Need to search multiple categories at the same time

Have a store that needs the ability to search through multiple categories at the same time... can anyone make this happen?

it already searches by product. Are you saying you want to limit the search by category(s)

I want the user to be able to pick multiple (sub)categories... not just one.

Right now clicking one changes the url to this:
/store/index.php?route=product/category&path=35_36_38
or this:
/store/index.php?route=product/category&path=35_40_45

But I'd like the user to view products that fit into both subcategories... something like this:
/store/index.php?route=product/category&path=35_36_38,35_40_45

Is this possible?

I don't understand the url's you posted are category pages not a search result category pages just show all products associated with that category and products can be associated with more than one category, so just put all the products you want in both categories.

Xsecrets wrote:I don't understand the url's you posted are category pages not a search result category pages just show all products associated with that category and products can be associated with more than one category, so just put all the products you want in both categories.

This suggestion makes absolutely no sense. The products may validly not be in both categories.

well I would imagine if they are not validly in both categories he wouldn't want to be showing them together, so yes it makes perfect sense.

Xsecrets wrote:well I would imagine if they are not validly in both categories he wouldn't want to be showing them together, so yes it makes perfect sense.

No, someone may want to just search within certain categories and not others, with keywords that may cross into both categories, but not forcing a correlation between the categories.

But searching is done by product anyway.

So if you search "ipod" it could be in
"MP3" category & "Apple" category and it will still show up in a search.

It sounds like "search" is the wrong word to use. Sounds like he wants to show multiple categories at once. But then somewhat similar to what Xsecrets said, you would have a combination category.
Category 1: MP3
Category 2: Apple
Category 3: Apple MP3 players

Then the customer would then click on the 3rd category that has all of the above.

Maybe I am also not understanding the question

Qphoria wrote:But searching is done by product anyway.

So if you search "ipod" it could be in
"MP3" category & "Apple" category and it will still show up in a search.

It sounds like "search" is the wrong word to use. Sounds like he wants to show multiple categories at once. But then somewhat similar to what Xsecrets said, you would have a combination category.
Category 1: MP3
Category 2: Apple
Category 3: Apple MP3 players

Then the customer would then click on the 3rd category that has all of the above.

Maybe I am also not understanding the question

Aha. But then this is more manual work for the site admin to set-up. So, wouldn't it be easier to be able to check multiple categories to search?

Well thats what I'm asking. Does he just want an advanced search that allows searching only certain categories? This is really only needed in the case of having thousands of products and you want to search iPOD in the "cases" and "covers" area but don't want any ipod devices from the "mp3" area.

yes he mentioned the word serch in his origional post, but as I pointed out those are not search url's there is no keyword tag so I threw out the idea of search because that I not really what he wanted unless like Q said he wanted the ability to search only in a particular category, and that did not track with the rest of the question.

Ok, yes you guys are right, this isnt so much "search" as it is showing products from multiple categories at once.

All the products are in several sub categories but right now the menu only allows choosing 1 subcategory to view... I need the ability for users to select multiple subcategories and have products show up that fall into all of those selected subcategories... Kind of like the filters on newegg or ebay where you can apply multiple "filters" or "categories" to narrow down the products.

yeah there's nothing like that yet. I am working on a layered navigation that I should have out within a week or two, but it will be more like neweggs guided search rather than their advanced search.

that will be a great feature. I always liked that type of drill down

Qphoria wrote:that will be a great feature. I always liked that type of drill down

I think he means something like what is shown on SamAsh.com. This is the kind of impressive functionality that I was talking about, from that site.

Can anyone make this feature possible? I'm posting this on the commercial support forum to look for someone who can make this happen...

I know what he means

Hey!!

Did somebody find a solution for this situation.Or a clue at least to solve?

Regards.

did you find anything like this? I am searching for it too

We could develop this if enough people need it, feel free to email info@antropy.co.uk if you're interested.