Feature Request - Native Search & Filter

Beta
#1

Hi Charlie,

On a couple of sites I have been using a plugin called Search & Filter (similar to FacetWP). It has some great features, but I can’t help feeling that this is something which could be done better natively within Cornerstone using loopers. One of the issues I have with Search & Filter is that it cannot handle large datasets, as its indexer cannot cope.

In one example, we have a CPT which uses a combination of categories and ACF Pro fields for the filtering, providing the results in an Archive Layout.

What are your thoughts about creating a similar feature for Cornerstone? Details and examples in the Secure Note.

Thanks,
Christopher

#2

We are currently working on native forms for Cornerstone this year. Being able to filter with said forms is apart of the project as well. Have a great weekend.

5 Likes
#3

I had assumed the CS Forms was an all singing-and-dancing contact form type of feature (very cool in its own right!). If it is also a potential search and filter mechanism, that is off the scale!!:rocket:

Does this fit with the scenario I have in the pages I sent in the SN?

Have a great weekend yourself.

#4

It does fit the scenario, as long as the query builder looper provider can reach all those data points on your page.

#5

Sounds good. Given all searchable fields come from CPT categories or one ACF field, all should be searchable.

Is there a vague timeline to beta or release for CS Forms? It would help enormously for what we need to do in the short term for this one-person charity website!

#6

Just wondering what you consider larger data sets?

While it isn’t massive I have a site using Facet WP with ± 60 000 Woo Products and the filtering seems to work well. I know it isn’t a massive amount of data compared to other sites we have but it is the one with the most data we are using Facet WP on.

#7

Thanks @urchindesign. In this instance the postmeta table contains over 1.1 million rows and growing fast, as new records are imported to the website.

I know FacetWP, but seem to remember that in my specific use-case it would not do what is required, which is why we had to start with the system currently in place. I dealt with their tech support at the time.

Basically, we have a massive dataset of war memorials and war casualties where the visitor needs to be able to search and filter by any combination of name, rank, conflict, armed service, units, year of death, etc. and output the selection to a separate results page. This works well using a combination of loopers and CS layouts. The weak point is the capability of the filtering plugin, whose indexer is permanently crashing. This is why CS Forms could be the game-changer!

1 Like
#8

@charlie so this will make facetwp obsolete? :wink: if so that are great news! hopefully we can have it sooner then later!

#9

Forms is probably a mid to later year thing.

There is a lot of caching of results and indexing that FacetWP does, so 1.0.0 probably won’t be that advanced on the indexing end. It probably wouldn’t have every featured offered by the indexing. But using CS and a caching plugin you can probably achieve a lot of the same results. Hopefully. The goal is utilizes our loopers for all filtering.

#10

Our postmeta table on this site getting close to 6 million rows.

But, yes, I get not using it if it doesn’t do what you want or need.

Interested to see how the new filtering will work once it is ready.