Browsing by product type & manufacturer

[giles.thurston]

My client wants to be able to browse the product list by both type and manufacturer. Is this possible?

I am currently using the types to generate the category structure. Is it possible to have two category structures with manufacturer the second? Or should I generate my own search based on manufacturer?

Any advice appreciated

cheers

Giles

[I-CC]

I would create a variable called 'MyManufacturer' and make it available at the product level and possibly assign it with the choices of manufacturers, so that the client does not duplicate manufacturers with typo's or captilization, but make it search enabled.

Then, make sure it is added to the Search Settings | Searchable Properties so that it appears amongst them (might need to assign a product first with a manufacturer before this is possible though).

Then, at each product (over time) select the manufacturer from the list of choices to assign it to the product, repeating for all of them...

Then, to create a href link for a manufacturer, I think is:

../cgi-bin/ss000001.pl?&RANDOM=NETQUOTEVAR%3ARANDOM&PAGE=SEARCH&SS=&TB=A&PR=-1&S_MYMANUFACTURER0_0=Dulux&SX=0&ACTION=Search

(NETQUOTEVAR still exists in my v7 to v8 upgraded site and this above still works ok, but I think it might have been replaced by something else maybe, along with having a REFPAGE might assist also).

so,

where cgi-bin exists, you replace with your cgi-bin

where ss000001.pl exists, you replace with your 000001.pl or .cgi etc.

where MYMANUFACTURER is the searchable property name.

where Dulux is one of the choices I might have made available (for ones with spaces in the name, separate them with a + symbol in the link).

You should also be able to create jump to drop downs and the like with some lateral thinking, but that should get you on the road, plus you can create up to the URL link and launch it from the search page by just selecting a manufacturer from those listed and taking a look at the address bar code.

[gabrielcrowe]

simply ensuring that the manufacturere name is in the title and description of the item will make them appear in a search.

you can edit the search template to match the appearence of your catalog standard view. for an example, see the skate site below, we have a very customised search.

[giles.thurston]

Thanks for the replies, automatically calling the search routine from a menu option is the same conclusion that I had come to, so good to know I wasn't that far off track.

Thanks for the detailed replies as well, will definately save much heart ache later on

[I-CC]

The Advanced User Guide also details more indepth use of the searchable custom property usage, where you can create a custom search page based on the searchable properties using form elements and the like, which is could be adapted to enable checkboxes to search on different elements, so plenty of ways to achieve a good detailed search ability.

All the best.