Filtering products on a page

[silken]

I am just finally converting my old store, using Order Anywhere buttons, to a regular shopsite store. I have an idea of what I want, just not how to get there.

We have a martial arts site with about 4000 items, and they come in several formats (books in english, books in chinese, dvds and vcds). There are also about 50 martial arts styles. When a customer selects a style, let's say Tai Chi, and all the Tai Chi products come up, I would like them to be able to filter both the format (let's say they want only books and dvds) and also choose the Tai Chi Style (let's say Yang). (This is something like an amazon setup). I have no idea how to create this left sidebar with these filtering options. I am using the most current version of shopsite (in a staging area; my old site is still live). I chose the Responsive Theme, although there were no real details about themes so maybe there is one that has this feature built in? I am at a loss here. Any help?

Thanks in advance,
Debbie

[cyoung]

Please feel free to call or email if you have more questions, 801-705-4100, questions@shopsite.com.
Here are some examples of how a site can be organized, through the use of navigation and page links:
https://www.beergifts.com/
http://www.mybambino.com/

You will first need to create pages for each category and subset, and assign the appropriate products and pages using the page links and navigation.

To start, create pages for each of the Martial Arts styles, assign all the products for those styles to the corresponding pages. Create pages for the sub styles, books, and DVD's, for each martial art and assign products to these pages and assign the pages to either the navigation or as page links.

The Navigation is Global, it will be the same on all of your pages, page links can be used to add links to just the page they are assigned to.
Note: If you want left page links to be unique to each page you will use page links, and make sure the Navigation page left link is disabled. If you enable Page left links in the navigation, any page links will be pushed into the body of the page instead of on the left side. Note: the template being used is responsible for much of the site formatting. It is possible to customize the template to change the way that the navigation or page links format.

To make sure we are on the same page, go to Pages, scroll to the bottom and click on the Advanced Editing button, if it isn't visible and you see a link for basic editing, you are already in Advanced Editing.

Add Pages through Page> Add Page or Add several Pages>.

Assign products or pages through Pages> List All Pages> select the page> Assign Item> you then have the option to assign Products or Page links.


Format Page Links under Pages> Edit Page Content> Link Info> link name, link graphic, link graphic size, link text, and links to page can be added here. These settings help determine what your page links will look like.

Enable the navigation you want to use through Preferences> Navigation> Configure> you can enable Page Menu (top of page navigation), Page left links, Page Footer Links, and Page Right Links.

Create the Navigation through Preferences> Navigation> Select the Menu(top nav), Left Page Link, Footer Links, or Page Right Links and Add> the link info.

The Help in ShopSite is page specific, providing info about what each setting is for.

Your customers can also use the search feature in your store.

ShopSite pages are static rather than dynamic, this helps increase your load speeds, and your SEO. If you are wanting something more automated, JavaScript could be developed and implemented, however, this isn't directly supported. For assistance with JavaScript we recommend this list of 3rd party Designer or Developer.

Designers: http://www.shopsite.com/csd.html , Developer: http://www.shopsite.com/developer.html

[silken]

Many many thanks for your reply. However, I think I am looking for something more like this (from your featured sites):

https://www.hobbytron.com/search.php/RC/RC-Helicopters/RC-Drones/DMZ/_/N-afkZ1z1419h

It's the "narrow your choices" part that I am particularly interested in.

Thanks so much,
Debbie

[cyoung]

Debbie,

ShopSite is very versatile and allows for extensive customizations to be made to a site, as well as leaving you with many options to add additional features.

Hobbytron.com is using a custom designed search.php page. This is not a builtin feature of ShopSite. You could have something similar designed or developed for your site. Here are some Designers and Developers that may be able to help.
Designers: http://www.shopsite.com/csd.html , Developer: http://www.shopsite.com/developer.html