Catalogue filters

Choosing which features and attributes become filters, the order they appear in, and why each search shows different filters.

The filter column always brings categories, brand and price. In Search → Filters you add the ones that come out of your catalogue: PrestaShop's features (material, origin, capacity) and the combination attributes (colour, size, flavour).

It's a plan feature; without it, the screen doesn't appear in the navigation and the store keeps the filters it has always had.

Choosing well

The screen reads the catalogue through the engine and shows what's there, with how many different values each feature has and which ones are the most common. Two notes to choose well:

• A feature with a single value isn't worth a filter: picking it shows what's already on the screen.
• One with dozens of values ("Length: 17.5 cm") stops being a choice and becomes a second catalogue down the side of the results.

Each filter carries a label, which is what the visitor reads. The maximum is twelve.

There is no save button: each choice is written as it's made, because nothing here reindexes or has effects left to explain, and it takes effect on the next search (unlike the weights).

The order is the column

The list on the right is the column from top to bottom, exactly as the visitor sees it, and the arrows move any block: categories, brand and price go into the ordering just like the ones you added.

The blog articles block is in the list too, and that's how you send it to the end of the column instead of leaving it pushing the filters down. Its position only counts if you've chosen "sidebar" for the articles; with any other layout they appear next to the results and this row does nothing. See articles and content.

Boxes open and boxes closed

In the store, the title of each box opens and closes what's underneath, and the arrow button on each row decides which ones start out closed.

A closed box shows only the title and opens on the first click: you're not hiding any filter, you're shortening the column. It's worth it on long boxes (categories with forty values) and on the ones most people don't use. Whatever the visitor opens or closes beats your choice and lasts for their visit.

Each search shows the filters that make sense

This isn't configured per category: it comes out of the search itself. A search for lingerie has colours and sizes, and the column gains both boxes; a search where no result has colour or size doesn't show them. A filter whose results only hold one value is left out too, for the reason in the earlier section.

The trial at the bottom of the screen does that sum in front of whoever is choosing: type a term and see which filters would come up, with which values, using the list you're editing.

The same filters, in two other places

With no separate configuration:

• In the column of the similar products panel, counted over the similar ones and not over the catalogue.
• As a question in the guided search, when one of them splits the results better than category, brand or price does.

Stores in more than one language

The feature name comes from PrestaShop in the language you wrote it in; the label is what the customer reads. They are different things, and the screen treats them as such: pick the engine at the top, and the label you write is the one for that language. While the label for any of them is missing, the filter says which.

If you translated the features in PrestaShop, the field is different in each language and you turn one on in each engine. If you didn't translate them, it's the same field in both and you only need to turn it on once, then write the label for each language.