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Make multiple checkbox options more user friendly
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 2:46 pm
by Sindarin
Look at this mess, this is supposed to be part of a search engine for cars. There are so many options that both the user (for searching the cars) and the admin (for submitting the cars) have hard time using it. How could I make this checkbox orgy into a more user friendly solution?
Each checkbox represents a separate field in the database, so I thought I could combine them into a single field and instead of using integers, to use full text like "Immobilizer ABS" separated with spaces. But then I would need to use LIKE statements to retrieve these which is not very performance-friendly.
What would be your take on this?
Re: Make multiple checkbox options more user friendly
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 7:52 pm
by Jenk
Separate into related sections, e.g. Transmission, Electronics, etc. Unfortunately, there is always going to be that many options, so the best you can do is just present them nicely. Perhaps you could use keywords in a string, and a FULLTEXT search is not as exspensive as one might think.
Re: Make multiple checkbox options more user friendly
Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 7:24 am
by josh
Magento allows hierarchical categories and allowing products to reside in more than one category. Also if it is an automotive website I have a Magento plugin to add a make model year search.
http://www.vehiclefits.com I could give you a good discount on it
And I would use an association table or a bitmask before string matching... since that would require the options to be concatenated in a consistent order.