Advanced search into Act_Primary???

[paulbeckett]

Hi

It has been so long since I made any serious changes to my site I am getting completely lost I would value some pointers from the forum.

I am trying to put some advanced search options into my Act_Primary so that advanced search is on every page of my site.

I plan to add a 1) free format search text box 2) Product dropdown 3) Brand dropdown - and possibily 4) price band dropdown?

I am getting totally lost now and I having troubles figuring out what code I need to insert into my Act_Primary. Can anyone point me to documentation / previous thread that gives pointers on how to do this?

Paul

[gabrielcrowe]

you, dear sir, need to learn some html, before you even dive into this world you're about to make a big boobie out of.

the header you're looksing for should be designed in photoshop. you need a nice logo, and drop those crappy animate gifs. ugh.

as for brand dropdowns and such, what you're looking at there, is some hard coded html, inserted into the act_primary. i'v done this with our skate and basketball site.

take a look at the welcome block on the basketball site.

all that happens is that you need to include the band name, in the product description (good seo practice anyhow). this means that a generic search for the barnd will yeild a list of that brand.

then, when they select an item from the dropdown, the term is inserted into an url, and passed to the server.

a javascript function that does this:

function menu_goto( menuform )
{

var baseurl = "http://www.yourshop.co.uk" ;
selecteditem = menuform.newurl.selectedIndex ;
newurl = menuform.newurl.options[ selecteditem ].value ;
if (newurl.length != 0) {
location.href = baseurl + "/cgi-bin/ss000001.pl?SS=" + newurl + "&PR=-1&TB=A&SHOP=" ;
}
}

and some html/script to trigger it:

<select onchange="menu_goto(this.form)" name="newurl">
<option value="searchterm">displayed term</option>
</select>

thats how i built my dropdowns.

as long as your terms are searchable by standard search, then you can build dropdown like this with grouped keywords.

good luck.

[Mark H]

Predefined search

Mr Crowe - in a similar vein - have you tried predefining a search not by a drop down, but simply by what appears to be (and might well be) just a link, so you click on the link and search results appear for a predefined term? Is this possible?

[gabrielcrowe]

searches are simply cgi-bin urls. with the query as a get request in the querystring, so you can make a search happen from anywhere.

i recently did one that searches from flash. and another that uses a tag cloud.

[Mark H]

Thanks Gabe - I reckon I can get rid of all my duplicates on that basis

[gabrielcrowe]

take a look at how i handled this on the skate site.

perform a search, and look at the layout.

now, go to a section. there isnt much difference.

i basically make the search look the same, so it actually appears like they are browsing a section. create a set of links, and make it appear like its not a search at all.

this approach might be bad in some cases, like for example, taking a search out of context may confuse the browser, but i feel it works just fine.

example:
purple - green - blue - yellow

groovy huh?

[Mark H]

That's exactly what I was thinking - replace sections full of duplicates with predefined searches which look like sections, running from links as you have described - thank you Gabe.

[paulbeckett]

Hi

I'm definately removing the animated GIFs.

all that happens is that you need to include the band name, in the product description (good seo practice anyhow). this means that a generic search for the barnd will yeild a list of that brand.

I like gabrielcrowe's site and recommendation although this is not what I want to do.

On http://www.kjbeckett.com/acatalog/search.html a customer can select a Product Type (e.g. cufflinks) AND a Designer (e.g. Fiona Rae) (which are driven by searchable custom product properties) to be displayed with all the Cufflinks made by Fiona Rae.

ALternatively the customer can choose just a Product Type (e.g. to see all the cufflinks) or just a Designer (e.g. to see all the ties, cufflinks and wallets - everything that is made by Fiona Rae).

How do I pull these advanced drop down fields out and place into Act_Primary?

Paul

[Kiran]

Hi Paul

Have you tried doing a "View source" of the search page code and then copying that code and putting it into the Act_Primary template, try putting it at the start of the <body> tag and see if that helps. Please make sure you have adequate backups before trying this . Also does the "Use searching as the Primary interface to catalog" option in Search Settings do what you want?

Kind Regards

[Mark H]

take a look at how i handled this on the skate site.

perform a search, and look at the layout.

now, go to a section. there isnt much difference.

i basically make the search look the same, so it actually appears like they are browsing a section. create a set of links, and make it appear like its not a search at all.

Gabriel - I'm still trying to get something like this going in V7 - are you using something similar to Paul Grimshaw's extended info page hack?

http://community.actinic.com/showthr...nded+info+hack