Advanced Search - customized product fields?

[zvenson]

Hey Community!
I am trying do expand the advanced search feature so that it is capable of searching custom fields and tables i added to the database. I created some extra database tables that hold extra information about products by using this how to:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=120523

now i have - let`s say - one field called "class_of_absorbtion" in a table called "products_extra_stuff" and of course a products_id field in that same table so the extra information can be allocated easily to the product.

I figured out how to insert the field in the search tpl by editing:

/includes/templates/my_template/templates/tpl_advanced_search_default.php

i added this code to /tpl_advanced_search_default.php to generate a dropdown with the options from the database:

<?php
$absorbtion_array = array(array('id' => '', 'text' => TEXT_NONE));

$abso = $db->Execute("select id, absorbtionclass from " . TABLE_ABSO . " order by id");

while (!$abso->EOF) {

$absorbtion_array[] = array('id' => $abso->fields['absorbtionclass'],

'text' => $abso->fields['absorbtionclass']);

$abso->MoveNext();

}
?>

and this where the form and the dropdown is created

<fieldset>
<legend>Class of absorbtion</legend>
<?php echo zen_draw_separator('pixel_trans.gif', '24', '15') . '&nbsp;' . zen_draw_pull_down_menu('class_of_absorbtion', $absorbtion_array, $pInfo->class_of_absorbtion); ?>
<br class="clearBoth" />
</fieldset>

now i modified the
/include/modules/pages/advanced_search/header_php.php and added this code so the value of the input is processed in the search:

$sData['class_of_absorbtion'] = (isset($_GET['class_of_absorbtion']) ? zen_output_string($_GET['class_of_absorbtion']) : '');

next step would be to modify the
/include/modules/pages/advanced_search_results/header_php.php

this is where the actual search is done, right?

Now i`m stuck on how to edit the search query because i don`t know where to tell zen cart that it should also pick results where the "class_of_absorbtion" value from the products_extra_stuff table concurs in the value of the search query.

Any suggestion and hints would be highly appreciated!

Thank you very much!

[zvenson]

well somehow i figured it out but get a strange error...

the search can be expanded to custom tables by adding this to your
/include/modules/pages/advanced_search_results/header_php.php

- assuming you have a field called extras_flammability_test

if (isset($_GET['extras_flammability_test'])) {

$extras_flammability_test = $_GET['extras_flammability_test'];

}

then in the $define_list = array
i added something like

'PRODUCT_EXTRAS_FLAMMABILITY_TEST' => PRODUCT_EXTRAS_FLAMMABILITY_TEST,

in the query i added

LEFT JOIN " . TABLE_PRODUCTS_EXTRA_STUFF. " pu

ON pu.products_id= p2c.products_id

and did some other minor changes to the file. The search performs and gets the products where the criteria are matching, but somehow on every result i get there are 4 buttons to add the product to the shopping cart - i m looking at it for quite a time now but cannot find out what went wrong - has anyone a hint or point my stupid face to it so i can find the problem? thank you -
the advanced search can be found here
(the page is under developement right now and there are only test products included but for testing purposes it should be okay)

thanks for help!

[zvenson]

okay found the problem - often it just helps to write it down and ask in the forums and then give the answer to it myself
if anyone is interested in the solution let me know

[Ajeh]

It is always helpful if you post the solution to any problem, even if you do work it out for yourself, so that others can be helped by your discoveries ...

[zvenson]

yeah - that`s what i want to do but ran into antother problem

i want to select a value "class_of_absorbtion" which can be in three different tables (for each product). This value can be in one, two or three or neither of the tables. I have and sql statement like this:

WHERE (p.products_status = 1 AND p.products_id = pd.products_id AND pd.language_id = 1 AND p.products_id = p2c.products_id AND p.products_id = pu.products_id AND p.products_id = pac.products_id AND p.products_id = puc.products_id AND p.products_id = pic.products_id AND p2c.categories_id = c.categories_id AND (pac.class_of_absorbtion OR puc.class_of_absorbtion_second OR pic.class_of_absorbtion_third) ='B'

so there are three tables of class_of_absorbtion. Im confused about the OR and AND statement - my code doesn`t work so maybe i have again something wrong in my php or even in my logic.
If anyone could have a quick look at this would be very nice!
thank you!

[zvenson]

no one helping? what a bummer....

[marco22]

Sorry Zvenson,

you are right. That's the situation in advanced search:

- if I leave the search field "keywords" blank and i fill only the new search field with an author name (it is supposed to search in my new field "author"), zen cart tell me "You must fill at least one field of research"

- if i fill "keywords" with a word and the new field with an author name, zencart gives me back only the products that match the first criteria

So, Zenky seems to ignore my second search field...

[zvenson]

Hi Marco!
Well, my first thought is, that there must be something wrong in this line where you put this:
&& empty($products_author)
this line should check if the author (or any other field) is empty and if so - you get the error message that nothing has been entered. Well - the reason for this could be, that the "$products_author" variable is empty - try inserting an

echo $products_author;

above the line where all the "&& emptys" are - then enter a search word in the products author field - do a search and look if the $produts_author is "echoed" (printed) somewhere on your screen. if it is not - then there must be something wrong bevor the actuall search is done...
Hope this again helps a little!

[delia]

I'm now following this thread for my own reasons! I have added a new table of product details (e) instead of adding to the product table. All of possible search fields are boolean - either 1 or 0 which is served by checkboxes on the search form.

So looking at your code suggestion above,
1) (isset($_GET['dwarf']) && !is_numeric($_GET['dwarf'])) &&
2) && empty($dwarf)
3) case 'dwarf':
$select_column_list .= 'e.dwarf';
4) if (isset($_GET['dwarf']) && zen_not_null($_GET['dwarf'])) {
$where_str .= " AND e.dwarf = :dwarf";
$where_str = $db->bindVars($where_str, ':dwarf', $_GET['dwarf'], 'string');
}

this doesn't work - and I know the field isn't a string as in number 4.

When I say it doesn't work - the search page just refreshed itself and never goes to the results page.

I'm pretty sure I've got the table added correctly to the select statement and even if I didn't, I'm not getting that far!

What might be wrong?

[bb21]

Hi Zvenson,

May I ask how did you resolve the following problem? Mine has 2 buttons on every product result.

The search performs and gets the products where the criteria are matching, but somehow on every result i get there are 4 buttons to add the product to the shopping cart

My custom advanced search changes are still on my Local PC so I won't be able to share you a link. But I am providing screenshots of the search result for your reference.






Zen Cart version: 1.5.1

Modified files (all changes I made came from this thread):
\includes\templates\template_default\templates\tpl_advanced_search_default.php
\includes\modules\pages\advanced_search\header_php.php
\includes\modules\pages\advanced_search_result\header_php.php

I am using 1 extra table so in the LEFT JOIN part, I only added this:

LEFT JOIN " . TABLE_PRODUCT_EXTRA_FIELDS . " pe
             ON pe.products_id= p2c.products_id

@All, appreciate your feedback as well. Thank you.