Search tool problem/query

[NickD]

Hi all

I have a question about the search facility in v6. I sell wine - for the sake of simplicity let's suppose the words that will be searched for are "merlot" and "chardonnay".

When you go to the catalogue on my site, there is a search box into which the user can type text, and a "Go!" button next to it. Nice and simple. If the user types "merlot" and hits go then they get all the entries with "merlot" in them. However what they also get is another search box, wider this time, with radio buttons to select so that a subsequent search with multiple words can be effected searching for all or any of the new text words typed. There is also a price band option. This is not available on the main website, only the simple textbox +Go! button.

It seems that the simple search option from the catalogue appears to only find results when ALL the words typed are present.

My concern about this is that I know from logfiles that people are searching for multiple words, in this example it might be "merlot chardonnay" which will produce no results because no wine is both merlot AND chardonnay. What I would like is for it to default to the "any words" option and not the "all words" option, so the listing that would be produced would be the superset of entries with "merlot" or "chardonnay" in the product entry.

Currently searching for "merlo chardonnay" produces no results from the catalogue pages.

Can this default be changed?

Regards

Nick

[wjcampbe]

See pages 55 - 59 of the Advanced Users Guide downloadable from the Actinic Support page here http://www.actinic.co.uk/support/downloads.htm

[SusanF]

I find this bit of the Advanced Guide very difficult to understand. I think it is more to do with searching on custom properties than on simple keywords (but I might be wrong). I hadn't realised the simple keyword search automatically uses AND. Does anyone know of a way to change this to OR, as I realise I will have similar problems to Nick.

Nick, I can answer one part of your question. Once you complete the simple search, the search results page automatically shows the full search option at the end of the results as you describe. This can easily be removed within Act_ResultsTemplate, by commenting out the line NETQUOTEVAR:SEARCHBLOCK.

ie <!-- NETQUOTEVAR:SEARCHBLOCK -->

Unfortunately the version of the simple search shown in this block actually allows you to choose All or Any which is what we both want to be able to do!

Regards,
Susan.

[wjcampbe]

If you now upload this catalog (or go to 'Advanced | Generate Web Site') it will generate an HTML
file called 'search.html' and a file called 'customsearch.fil' which you will find in your Site1 (or
equivalent) directory. These are the files that you will need to customise.
Finally, go to 'Search Settings | Options' and un-check where it says 'Catalog Maintains Search
Page'. This will mean that Actinic will no longer create any more search page HTML or a
customsearch.fil file; even if you make a change to the search settings in the application. You are
now able to customise these files to your exact specifications.

This last sentence is the one that gets my attention.

[NickD]

Thanks to both of you for your input. Like Susan, I found this part of the user guide tough going - in my case to the point of being impenetrable, and it didn't really help me in what I'm looking to do, which is really rather simple, I feel.

I'm actually very happy with the general way it works, except that I'd like it to do an OR initial search rather than an AND one. The results page and the otions it offers are fine and I don't want to change that.

Gotta be a simple solution somewhere...

Nick

[NormanRouxel]

Edit Act_SimpleSearch.html and replace the line

        <input type=HIDDEN name="PR" value="-1"> <input type=HIDDEN name="TB" value="A">

with

        <input type=HIDDEN name="PR" value="-1"> <input type=HIDDEN name="TB" value="O">

(a one character change) and the simple search now uses an OR function.

[SusanF]

Norman, you are a star

Thanks,
Susan.

[NickD]

works fine - thanks

Nick