Custom field search issue

[oberchad]

We're using the Power Search module to allow customers to search data in custom product fields. The issue is that some of those fields have big chunks of text in them. The module only searches the first 250 characters of each field, so some searches return nothing (you can sometimes find the product by searching other things such as Code, Name, etc... but the customers might not know any of that).

Has any one had this problem? Any way around it?

[wcw]

Re: Custom field search issue

Not with power search. As I told you, that is a limitation that has been in the module and is spelled out in the module's product page description. Testing when the Power Search was being written for 5x found memory limitations when using too many custom fields. Since it is an off the shelf module for all stores, it has to take that into consideration. You could get a custom module that would allow a limited number of memo type custom fields that would be compatible with your server. There may be other modules and systems that do the custom field searches that would work for your specific store. The hosted solutions probably would as an example.

[wcw]

Re: Custom field search issue

Per your request, you can now specify certain custom product fields as memo fields (so you can search greater than the first 254 characters). You would want to limit that to just a few of the custom fields because there is a strain on resources if you specify too many of them as memo.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: Custom field search issue

Well, it looks like Bill has once again come to the rescue, but... I still have to ask, why are you using Custom Fields to store that much data? Why not put it in product description?

Custom fields (or any data field) should be used to contain text that is referenced in a specific way. For example, Product Images. There are two fields (at least). One, for when the product is referenced on the category page, the other for the product page.

Another type of use it to hold conditional flags. For example, if a product can only be purchased by the case or pallet, so you can change (or add) to the quantity display "case" or "pallet".

just curious...

[oberchad]

Re: Custom field search issue

Yes, Bill modified the module so it works great now.

Its been this way on the site for a decade. I've just been involved in the last year or so. It was originally set up to allow the admin to add chunks of data that need to appear in certain areas of the product pages. If everything was entered into the description box, they would need to add in the html tags for subheads, etc... a recipe for disaster. Its being used like custom meta fields in WordPress.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: Custom field search issue

Its been this way on the site for a decade. I've just been involved in the last year or so. It was originally set up to allow the admin to add chunks of data that need to appear in certain areas of the product pages. If everything was entered into the description box, they would need to add in the html tags for subheads, etc... a recipe for disaster. Its being used like custom meta fields in WordPress.

Kind of what I thought. I hear ya about stepping into someone else's house, but this is not what you want dynamically addressed databases to do (to be efficient). Instead, a front-end system should be used to format the description correctly. That being said, I'm facing the same thing with two clients who can't get HTML correct, and don't want to use a spread sheet front end....so i appreciate your situation.