caroig
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Posts:278
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| 11/30/2006 10:42 AM |
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| There's something slightly odd happepning with search. I am using a modified real-estate template. I have 2 properties with a type of 'Town House' and one with a type of 'land'.
If I do not enter any values in the search filter and hit search, it returns one of my Town Houses - always the same one. However if I hit the 'Search results' link, it returns both Town Houses.
Regardless of what I select, I cannot get search to return the the item in 'land'.
If I select a radio button search field e.g. bedrooms - then I have to exit search to clear it. (so if 3 beds does not return any results I can't repeat the search for No beds). A clear button or 'don't care' check box would be useful.
The search facility
I'd like a 'don't care' option per field or at least a clear button on the screen. If I select a value in a radio button I cannot clear it for subsequent searches.
I spend too much time looking at real estate sites and one of the things that really bugs me is to be presented with options that don't return results. It would be really nice, but probably a step too far, if in the location drop-down (suburb in the default template), the number of records for each value was displayed, or if values with no records were excluded from the list.
Hey, but it's a great module!! |
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caroig
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Nuke Master
Posts:278
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| 11/30/2006 10:47 AM |
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I'll try again:-
There's something slightly odd happepning with search.
I am using a modified real-estate template. I have 2 properties with a type of 'Town House' and one with a type of 'land'.
If I do not enter any values in the search filter and hit search, it returns one of my Town Houses - always the same one. However if I hit the 'Search results' link, it returns both Town Houses.
Regardless of what I select, I cannot get search to return the the item in 'land'.
If I select a radio button search field e.g. bedrooms - then I have to exit search to clear it. (so if 3 beds does not return any results I can't repeat the search for No beds). A clear button or 'don't care' check box would be useful.
I spend too much time looking at real estate sites and one of the things that really bugs me is to be presented with options that don't return results. It would be really nice, but probably a step too far, if in the location drop-down (suburb in the default template), the number of records for each value was displayed, or if values with no records were excluded from the list.
Hey, but it's a great module!!
Scott, you couldn't delete the drivel of a message that I posted above? I don't know where my formatting went. |
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Scott McCulloch
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Posts:12446
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| 11/30/2006 5:44 PM |
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There is an issue with searching that it only returns featured properties at the moment. Maybe this has something to do with it? I'm not sure about the "Search Results" link, this should be the exact same URL as the current.
Thanks for formatting the 2nd, it became much easier to read. |
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Scott McCulloch
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Scott McCulloch
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Posts:12446
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| 11/30/2006 7:47 PM |
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| Can you try the search now with the latest release (01.01.03) |
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Scott McCulloch
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caroig
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Posts:278
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| 12/01/2006 3:32 AM |
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| Great, that seems to have done the trick.
I have added a checkbox to the template for 'swimming pool' with a yes or no value. I have added this to the search parameters but I can only reutrn results with OR without a pool. What I would like to be able to do is return results with AND without a pool.
Thanks |
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Scott McCulloch
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| 12/01/2006 4:31 AM |
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| Thanks for picking this up, I hadn't thought of this scenario.. |
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Scott McCulloch
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Jeff Kurzner
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Posts:52
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| 12/01/2006 5:24 AM |
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Hey Scott,
Looks like the beginnings of a great module. Along these lines, it would be good to use check boxes in addition to radio buttons for things like bathrooms, bedrooms, etc. Since some people may want to search for more than one type. For example, I might want to search for homes with two or three bedrooms. I might also want to search for homes with a price under 500K or only over 500K right now it appears that the search will only bring back homes at 500K if that's what is in the search field. I apologize if this has already been addressed. I was just playing with the demo installs and had not actually installed the module yet. |
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Scott McCulloch
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Posts:12446
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| 12/01/2006 5:27 AM |
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I'll be adding a "Select Multiple" search type for dropdown lists and radio button lists, etc.
