Simple Search

[Steven Barkess]

hello

I notice that when I do a simple search on my site, it only searches by short description.

Kind off any ways. I know that it will also search the long descritopn, however, in my site i use the short descrition (which i have renamed in the display as Artist) and then customvars. I dont use the long descrition (at present).

I know that Actinic Cataloge does not search customervars (grr), so, is there a way of wrapping up my customvars into the long description. I dont display this property but on trying 2 products i see the simple search does read the contents even tho they are not displayed.

What I guess I am trying to do is avoid manually entering the customvar details into the long description for each product and thus benefit from the simple search.

One other thing about the simple search, can the results table include custom vars so that they look more like my product table. Since I am not displaying the long description, the results looks pretty sparse, and in terms of offering a consistent user xp, i feel it fails.

Here is a link to my store if that is of any assistance...

http://www.fidelitydj.co.uk/acatalog/shop.html

Any thoughts.

Thanks
Steven

[cdicken]

I guess you are using Actinic Catalog, as with Actinic Business you are able to search on the value of custom properties - and the search results will display the custom property values that match the search criterea.

For Actinic Catalog, you need to use code similar to the following in your full description in order for Actinic to search on them:

!!<<noscript>>!! custom property values !!<</noscript>>!!

[Steven Barkess]

Sorry Chris, where exactly do i need to insert

!!<<noscript>>!! custom property values !!<</noscript>>!!

I had a look in Act_SimpleSearch but not convinced it goes there.

Cheers
Steven

[cdicken]

The idea of these is that they go into the full descriptions of the relevant products so that they are searched on.

They won't appear in the search results though.

[NormanRouxel]

Think of the "!!<<noscript>>!!" and "!!<</noscript>>!!" as meaning

"Start Invisible Searchable Text" and "End Invisible Searchable Text". So you can put this anywhere (or as the only text) in your product description and that product can then be searched for by one of those words.

I originaly cooked this up as a way for someone who wanted to allow for misspelled words to be searchable in his product description without showing such words.

Thus:-

Normal product text ...
!!<<noscript>>!! mispeld wurds heyr !!<</noscript>>!!

Norman

[Steven Barkess]

Hi Chris, Norman

I can normally get my head around these things, but this is not one.

You say I can put them

!!<<noscript>>!! custom property values !!<</noscript>>!!

any where. Is this in the Actinic application or in the code.

I tried placing !!<<noscript>>!!CUSTOMVAR:RECORD_TITLE!!<</noscript>>!! into the product full description but that does not work. I dont think this is what you meant any ways, but worth a try. And any ways, if i added them in here, could i not just put the info in there instead since I am not displaying this property to the customer.

Assuming that it does not go above, do I insert it into code and this works for all products, or do i need to do 'something' to every product.

Sorry to be a cod over this but can I get a little more help.

Steve

[NormanRouxel]

You cannot put NETQUOTEVARs or CUSTTOMVARS in your product description - only normal text (or HTML is you stick it inside the !!< and >>! tags.

Norman

[Steven Barkess]

I thought I had this but...

I originally wanted to include customvars in the results but I am on catalog and not business so understand this is not possible.

Therefore, I have eliminated one of my customervars (Record_Title) and now use the Full description for this. I've done this because I know you can select the option within Actinic to include it into the search results.

Based on the info in this thread, I have then used

!!<<noscript>>!! custom property values !!<</noscript>>!!

and placed that within my full description on the understanding that these will be searhed on but not displayed. I have included text for the title, and label that my stock is on within the noscript command, but within the results, they include the !!<</noscript>>!! of the expression.

If you go to http://www.fidelitydj.co.uk/acatalog/shop.html and try a search on 'mo wax' you will see what I mean.

(the results table is not right when you do view it, problem with the results being displayed in 1 row rather than seperate products on new rows - posted a message elsewhere on this!!)

THanks as always

Steve

[Steven Barkess]

Hi (again)...

re the above post, i have noticed in addition that when I click on a product in the results table and then go to the product page with it on, the text that i have "hidden" is indeed hidden here, but still takes up space.

