Products attributes filtering taxonomy

  • Resolved Joe Dostie

    (@joedostie)


    9 years, 6 months ago

    Hello Everyone,

    I am hopping to get some (new) direction here as I have been working on this for a while and all my researching keeps referring to the same things…

    I run a pet rescue website and I have a need to allow “non-technical” people to enter information for the products (aka pets). Also I am using the site more as a catalog (since I have only 1 unique product) than a shopping cart.

    I have used Remi Carsons Mastering Woo Products page here and it works perfect. I can get the products to show on the page and all attributes show fine and it all works very well.

    My knowledge gap is with the filtering and understanding that relation for what I truly want to accomplish.

    First:
    I like Remi’s solution because it allows me to control what is entered into EACH product in the Admin interface. I can have a “template” of attributes that a user can fill in.
    Second – I can also control the selection of attributes for the item. For example: I can make “Gender” as an attribute and they must select Male OR Female but they way Woo is setup it would allow the user to put BOTH genders into one product.
    Control
    No Control

    Second:
    Filtering is probably the most important item to have on the site (in my opinion). I have looked at several products (Woo Product Filter, YITH, MDTF and others) but everything seems to focus on Categories and Taxonomies for filtering, NOT Meta Data (which is what Remis article creates). If I use most of the filtering solutions I cant use Remis solution.

    I am leaning towards MDTF as it does actually work with Meta data but there is a ton of work per item to relate the info to the filter and a user could forget to do that.

    What I am looking to do is use Remi’s solution (or anything similar) to input the data natively in the Woo admin panel so its easy on the user but relate that info to the category/taxonomy so it can be used with any filter.

    I am more than happy to use a plugin but I have not found anything. I am also happy to design it but I think I am using the terminology to search for it.

    Sorry to ramble on…..

    Any direction or recommendation on what to read or direction I can take would be GREATLY appreciated!

    Thanks everyone!

    https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/woocommerce/

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Contributor Mike Jolley

    (@mikejolley)

    Joe, I assume the ‘pets’ are not being sold, so why would you even use WooCommerce for this? I get that its a catalog and has filters, but thats not a good reason.

    Custom post type + custom meta boxes + https://facetwp.com/ = much more compact/potentially simpler interface for new users.

    Thread Starter Joe Dostie

    (@joedostie)

    So that is a very fair question, and here is my honest answer…I wanted to learn Woo! ??

    Learning Woo was my primary motivator and another additional reasons was because I am using the Avada theme which also integrates with Woo very nicesly. I wouldn’t have to design single and archive pages. The presentation layer is pretty slick (the lightboxes and tabs and all that).

    In all actuality its was very simple to get up and running. Which also made Woo an attractive option.

    I agree that the features I am not using (shipping, taxes, etc) are a little bloated if I never use them.

    I have struggled with this same question after looking at Advanced Custom Fields Pro but honestly at the time I wanted to learn Woo and almost everything satisfied my needs until the filtering.

    I have not ruled out custom post types either, just wanted to understand the filtering better.

    But thanks for the feedback Mike, you reconfirmed one of my other thoughts and its something I will consider again.

    Plugin Contributor Mike Jolley

    (@mikejolley)

    OK ?? Interestingly, https://www.woothemes.com/products/facetwp/ exists, so that may solve your filter by meta needs.

    Thread Starter Joe Dostie

    (@joedostie)

    Yes, I briefly looked at that (it was the more difficult of all of them) also Product Filter and MDTF (Meta Data Taxonomy and Filter) and they all work very well with Categories and Taxonomies but not work well with the metadata except for MDTF but it involves a ton of work.

    I will take another look at FacetWP and you have me rethinking the custom post types again (my original plan) but I was just very surprised that no one focuses on the Meta Data also.

    Some say they do Meta but its the Author and price and things like that which are native to Woo.

    If I want to add an attribute, say…”Material” with the option of wood or steel. I can do it easily as a category or taxonomy and most (if not all) filters pick that up. But as meta data, they don’t.

    The more I talk about this, the more CPTs seem a better option (because of the catalog approach). It originally seemed simpler to use something already designed.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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