Customer search attributes?

[wishx]

Is there a contribution or easy hack that will allow customers to search product attributes from the search box in the left column on the main page?

 

For example, we sell Magic cards and I have attributes set up to describe different things about the card such as rarity, condition, etc.

Here's a typical card:

http://www.magiccardsource.com/catalog/pro...roducts_id=1732

 

I need for customers to be able to type in "common" or "mint" to pull up only cards that are listed as common or mint in the attributes.

 

Is there a way to search by attributes as well as desctiption or name?

This is terribly vital for our site and any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

WishX

[wishx]

Is there a way to add attributes like name and manufacturer are in there now?

[OSCommerceSurgeon]

Hi WishX,

 

If you click on link below the quick find box that reads "advanced search" it takes you to a page where you can search by manufacturers, price range and product description.

 

When I clicked on it all your products are under the same manufacturer, or no manufactuers are setup.

 

If you look below the search criteria on the advanced_search.php page it has a check box that reads: "Search in Product Descriptions".

 

As for the attributes, I could modify your advanced_search.php page so that it displays your attributes as check boxes and allows your customers to select one or more attributes to search with.

 

I have no idea if this contribution is already out there, I just usually go and change OSCommerce so that it meets my clients' needs.

 

Hope that helps

[wishx]

As for the attributes, I could modify your advanced_search.php page so that it displays your attributes as check boxes and allows your customers to select one or more attributes to search with.

Anything you can do to make attributes searchable would be greatly appreciated! In this particular store, more people are going to be searching from things like "black rare" or "uncommon artifact", etc. Those things aren't in the description or anywhere else but the attributes.

 

The search I am using is the default search that came with the AABOX distribution of OSC. I think it could easily be swapped out or a mod made for it.

 

BTW, I don't think there is a mod out there that allows customers to search attributes. I've looked for one, but the only contribution to search attributes is in the AdminCP. That doesn't help me. :)

 

Thanks in advance!

WishX

[OSCommerceSurgeon]

I cant do it right now but Ill have it done tomorrow night

[wishx]

I cant do it right now but Ill have it done tomorrow night

Excellent! You should release it as a contribution so others won't have to go insane trying to find the same thing later. :)

 

Thanks again!

[wishx]

I forgot to ask... will this allow searching of attributes, names and descriptions all in one?

[OSCommerceSurgeon]

Hi WishX,

 

Before I do this enhancement for you, I need to email the forum's moderator and ask what is acceptable policy on the exchange of service's for this forum.

 

This entire forum is packed full of members looking for help with OSCommerce either with installation, customized interfaces or strange errors.

 

Who pays for these people's time that they spend away from their job in order to solve online problems for free?

 

I would more than enjoy helping the members in this forum with as many issues as I can figure out, but if I do that how do I pay the rent, food or bills if I'm spending 8 to 10 hours a day answering questions for free.

 

I am not trying to break any rules in this forum but there is an obvious need for technical help related to OSCommerce, I would like to help but I need my needs met as well.

 

I will get back to you after I speak with the forum moderator, I beleive his name is: "TeamMember".

 

I will write him a message and include a link to our discussion here, I want to be open to what I am proposing and hear what he/she has to say about it.

 

Talk to you later

 

Adam

[wishx]

People here usually see a need for a contribution, so they create it and release it. Then, in their readme.txt or contribution text, they'll place a link to a website or to PayPal allowing people to donate voluntarily.

 

Of the hundreds of contributions here, I've only ever seen one that charges to use it, and I don't think it's even around anymore.

 

It's a community of OSC users helping each other. That's why I said to create a contribution and release it to the general public on here. You'll probably be better "compensated" via donations that you would charging for a single modification from a single user (like myself).

 

At least, I know I'm not paying you for it. If you wish to help, it's greatly appreciated and that help will one day come back to you. If you show an interest in helping me and/or others with your experience then turn around and imply you want to charge for it, I'd rather look elsewhere or figure it out myself.

 

Thank you for your time.

[OSCommerceSurgeon]

That sounds fair enough. I am the type of person that has a hard time beleiving in people to do the right thing.

 

I guess there is only one way to find out though, build a contribution and see what happens.

 

time to get some orange juice and whip out a new advanced_search.php and advanced_search_results.php

[OSCommerceSurgeon]

Hi WishX,

 

I'm working on the search and it see why there is no contribution for it done up yet, it is actually pretty complicated with all the joins on the products_options and products_options_values and then products_options_values_to_products_options

 

ahhh.... then transversing through the loops in order display each attribute as well as its option values then on the advanced search page checking to see if one was selected then finding the appropriate products to display for it.

 

It has tweeked my interest though and I will work on some more of it tommorrow all this php and sql in the middle of the night is making me ill.

