v7 to v8 quicj question

[wesleythorne]

Hi, we use v7 and before upgrading to v8 we need to know if this is possible?
The question is will v8 allow a product to be assigned a property so that a customer can search for it. In version 7 custom property could do this but were limited.

The property in question is 'flavour' our products come in different flavours and each product has its own flavour.
The problem i see is that a product sometimes has more than one flavour and as such i need to be able to assign the product to more than one flavour property.

My vision would be to create a list of flavours and then assign a product to it.
The product would be able to be assigned to more than one flavour.

A customer could then do a search 'by flavour' and the results given.

Is this possible?
Kind Regards
Wes

[wesleythorne]

ok I have created a variable for flavour and each product can now be given a flavour.
The problem I have is that for example my product 'sour apples' has two flavours. Both 'apple' and 'sour'
Is there a way to enter a string of keywords into a variable so that i can list both apple and sour?
We want a customer to be able to choose a flavour from a drop down list to help them find products that they like the flavour of.
As I can see actinic can only create one variable in a drop down list.
Ideally the drop down list will hold about 20 flavours to choose from.

[wjcampbe]

I may be off base here, but if the description includes sour apple and the user searches for sour, the item will be found. If the user searches for apple, the item will be found. Why do you need to add a "category" as a variable to classify a search term?

If you want to group "sour" sweets, then you create a section "Sour sweets" and fill it with duplicates of the products that are sour from all the other sections of the shop.

That way your drop down is a simple section list drop down, and the AUG already covers creating one of those.

I have to wonder how you do this in the physical sweet shop? Two jars - one on each shelf? Or the RL equivalent of the quick search - customer asks, "What sour sweets do you have?"

[jont]

The search will allow for all the variables to be shown in the drop down .. Settings | Search Settings | Searchable Properties ... you can assign the variables there.

As you have more than one possible flavour to assign I am with Bill - you would be possibly better setting the text in the product and using the search and variables for a more wider grouping and not so defined as flavours. eg: boiled sweets, chewy sweets, bubblegum etc ... of course you personally are in the best position to know how your customers are browsing the site.

[wesleythorne]

hi, thanks for the reply.
We have the sweets in sections as suggested.
We find that the search results are vague and can return to generic a response.
Idealy we could restrict the search results to only products containing a flavour variable.

Most of our competors use a flavour search and we are keen to implemnt one.
We have been using actinic for just over three years.

The sort of thing we want can be found on the link below. On the botom left hand side of their homepage is a section to search by flavour and maker.

http://www.aquarterof.co.uk

thanks
wes

[RuralWeb]

Looks like they have done as bill is suggesting you do ie create sections for each flavour and use duplicate products.

[Jan]

I have done something along these lines (in V7 mind you), I wanted people to be able to search software on category, so mailing lists, labels, order processing, that sort of thing, so I created a custom variable for each of things I wanted people to be able to sort on and then defined each of them on each product with either a value of yes or no. Then on my custom search page, you have a list of custom properties that the user can set to yes or no before doing a search ... I would show you an example ... but I never quite got around to writing the search page and V7 did some strange things with the drop downs (I think you can see it if you search ... towards the bottom .. the V8 version will be just perfect though).

This will be better in V8 because when you set up a UDP you can define a list of variables.

Regards,

[wjcampbe]

So in this scenario Jan, every product in the catalog has a property called sour, set at top level to No, and reset at product level to Yes for sour products. Every product in the catalog has a property apple, set to No etc. etc.

Then in the search the user has a sour radiobutton and an apple radiobutton and a...

Can see how it would work, but surely work is the operative word on this one

[Jan]

Well in V8 you would obviously give the UDP a default of No, so you are only defining the flavours that each product actually has. You are not going to get any kind of search on flavour without defining the flavours at product level so this solution is probably a similar amount of work as any other. The problem I can see for sweets is getting the search page to look sensible - it will work well for my products because I only have around 10 categories.

Regards,

[wesleythorne]

hi, thanks for the comments, i am trying to find the best solution, and the search page will need a bit of work.
I have been looking at the compertion sites and they use a different system 'osc' which apparently allows you to set up a attribute such as flavour and then assign a product to it. You can then search on individual flavours.
As we have about 25 flavours i don't really want 25 new sections for each flavour and duplicates in each.
Been weighing up v8 and not sure if it is worth re learning at this stage.
wes