msCatalystSearch

A search field for the site header: dropdown suggestions, a jump to the results page, or both. It uses the same index as the filter.

[[!msCatalystSearch?
  &searchMode=`live+page`
  &searchPage=`10`
  &parents=`5`
  &searchFields=`pagetitle^3, ms:article^5`
]]

Modes

Mode	What happens
filter	Typing narrows the catalog results. Default mode for the msCatalyst snippet.
page	Submitting the form leads to the &searchPage page.
live	Suggestions appear under the field without a page reload.
live+page	Suggestions, plus a jump to the results page on Enter. Default mode for msCatalystSearch.

On the results page, call msCatalyst with the same &parents: it reads the query from the URL and shows the found products together with the filters.

Properties

Property	Default	Description
parents		IDs of the catalog categories to search in.
depth	10	How deep to look for products inside the categories.
searchMode	live+page	Mode, see above.
searchPage		ID or URL of the results page.
searchFields	pagetitle^3, longtitle, ms:article^5, introtext, description, content	Search fields with weights.
searchParam	search	URL parameter for the query.
searchMin	2	Minimum query length.
suggestLimit	8	Number of suggestions.
tplSuggest	msCatalyst.suggest	Chunk for one suggestion.
toPlaceholder		Write the output to a placeholder.

How search works

• Word forms: "кроссовки" (sneakers) finds "кроссовок" and "кроссовками" (other grammatical forms of the same word). phpMorphy is used if it is installed on the server. Without it, the built-in stemmer works.
• Transliteration: krossovki finds кроссовки (sneakers). For brands that Russian speakers spell by ear, add a synonym, for example найк → nike (найк is Nike spelled in Cyrillic).
• Typos: кросовки адидас (a misspelled "sneakers adidas") finds Adidas sneakers. Words with digits (part numbers, sizes) are compared exactly or without spaces.
• Field weights: a match in the part number or title ranks a product above a match in the description.

Synonyms

Synonyms are managed on the "Extras → msCatalyst" page, "Synonyms" tab. A rule works one way: найк → nike finds Nike for the query найк, but not the other way round. Synonyms are stored in the mscatalyst_search_synonyms system setting as JSON:

{"шланг": "рукав, hose"}

Here "шланг" (hose) also finds products with "рукав" (another Russian word for hose) or "hose".

Search query log

Every catalog search goes to the mscatalyst_search_log table: the query, the catalog page, the language, the number of searches, how many products the last search found and how many searches found nothing. Queries are lowercased with single spaces, so "Sneakers Nike" and "sneakers nike" are one query. The log is easiest to read on the Queries tab.

Not logged:

• Live search suggestions while the shopper types a word. Otherwise the log fills with word fragments.
• The second and later result pages and the "Show more" button.
• The same query from the same visitor within 30 minutes, for example while they narrow the results with filters.
• Search engine bots and requests without a User-Agent header.

A header search with &searchPage is logged on the results page that runs msCatalyst. The mscatalyst_search_log setting turns the log off. The table is created on install, and on a site updated by copying files, on the first search.

msCatalyst deletes queries nobody repeated for 365 days. The mscatalyst_search_log_days setting sets the period, 0 keeps everything.