[burt]

http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=63254

[OSCommerceSurgeon]

yup thats it, well I can stop looking through the joins then

 

thanks burt

[Gersh_ny]

'burt' thanx for the link i have been looking for a way to do this, it is very useful

[wishx]

http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=63254

Let me try this... It might not be what I need, so don't give up yet. :)

[OSCommerceSurgeon]

Hi there,

 

Have a look at this contribution that I just uploaded:

 

http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,2337

 

I think it might be more of what you are looking for, if someone wants to be a guinea pig... oops I mean "tester" and see if this works on their site that would be cool. It worked on my little test store.

 

Adam

[wishx]

I'll definitely give it a shot!

 

The last one that burt linked to worked, theoretically, but I have literally tens of thousands of attributes so the search took 5 minutes just to perform. That's too long for your average surfer.

 

Perhaps yours will be what I'm looking for. I'll post back here once I test it out.

 

PS. Screenshots will better help people understand what they're getting before they install it. :)

 

Thanks!

[OSCommerceSurgeon]

I suppose I could do screen shots, let me know if its what you want first or if there is a way to improve it, I was thinking of using checkboxes for the attributes so that you can check more than one value for each option but I dont know how useful that would be and if it would become to restrictive for some stores. Using the attributes and product name can narrow your results tremendously.

[wishx]

Screenshots would be better now because I'm not at a point where I can install it immediately. The owner of the website is revamping our stock, so it might be some time before I can install and test it.

[OSCommerceSurgeon]

what would be really good is for me to get a public website address of my own with OSCommerce installed on it, instead of developing on a local server.

 

Cant think of many products to put in the store though except maybe some old computer parts I have lying around. That wouldn't be a very interesting store, nor would it sell very much.

 

Have a look at the contribution now I put a couple of screen shots in the zip file

[Guest]

Looks like an excellent contribution - well done.

 

One question that I hope someone could answer- everytime an attribute goes in the database I was surprised to see how it is stored, it seems to be very inefficient .

 

ie a car part product, I want to store that it might be suitable for a peugeot 306, ford fiesta, etc, etc - there will be maybe 50 manufacturers and a few hundred potential models . I started testing this with attributes and I see the database will absolutely balloon, and no doubt become slow.

 

Anyone got any ideas on how to cope with this, so I can for example display all products in a category who are suitable for a particular type of manufacturer, but with the database being a manageable size.

[OSCommerceSurgeon]

The reason why the database balloons in size every time you add a new option value to a product is because that new option value is able to have a new price associated with it.

 

Eg. If you have a product called: "Ford Starter Motor" and it has the attribute called year, and in year you have 2000, 2002, 2002 you are able to set different prices for each year of that ford starter motor.

 

If all you want to do is display that a product has let's say 10 different attributes each with 5 option values but each combination of that product has the same price then the size of the database could be reduced dramatically through implementing a couple of extra lookup tables in your database and changing the way products are added to your shopping cart.

 

I had to do this with a client who wanted to be able to add his product which had 4 different sizes, each with one color chosen from 300 colors. I had to change the product_info.php page in order to display 4 seperate quantity boxes, each with a size associated with them and also a color box that allowed the customers chose a color. Then I had to modify the application_top.php in order to correctly add the products to the cart so that the quantities and attributes were attached to the customer order.

 

It took some hacking around with and I wanted to scream at the shopping cart class in OSCommerce, but it all worked out after I figured out how the add_cart function passes arrays to indicate product attributes to the shopping cart class.

 

Sorry for such a long winded explanation but depending on what exactly you are asking isn't exactly an option you can turn off through the admin section.

 

It can be done, anything can be done with OSCommerce because it is open source, which is why I like working with it. All it takes is some messing around with PHP, web servers, MySql and HTTP and probably more depending on what you want to do.

 

Talk to you later

[xtinexoop]

Hi

 

I tried your contribution - very easy install! All looks great...

 

but when I chose the attributes to search e.g. I put in size large on I got an error message... saying

 

"Errors have occurred during the processing of your form

 

please make the following corrections:

 

* at least one of the fields in the search form must be entered"

 

My site is www.cumfybumfy.co.uk/cumfyshop

[OSCommerceSurgeon]

thats because I never made the attributes independent of the original advanced search.php page: you have to enter a product name or something like that, I guess I could fix it

 

but I was going to use it for searches like:

product name: sweater

attibute: blue

To give me back all the blue sweaters.

 

Just enter a product name or some other field the attibutes wont search by themselves in the version you downloaded

[xtinexoop]

The error message is misleading (I realise its not yours but the one that comes with oscommerce)... because it needs to have something in the top field... not just any field.

 

For example, I can't select the category and size that also gives the error - so the top 'search' box can't be blank... although it can be just a space.

 

Seems to me like the advanced search would be a whole lot more useful if you could search using the various drop down boxes without having to know what text may or may not be in the description or title.

 

Where would I change the error message so that I could explain using the error how to fill in the form?

 

Christine