This will allow you to select multiple items for the search at once (a radio button list would become a check box list, a drop down list would allow you to hold down ctrl to select multiple, etc)
Thanks for the great ideas, I hadn't even though of some these.. |
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Scott McCulloch
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Scott McCulloch
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| 12/05/2006 4:17 AM |
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| I've made this change offline and it will be in the next release. |
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Scott McCulloch
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Scott McCulloch
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| 12/05/2006 5:00 AM |
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| This change is now incorporated and available as a search type for radio buttons and drop down lists. |
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Scott McCulloch
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Jeff Kurzner
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Posts:52
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| 12/05/2006 5:35 AM |
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Hey Scott,
The demo on the check box searches looks good. Have you done anything to address
"I might also want to search for homes with a price under 500K or only over 500K right now it appears that the search will only bring back homes at 500K if that's what is in the search field. "
In the price category? |
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Scott McCulloch
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| 12/06/2006 4:55 AM |
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Hi Jeff,
That will be the next search type implemented, something like "Search between X and Y".
I have looked at other systems and most of them provide a text box for both "To" and "From".
While this might work OK, it's not too user friendly. DropDownLists are much better, but it's difficult to auto-populate because people might use it for completely different things with varying price ranges. Maybe just providing an option to add values for X/Y, e.g. 1000|5000|10000|50000
The search between X and Y, will probably be only available to textbox fields with a validation type of number/currency, etc.
What do you think? |
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Scott McCulloch
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Jeff Kurzner
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Posts:52
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| 12/06/2006 5:09 AM |
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You could have a check box for including lower values (<=), higher values(>=), but probably two text boxes is best. You could disable one of them if the search was only for a specific value, or place the exact same value in the second box once entered a value was entered in the first. Just brainstorming at the moment.
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Scott McCulloch
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| 12/06/2006 5:16 AM |
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Do you think textbox's are best? Most real estate sites I have looked have dropdown lists.. e.g. http://www.homehound.com.au/
Take a look at the "Price Range".. |
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Scott McCulloch
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Jeff Kurzner
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| 12/06/2006 5:19 AM |
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| But your module isn't a real estate module, right? |
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Scott McCulloch
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| 12/06/2006 5:22 AM |
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| No, but it's good to provide options.. some people may want 2 textboxs, others may want 2 dropdowns for the range.. (with custom values to populate each range) |
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Scott McCulloch
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Jeff Kurzner
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| 12/06/2006 5:27 AM |
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I like the drop downs, but I think for them to be effective they would have to use the values in the field from the database. The neatest way to a handle it would be to use the values already in the database to create the dropdown boxes. But you would probably have to add a setup field to indicate the max number of levels per box. Thus:
Lets say that you set up the value from and value to boxes to have a maximum number of values/levels of 5. That would mean that at most 5 values would drop down in the boxes. Now, what values do you put in the boxes. I suppose that you could cull the database and if there were five or fewer values in the database you could use those values (along with less than lowest value and greater than highest value). But what if there are thousands of records. You could take the top and bottom data and then create a range. It would seem like a lot of extra datawork for not too much added user interface benefit.
Alternatively you could also allow the user in the set up of the search fields create the ranges.
Hmm, good stuff though. |
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Scott McCulloch
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Posts:12446
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| 12/06/2006 5:29 AM |
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| I think the best approach is to allow the user editing the custom field to setup the search ranges.. this would be in a very similar fashion to "FieldElements", where the user specifies a list of values seperated by a |. |
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Scott McCulloch
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jamie edwards
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| 12/06/2006 1:00 PM |
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Have you seen what zoulou has done with the search on his site? He has a search price range that I think would work for most listing applications, cars for sale, homes, rentals, etc.
http://www.valesium.fr/Default.aspx?tabid=62 |
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Scott McCulloch
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Posts:12446
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| 12/06/2006 8:00 PM |
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| That's an interesting way of doing it, I hadn't though of just applying a label for grouping like that. You could still have an actual price field as well. |
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Scott McCulloch
Site Administrator |
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