In the above example of searching on 'mo wax', if you then click on Abbie (which as the table looks right now, scroll to the far right), this goes to the produc tpage with Abbie - Mo Wax. Abbie is forced into 2 lines due to the hidden text.

So... in addition to hiding the "hidden" text in the search results, is it also possible to have it so that it does not take up space either in the search results or in the product table, and in my example, forcing a product onto 2 lines, even tho visually it only takes up half of the first line.

Thanks again

Steven

[NormanRouxel]

This looks like an Actinic bugette.

There is a work around but it may not suit you.

You have to disable "Description (Full Description)" in View / Search / Search Settings / Results for this trick to be effective.

As this is the usual way Actinic works not many people come across this problem.

Norman

[Steven Barkess]

Hi Norman

A bugette indeed. How much was Actinic Business again, searching on customvars would solve this!!

To enable a customer to search on something other than short description (in my case Artist), I reallly need to include the full description (in my case Title). And I feel it is important that this is in the search results, without it, it not only makes the results table looks sparse, but also from a user point of view, if I search on title and it gives me a result that includes the title but does not display as such in the results, i dont think this is condusive to going further.

A thought I had earlier, is it possible to make the noscript command text really small, i guess -7 would be the lowest. That way, I can allow people to search on more (ie label, section) by enclosing text in the noscript in the full description, and when a customer then views the results in the table, because the no script text is so small, it deos not force a product onto 2 rows.

While I am here, you helped me with a patch for disabling the product link in my cart, any recommendations on reducing the font link text size in the results table. I dont want to adjust the css since this is controling the section link text size.

Apprecitate you have posted several replies on thisi subject so if you want to move on, then no worries.

Cheers
Steven

[NormanRouxel]

I found the bug in Actinic. It's the subroutine sub ProcessEscapableText in ACTINIC.pm that's broken.

Here's a fix.

Edit ACTINIC.pm (make a backup copy first).

Look for the line 


sub ProcessEscapableText


REPLACE the entire subroutine (that line above and everything down to the line immediately above the next #######################################################) with:-


sub ProcessEscapableText
	{
#? ACTINIC::ASSERT($#_ == 0, "Invalid argument count in ProcessEscapableText ($#_)", __LINE__, __FILE__);

	my ($sString) = @_;
	#
	# first see if there is any escaped text
	#
	my (@Response);
	if ($sString !~ /!!</)								# no escaped text
		{
		return (EncodeText($sString));				# encode it
		}

	#
	# pick apart the string
	#
	
	my $sNewString = '';
        while ( $sString =~  m/(.*?)!!<(.*?)>!!(.*)/ )		# pick out embedded HTML
		{
		@Response = EncodeText($1);			# encode it
		if ($Response[0] != $::SUCCESS)
			{
			return (@Response);
			}
		$sNewString .= $Response[1] . $2;		# encode text + raw HTML
		$sString = $3;					# now look for more
		}
	@Response = EncodeText($sString);			# encode final part
	if ($Response[0] != $::SUCCESS)
		{
		return (@Response);
		}
	$sNewString .= $Response[1];				# add in final part

	return ($::SUCCESS, $sNewString, 0, 0);
	}

That should fix everything.


Norman

[Steven Barkess]

Norman

What can I say except you are a genius.

The results now display perfect.

There is no forcing results onto new lines becasue the hidden text is taking up space, the hidden text really is invisible...

There is none of the noscript command showing at the results level...

I dont know if it did this before, but I note that I can search on extended info too.

Thanks so much for that, it now makes the results were searhing on.

Steven

[NormanRouxel]

Remeber that if you update Actinic you'll have to redo that patch as Perl scripts are always replaced on an update.

However I hope that Actinic will fix the bug formally soon.

Norman

[Steven Barkess]

Hi Norman

I upgraded to V6.15 today and going through all the scripts that I previosuly changed.

I was about to say 'Oh no, your fix no longer works' but I was editing the file in the Original folder and not Site1.

Anyway, I just thought it worth mentioning that your fix is still required in 6.15. Perhaps V7 is ok, will pass on that though and wait for V8.

Steven