Searching On Product Properties

As well as the main keyword search, Actinic also gives you the ability to create additional tools for searching on other aspects of the product (known as 'Properties'). These are:

·      Attributes - If you have a number of products with the same attribute, then Actinic can search through all the choice values within those attributes. For example, if you were selling shoes and every shoe had an attribute called 'Size' (with a range of choices within it) then you could set up the search to find all shoes available in size 12. For more on attributes and choices, see Creating Choices.

·      User-Definable Variables - You can search on the values assigned to the same user-defined variable across several products. For example, if you were selling films and you have created a user-defined variable for all your products called 'Director', then you could set up the search to find all films directed by Steven Spielberg. For more on user-defined variables, see Making Changes in Actinic.

To set up searching on product properties, go to 'Settings | Search Settings' and select the 'Searchable Properties' tab.

To add a new row to the grid, click the '+' button at the top left of the grid. To remove a row, right-click and select 'Remove Row'.

The fields within the grid are explained below:

Field	Meaning
Property	Select your attribute/variable from the list.
Label	Enter the message to help the customer make a selection. This text will appear in above the HTML representation you choose for the property.
HTML Representation	Select the layout for how the range of values are to be presented to your customers.
Is Optional	When you select this box, an 'Any' option is added to the list of values.
Default	Select a value that will be initially selected when people first view the search tool.

To change the order that the properties will be presented to your customers, use the arrows to the right of the grid.

To make Actinic search on all of the search values selected (and only return products that match them all) select 'AND' at the bottom of this tab. To have the search return all products that match at least one of the search values, select 'OR'.

Property Types

The 'Type' field for attributes and custom properties comes into play when searching on them. It will affect the order that the property values will be listed in.

For example. you have created an attribute called 'Size' with values of '7', '8', '9', '10', '11' and '12' then if you have the attribute 'Type' field set as 'Text' they will be listed like this in the search:

10
11
12
7
8
9

If you have the attribute type set to 'Integer' then they will be listed like this:

7
8
9
10
11
12