Addons - Filter Engine

Let visitors narrow your directory by the details on each listing, not just a keyword. One panel serves your member search, your categories, your events, and any custom post types you create.

What it does

Your directory can already be searched by keyword, by location and by category. Filter Engine adds the part that was missing: searching by the details you actually collect on each listing, such as specialties, services, languages, availability or price band, whatever your signup form asks for.

Visitors tick what they need and the results narrow to the listings that match.

It does not replace your existing search. Your keyword box and your location box can sit in the same panel and work exactly as before.

Where it lives

In your DirectoryCustomize plugin admin: Plugins then DirectoryCustomize then My Widgets then Filter Engine.

You add the panel to a sidebar, and it shows the filters that belong to whatever page it is on. One copy serves your member search, your category pages, your events, and any custom post types you have created, each showing its own fields, with nothing to set per page.

The panel uses your site's own block styling, so it matches everything else in that sidebar without you choosing any colors.

Choosing more than one value

Ticking two choices in the same filter widens the results: pick Anxiety and Trauma and you get listings offering either.

Using two different filters narrows them: pick a specialty and a city and you get listings that match both.

Listings matching more of what was asked for are shown first, with a small note on the card saying how many of your choices they match.

Can I put filters on the global search page?

The global search page is the one that shows members, articles, events and everything else together in tabs. It takes one extra click, once.

Every other page belongs to a single content type, so filters are attached for you automatically. The global search page belongs to none of them, which is the point of it, so it uses a different part of your site settings and that part needs a person to press Save once.

Do you need it? Often not, and it is worth deciding before spending time on it. Most directories send visitors to the member search or to a category rather than to the all-in-one page. If that is true of yours, leaving it off costs you nothing and your filters keep working everywhere else.

If you do want it, three options:

• Leave it off. Nothing breaks. The global search page keeps its normal keyword box.
• Do it yourself. In your admin: Toolbox then Sidebar Manager, open Global Website Search, add the Filter Engine widget, and save. Refresh the page and the filters are there.
• Have us do it. If you would rather not go into settings, it can be handled as part of a setup service. See Agency setup, or contact support and we will add it for you.

On a phone

The filters collapse into a button at the bottom of the screen. Tapping it opens them over the page, so a visitor is not scrolling past every result to reach them, and Done returns them to the results.

Still stuck?

Contact support and we will take a look at your site.