causes unnecessary noise for learners. When there are no categories, this page appears "broken" to learners. We would also like to make the experience better by configuring the layout so that card view is the default (we don't have to rely on learners to take the time to explore the layout options).

We don't have the ability to Always Hide Categories:

In order to limit user confusion when there are only a few resources, and to allow them to get to the resource more quickly, we've found that the best option is just not to add resources to a category. But then there are two issues with this workaround:

1. The "Show Categories" toggle persists on the Resources page and the search filter panel stays open by default, even when there are no categories. Users get confused by this because the "Show Categories" toggle can still be toggled ON/OFF, but it does nothing. This make it feel like something isn't functioning correctly.

2. If we can't assign resources to categories because we don't want learners to see the categories, we can't easily filter and manage them in the global resources list on the admin side. In our case, we need to have a large number of resources assigned to a category, while only a few of those resources will be assigned to a single department at any given time. Essentially, in some cases, we still need the category filtering capability on the admin side, but do not need it on the learner side.

We don't have the ability to configure the Default View:

We'd like to be able to set the default layout to "Card View." Users have the option to choose this, but they don't necessarily see it or take the time to explore their options.

We don't have the ability to configure the Default Sort Order:

We'd like to be able to set the default sort order to "Newest" because it would help them see newly added resources right away. Users have the option to choose this, but they don't necessarily take the time to explore their options and we'd like to be able to highlight newly added resources by making them appear first by default.