Newbie : Search/Product Layout

[hubba]

Hi, I'm a newbie evaluating Actinic.

I dont really know how to explain it but I want to do something like this website - http://www.forzieri.com (go to the website, click MEN, click TIES. What I want to do is the 'Also Show TIES By' portion - ignore all the other fancy features).

I want to allow the site visitors to locate products by utilising specific search drop-down boxes.

ie: 1. View products by Colour (black, red, white) = search the database in CURRENT SECTION/CATEGORY for the colour selected in the drop down box, and show the found products on a webpage.

ie. 2. View products by Fabric (silk, polyester) = seacrh the database in CURRENT SECTION/CATEGORY for the fabric type selected in the drop down box, and show the found products on a webpage.

The search drop-down box must search for products only in the current section/category and not other categories. This is because, for example, the View Products by Fabric search drop-down box is not applicable for selling belts. In the Belts section/category, I would have a View Products by Material (leather, etc).

I also want to present the search results in thumbnail (but also with the product name, price), just like the forzeiri website. If the customer is interested, they can clikc on the thumbnail and see detailed information (the Extended Info page in Actinic).

My question is, is it easy to do this in Actinic? (easy for a person with limited HTML knowledge and almost zero javascript knowledge). And if it can be done, how?

PS: In the event it is extremely diffucult for me to do this on my own, any ideas how much someone whould charge to do this for me?

Thanks.

[I-CC]

So long as you set up your sections as groups, based on colours etc, then you could use the information located within the Advanced User Guide (located within the Actinic website | Downloads) to create drop down lists etc.

To create the thumb nail effect, you would then create a section for each product, i.e. a single product within its own section. The section information would hold the thumb nail and the text you want shown, plus you could manually place in other information you want shown like the price etc. Upon clicking the thumb nail then they would go into the full product details.

That as above is not really a search system, more a navigation system.

As far as having drop downs that search the products database, then within Business you can assign custom properties that are search enabled, so you could possibly create drop downs that search those custom properties for a couple of entires, ie. ties, colours which then takes the visitor to a results page of found products. Add in to this the thumb nail image solution from Norman (search the forum for thumb nails in search results) and you might be able to achieve what you are after.