Hi all
Before I spend hours on trial and error, or trawling through documentation and old posts I thought I'd post a query here first.
I'm currently building an Actinic shop that will sell art work. I have categorised the art work into sections (abstracts, still life, nature etc...) and this will be the main method for browsing the store.
I also want customers to be able to browse the art by colour (or colours).
What i dont want to have to do is create duplicate products in sections for each main colour.
I thought the best way to do achieve this would be with a custom search.
I have a CUSTOMVAR added to my products called 'ARTCOLOURS' and this has been populated with text to describe the main colour or colours, such as ..
"Brown"
"Green, Blue"
"Brown, Orange, Yellow"
"Brown, Beige"
etc, etc
What I plan (hope) to do is then create a 'search by colour' page that allows the customer to tick a checkbox for the colour (or colours) they want and then click a button to run a search that searches ONLY within the customvar called 'ARTCOLOURS' and returns the results.
My questions therefore are;
1. Is it possible to search within (and only within) specified customvars?
2. Is it possible to run queries against Actinic through passing a string via the url (Query_String) - as with many other technologies - eg something like
.../acatalog?searchCustomVar=ARTCOLORS&Query=brown,yellow
or code to the same effect
3. Is it possible to build the above into a customised search form page and search results page?
Ive seen actinic sites with dropdowns for 'Search by price' etc - so I assume this is possible??
I'd also like to apply a similar principle to addtionally allow customers to search by Size, Artist, Budget etc.... (as I also have this info stored in customvars)
Any advice, tips or examples greatly appreciated
Kind regards
Russell King
Before I spend hours on trial and error, or trawling through documentation and old posts I thought I'd post a query here first.
I'm currently building an Actinic shop that will sell art work. I have categorised the art work into sections (abstracts, still life, nature etc...) and this will be the main method for browsing the store.
I also want customers to be able to browse the art by colour (or colours).
What i dont want to have to do is create duplicate products in sections for each main colour.
I thought the best way to do achieve this would be with a custom search.
I have a CUSTOMVAR added to my products called 'ARTCOLOURS' and this has been populated with text to describe the main colour or colours, such as ..
"Brown"
"Green, Blue"
"Brown, Orange, Yellow"
"Brown, Beige"
etc, etc
What I plan (hope) to do is then create a 'search by colour' page that allows the customer to tick a checkbox for the colour (or colours) they want and then click a button to run a search that searches ONLY within the customvar called 'ARTCOLOURS' and returns the results.
My questions therefore are;
1. Is it possible to search within (and only within) specified customvars?
2. Is it possible to run queries against Actinic through passing a string via the url (Query_String) - as with many other technologies - eg something like
.../acatalog?searchCustomVar=ARTCOLORS&Query=brown,yellow
or code to the same effect
3. Is it possible to build the above into a customised search form page and search results page?
Ive seen actinic sites with dropdowns for 'Search by price' etc - so I assume this is possible??
I'd also like to apply a similar principle to addtionally allow customers to search by Size, Artist, Budget etc.... (as I also have this info stored in customvars)
Any advice, tips or examples greatly appreciated
Kind regards
Russell King
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