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Just looking for a pointer in sorting out a search form.

I am implementing a property search form.

I have a search field and a couple of range filters, and a grouped category drop down.

See here...

{exp:low_search:form collection="cottages" class="walk-search-form" search_mode="all" query="{segment_3}" result_page="cottages/results"}

                    <label>Search for a cottage:</label>

                    <input type="text" name="keywords" id="keywords" class="span5" />



                    <label>Choose a county:</label>

                    <select name="search:cottage_county">
                      <option value="">Filter by Category</option>
                      {exp:channel:categories cache="yes" refresh="60" channel="cottages" disable="category_fields" style="linear"}
                      {if parent_id == '0'}{if count != '1'}</optgroup>{/if}<optgroup label="{category_name}">{/if}
                      {if parent_id != '0'}<option value="{category_id}">{category_name}</option>{/if}
                      {/exp:channel:categories}
                     </select>


                    <label>Sleeps a Max of:</label>

                    <select name="range:cottages_sleeps_max" class="span2">
                      <option value="">All</option>
                      <option value="1;">1 or more</option>
                      <option value="2;">2 or more</option>
                      <option value="3;">3 or more</option>
                      <option value="4;">4 or more</option>
                      <option value="5;">5 or more</option>
                      <option value="6;">6 or more</option>
                      <option value="7;">7 or more</option>
                      <option value="8;">8 or more</option>
                    </select>

                    <label>No of Beds:</label>

                    <select name="range:cottages_beds" class="span2">
                      <option value="">All</option>
                      <option value="1;">1 or more</option>
                      <option value="2;">2 or more</option>
                      <option value="3;">3 or more</option>
                      <option value="4;">4 or more</option>
                      <option value="5;">5 or more</option>
                      <option value="6;">6 or more</option>
                      <option value="7;">7 or more</option>
                      <option value="8;">8 or more</option>
                    </select>



                    <button class="btn btn-large btn-block btn-blue" type="submit">Search</button>

                {/exp:low_search:form}

So far the search field and the range dropdowns both work.

The category dropdown displays correctly, i.e.

Parent Cat
-child 1
-child 2
Parent Cat 2
-child 1

But when I perform a search on it, it returns every entry.

The other thing is that I want the category, and range values to remain selected once the search has been performed.

Low helped me before in a similar search form, but i've tried everything that was suggested there, but as this is a slightly different scenario, they don't seem to be working :(

UPDATE

OK I seem to have the category search working.

Changed <select name="search:cottage_county"> to <select name="category:cottage_county">

This returns the right results, but is there a way for me to display the name of the category that they selected in the results page?

3 Answers 3

1

Yeah, the syntax for the grouped category search filter is category:group_name, not search:group_name. The latter is the native search:-parameter.

And in this case, you don't even need to use the grouped category filter, as you only have a single group. The grouped category filter allows you to combine AND and OR queries, which requires at least 2 groups. Therefore, you could just use name="category", the native category parameter.

To show the category name, you'll need to use the channel:categories tag. The {low_search_category} variable will contain a pipe-separated list of selected category IDs, so use the tag to get the corresponding names. Something like this:

{exp:channel:categories show="{low_search_category}"}

Be sure to use that inside either the Results tag, the Form tag or the Filters tag.

1
  • Thanks for that Low, I had just come on here to say how I had solved it. I'll add it as an alternative answer.
    – shorn
    Apr 28, 2013 at 10:06
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If the category shows up in the URL then you can easily pull it out with Low Seg2Cat:

{segment_n_category_name}
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  • Yea, the category is not showing in the URL, I have a huge url results string. Is there a way to change that so that the cat ID shows?
    – shorn
    Apr 27, 2013 at 9:44
  • Ah, I presume it's outputting a random string of characters on the search results page? As far as I know it's not possible to change that URI but you could always use a little JavaScript to grab the selected category and output that on the page.
    – Ian Young
    Apr 27, 2013 at 10:04
  • Yea random string is correct. I'll keep looking into it!
    – shorn
    Apr 27, 2013 at 10:07
  • You could always Stash the selection and pull it out in your template if you wanted to stick to the server-side and template output.
    – Ian Young
    Apr 27, 2013 at 12:25
  • Unfortunately I have never been able to wrap my head around using Stash! :(
    – shorn
    Apr 27, 2013 at 20:56
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OK, Low has provided an answer to my question, but'll explain how I have just managed to solve this. My way is probably not the most optimised or efficient way, but it's working!

Firstly, to get the category name. I used Mark Croxton's Cat2 plugin.

exp:cat2:name category_id="{low_search_category:cottage_county}"} was all I needed to change the id to the name. I think this is essentially the same principal as using the channel:categories tag that Low has suggested.

My other issue was the "range" search dropdowns.

I managed to get this to keep the values once a search had been performed by using this in the form:

<select name="range:cottages_sleeps_max" class="span2">
    <option value="">All</option>
    <option value="1;" {if "1;" == "{low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max}"} selected="selected"{/if}>1 or more</option>
    <option value="2;" {if "2;" == "{low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max}"} selected="selected"{/if}>2 or more</option>
    <option value="3;" {if "3;" == "{low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max}"} selected="selected"{/if}>3 or more</option>
    <option value="4;" {if "4;" == "{low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max}"} selected="selected"{/if}>4 or more</option>
    <option value="5;" {if "5;" == "{low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max}"} selected="selected"{/if}>5 or more</option>
    <option value="6;" {if "6;" == "{low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max}"} selected="selected"{/if}>6 or more</option>
    <option value="7;" {if "7;" == "{low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max}"} selected="selected"{/if}>7 or more</option>
    <option value="8;" {if "8;" == "{low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max}"} selected="selected"{/if}>8 or more</option>
</select>

and then this in the results:

{if low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max}Sleeps 
  {if low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max == "1;"}<strong>1</strong> or more.{/if}
  {if low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max == "2;"}<strong>2</strong> or more.{/if}
  {if low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max == "3;"}<strong>3</strong> or more.{/if}
  {if low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max == "4;"}<strong>4</strong> or more.{/if}
  {if low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max == "5;"}<strong>5</strong> or more.{/if}
  {if low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max == "6;"}<strong>6</strong> or more.{/if}
  {if low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max == "7;"}<strong>7</strong> or more.{/if}
  {if low_search_range:cottages_sleeps_max == "8;"}<strong>8</strong> or more.{/if}
{/if}

Again, I'm not entirely sure that this is the way it should be done. But it's working solidly.

2
  • You can also consider using Loopee for populating those lists: github.com/danott/ee-loopee and perhaps use Low Replace to strip away the semi-colon instead of that heap of conditionals.
    – Low
    Apr 28, 2013 at 10:19
  • Ahh, great tip. I shall do that!
    – shorn
    Apr 28, 2013 at 10:25

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