SobiPro Extended Search - Module

Short description

NEW - Version 3.5Auto-completion &
Category Browser!

SobiPro has a Search Box and an Extended Search. To empower this feature, we publish a module to show this search form in any page position.

It includes Category Filter / Restriction AddOns for SobiPro, to add the navigator as a native SobiPro component  feature. Category Filter AddOn shows the category filter in the SobiPro component search, and Category Restriction AddOn is required to apply category restriction in SobiPro results list.

Please, check it here in the demo site, where you can find the classic SobiPro business directory.

Search Mode

It has two modes of operation:

• SobiPro Native Search, it submits the query to SobiPro.
• Joomla Search, It submits the query to Joomla general search, and it works combined with the Search Plugin+ (Plus) (not included).

How it works - SobiPro Native Search

The module submits the query to SobiPro native search, with an additional parameter (sid_list, the category list).

The Categories Restriction AddOn (included) gets the parameter, and shows only the matching results.

How it works - Joomla Search

You can show the Extended Search Form, and submit the query to Joomla general search. In this way, you can combine the Sobi Extended Form with any search plugin. If you have the SobiPro Search Plugin+ (Plus), the Extended Form can search into any section/catalog, with full text search, or into Joomla content.

Search Plugin+ (Plus) (not included) gets the parameter, and shows only the matching results.

How it works - Category Filter

In Joomla or SobiPro Search modes, the search is extended with an additional parameter (sid_list, the category list). This parameter is used to filter the results.

In SobiPro mode, the restriction is implemented by Category Filter / Restriction AddOn (included).

In Joomla mode, the restriction is implemented by Search Plugin+ (Plus) (not included)

About Empty Search Mode

The Empty Search allows to return results even when there's no keywords, filtering only with the remaining fields. The Search Plugin+ (Plus) (not included) is required for Empty Search (no keywords) support. The Empty Search is not supported in SobiPro native mode.

Please, remeber to enable the *Empty Search* in Search Plugin+ plugin to enable the Empty Search Mode in the module.

Installation & Upgrading

• Unzip package. It will contain the required module and the add-ons.
• Install “mod_sobiextsearch.zip” in the Joomla extension installer, then enable and configure the new module in the module manager.
• Optional - Category Navigator AddOn: Install “categories-restriction-addon.zip” in the Sobipro Application Manager.
• Optional - Category Filter AddOn: Install “categories-filter-addon.zip” in the Sobipro Application Manager.
• The addons have to be enabled in each section. Please, go to the individual section application control panel and enable each add-on application in each section you want to search with categories.
• If you have any question, please, don't hesitate to contact us.

Required: Joomla 2.5.x.

Still Joomla 1.5 (until Sept. 2012)

How to show the Category Filter in SobiPro Search

To include the category filter in SobiPro Search, the SobiPro template has to be modified to include the Category Filter.

In the demo default template, we've modified the file: default/search/view.xsl, line 58:

<div style="clear:both;"/>
 
<xsl:value-of select="spcategoriesfilterapp"
    disable-output-escaping="yes" />
<br/><br/>
 
 <xsl:if test="message">

Sample Configuration

Customer Showcase

Extended Search with myjoom's Radius Search Application

Category Navigator

The search module customized to show only the 3-Level categories and two select inputs.

How the navigator is configured:

Category Navigator - Configuration Step 1

Category Navigator - Configuration Step 2

Category Navigator - Step 3 / Add an additional search button

To override the default module layout in your template:

1. Copy /modules/mod_sobiextsearch/tmpl/com_search.php to /templates/Your_Template/html/mod_sobiextsearch/
2. Add the new button:

<!-- ADDED -->
 <div class="XTSPSearchCell222">
 <div class="XTSPSearchField">
<input type="image" onclick="this.form.sp_search_for.focus();extSearchHelperYOUR-MODULE-ID.extractFormValues();" src="http://d3e180rem94x55.cloudfront.net/templates/beez_20/images/searchButton.gif" class="button button_img" value="Search" name="search" id="XTtop_button2">
</div>
 </div>
 <!-- ADDED -->

Category Navigator - Step 4 / CSS Styling

.XTsearchsp-basic div.XTSPSearchCell1, .XTsearchsp-basic div.XTSPSearchCell2, .XTsearchsp-basic div.XTSPSearchCell3, .XTsearchsp-basic div.spspacer {
  display:none;
}
#searchForm fieldset {
  display:none; 
}
div.XTSPSearchCell222 input {
  margin: 8px;
  float:right;
}

Extended Module integrated with Joomla Search

A Joomla search page with the extended search module on top to show all search option, and the list of associated results. The standard simple Joomla search form is hidden.

Form Customization

The form includes all SobiPro search fields. As the module does not include any fixed style, it applies the general template style.

