Hi guys.
I'm developing my first site with KK and I find it very cool. It adopts some nice feature and seems that KK developers have resolved problems before I struggle with them. Great.
But (there is always a "but") I do not understand the Search feature.
KK have categories, manufacturers, offers, shipping categories and other nice grouping methods.
I would like to be able to search a product that:
- belongs to categories A and B but not C
- belongs to manufacturer D and E but not F
- is at a special price, and so on...
I read other topics and I know that an API that makes this work for me does not exist.
1- Why a more powerful API for the search is not provided? (I want to understand KK)
2- How can I reach the same effect with one submit?
3- Is it possible to execute an SQL statement from the API passing parameters as Strings? (Everyone can do his customized queries)
Thank you.
Best regards.
Andrea
Take a look at MyProductMgr under KonaKart\java_api_examples\src\com\konakart\apiexamples for some examples. In V. 5.3.0.0 which will be released very shortly (for supported customers only) will include friendlier methods which can be overridden to either modify the query string or the criteria object before it gets sent.
Coming back to your examples though:
Quotebelongs to categories A and B but not C
Are you planning to let a customer add this type of complexity to his searches? Normally you would just let him pick a category or at best multiple categories. Could you point me to an existing store with this functionality? I'd like to see how they managed the UI part.
Quotebelongs to manufacturer D and E but not F
Doesn't make sense since a product can only have one manufacturer which you can add to the search criteria. Therefore if a customer says that he wants to see all SONY products, adding that he doesn't want to see PANASONIC products wouldn't change the query results. I suppose that he could say that he wants to see all TVs except for PANASONIC ones. The way that we would handle this is to use product tags so that once he has navigated to the TV section he can include or exclude a number of tags such as Screen size, manufacturer, LED, Plasma etc.
Quoteis at a special price, and so on...
There is a getAllSpecials() API call and you can add price constraints to the search criteria
Thank you for the reply.
>Are you planning to let a customer add this type of complexity to his searches?
I know. But I can' t stop everything to the UI designer.
>Doesn't make sense since a product can only have one manufacturer which you can add to the search criteria.
As you said I can be interested in Japanese brands but not in Chinese brands (for example). I want to check only SONY and PANASONIC. To develop this behaviour I should execute two search and merge the results
Andrea
QuoteTo develop this behaviour I should execute two search and merge the results
I would use product tags (faceted searching) since this is a more generic way of allowing your customer to find his product. i.e. Once he's decided on the manufacturer, he may still be interested in other filters such as screen size etc.
Yes, it is seems to be the best and easiest way.
thank you.
Andrea