If you need to customize the form, we've identified each label, field, and row. In this was, it can be freely customized with CSS Style. To show an example, this is a customer's customization:

	CSS Customization To hide some rows .XTSPSearchCell1, .XTSPSearchCell2 {    display: none; } To add a margin #XTjooSearchForm {    margin: 8px; }
	Additional Form Customization To align a field area on the right side .XTSPSearchCell1, .XTSPSearchCell3, .XTSPSearchCell4 {    display: inline-block;    margin-right: 8px;    width: 45%; }

Configuration

These are the parameters of the module:

• Search Mode: SobiPro Native Search / Joomla Search
• Section
• Category List Mode: N-Level
• Categories Order
• Category List Filter
• Box Width
• Box Text
• Search Button: No / Yes
• Search Button Image: No/Yes
• Button Text
• OpenSearch autodiscovery: No/Yes
• OpenSearch title
• Menu
• Allow Empty Search Box
• Module Class Suffix
• Caching
• Cache Time
• Autocomplete, It works only in the search box. It does not complete other fields, and only fills the field with information pulled from SobiPro.
• Radius Search: Compatible with myjoom's Sobipro Radius Search Application
•  100% jQuery (cleared of mootools dependencies)

These are the parameters of the Category Filter add-on:

• Category List Mode - End Level
• Categories Order
• Category List Filter
• Category List Mode - Start Level

These are the parameters of the Category Restriction add-on:

• Restriction Mode: an entry has a main category, a list of related categories, and all parent categories in the tree. This setting allows to customize the restriction.

Direct category only

Entries whose main category is in the categories list

All assigned categories

Entries whose any of their categories are in the categories list.

All N-Parents categories

Entries whose any of their parent categories are in the categories list (It requires Search Plugin+ (Plus) to pre-compute the search tree).

• Force Category List: A list of categories to be enforced, even when the sid_list is not present.

• Only allowed categories: When there's no category list, results list is empty (results must match a sid_list).

New Versions & Support

All paid extensions include:

• 3-Month New Version Membership / Customer Area
• Forum Support

Updates

Updates in 3.7.1

• Minor Optimization: Empty search mode enabled by default.
• Minor Feature:  No Category List warning. 
• Minor Fix: Language Special Encoding removed.

Updates in 3.7.0

• Feature: Category restriction with no list

Updates in 3.6.1

• Minor fix: to avoid "Warning: implode Invalid arguments"

Updates in 3.6.0

• Feature: New lists to select section and categories in the backend.

Updates in 3.5.4

• Fix: Categories in the select ordered by Position (_sobipro_relations)

Updates in 3.5.3

• Fix: Special Characters Enconding

Updates in 3.5.2

• Fix: setVar on MVC Loader, and notices removal

Updates in 3.5.1

• Feature: Category Multilingual support
• Bug: Internal Loader & Itemid fix

Updates in 3.5.0

• BIG Feature: Category Filter Addon
• Full Code Review, Joomla Coding Standard compliant, and JSLint Ok

Updates in 3.1.0

• BIG Feature: Category Restriction Addon
• BIG Feature: Category Browser, and SobiPro Native Search Mode
• Feature: jQuery noconflict mode
• Fix: Category Browser Html Validation
• Translation: Dutch translation (nl-NL)

Updates in 3.0.3

• Feature: Google Maps Lib Library check (No, for SobiPro Pages, with myjoom's Sobipro Radius Search Application)
• Fix: Experimental MVC, to preserve title, description and keywords.
• Fix: jQuery(document).ready, when Mj Library loads.

Updates in 3.0.2

• Radius Search: Compatible with myjoom's Sobipro Radius Search Application
• Feature: jQuery 100%, cleared of mootools dependencies.

Updates in 3.0.1

• Minor Fix: Joomla 1.5 review (On September, J1.5 support ends)

Updates in 3.0.0

• Big Feature, New Experimental MVC Loader, to load SobiPro Search Form.

Updates in 2.6.4

• SobiPro Native Mode - Cell Identification

Updates in 2.6.3

• Minor Fix, Native SobiPro label "search..."

Updates in 2.6.2

• Minor Fix, compatibility with SobiPro 1.0.7

Updates in 2.6.1

• Minor Fix, to remove notices on SobiPro pages

Updates in 2.6.0

•  Big Feature, Auto-complete/auto-suggest function
• Optimization, same JQuery library

Updates in 2.5.3

• Minor Fix, to remove undefined variable notice.

Updates in 2.5.2

• Fix: 1-Level category fixed.

Updates in 2.5.1

• Feature: Cyrilic script Support.
• Feature: No Extended Form support.

Updates in 2.5.0

• Feature: Full new load component engine, based on plugin_component, Reumer.net.

Updates in 2.2.2

• Feature: Multilanguage Support
• Feature: Text Processing Optimization
• Feature: FOLLOWLOCATION, opendir / safe_moe detection improvement

Updates in 2.2.1

• Feature: EMPTY FORM message improvement
• Feature: FOLLOWLOCATION, opendir detection improvement

Updates in 2.2.0

• Feature: Remember search values (2nd part)
• Bug: FOLLOWLOCATION, opendir detection

Updates in 2.1.0

• Feature: 3-Level / Chained Select Box
• Feature: Remember search values
• Bug: FOLLOWLOCATION, safe mode detection

Updates in 2.0.0

• Feature: NEW Category List Mode, and parameters

Updates in 1.0

• initial release.

Troubleshooting

• Search Form and no results: Please check if the form is beign filled with your selected options, and your page has no Javascript Errors.. If not, you might have Javascript errors in your page, preventing regular form execution.  
• ERROR: EMPTY FORM: If your site has the public connections restricted (forbidden), you got this message about an empty form. To solve the issue, please enable the access. If you have any question, please, post your question in the following Forum thread.