Precise search by super attributes

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Task to achieve

Imagine a shop selling a laptop with 16/32Gb RAM and i5/i7 CPU options. One day there are only two models in stock: 16Gb + i5 and 32Gb + i7.

Selecting RAM: 16Gb + CPU: i7 shows you this abstract product in the catalog/search, while none of its concretes match the requirements.

As expected, only products with at least one concrete matching selected super-attribute values must be shown. In the previously mentioned example, the search result must be empty.

Possible solutions

The following solutions require Product Page Search 3.0.0 or newer.

Solution 1. Concrete products index as a support call

The solution consists of several steps: the idea, the implementation plan, and the possible downsides of the solution.

Idea

The Search is done in two steps:

  1. In the product concrete index, search is performed by super attributes, and matching product abstract IDs are displayed.
  2. Those from the main index for product abstracts are then retrieved.

Implementation

  1. Extend ProductConcretePageSearchTransfer with the new field attributes, where the desired attributes are stored as an array of string values:
<property name="attributes" type="string[]" singular="attribute"/>
  1. Implement the Data expander with the interface \Spryker\Zed\ProductPageSearchExtension\Dependency\Plugin\ProductConcretePageDataExpanderPluginInterface to fill into ProductConcretePageSearchTransfer super attributes from the concrete.
  2. Add this plugin in ProductPageSearchDependencyProvider into the plugins list getProductConcretePageDataExpanderPlugins.
  3. Implement the query expander ConcreteProductSearchQueryExpanderPlugin, implementing the interface QueryExpanderPluginInterface. You have to add this plugin before FacetQueryExpanderPlugin in CatalogDependencyProvider into list createCatalogSearchQueryExpanderPlugins.

This plugin does the following:

  • Filters out from the request values for super attributes and doesn’t include those in the query.
  • Makes a sub-search request such as CatalogClient::searchProductConcretesByFullText, but searches by facets of super attributes from the request.
  • Adds a list of unique abstract product IDs into the query.
  1. Extend FacetQueryExpanderPlugin, which doesn’t take into account facets used in the plugin ConcreteProductSearchQueryExpanderPlugin.

Make sure to use updated plugin in CatalogDependencyProvider.

Downsides

As you see from the implementation, the results of the last query abstract products index can’t be actually paginated. You can’t deal with smooth pagination since it’s unknown how many concrete products to skip or query to get the next page with abstract products.

Solution 2: Concrete products index is used as a main search index

The solution consists of several steps: the idea, implementation plan, and possible downsides of the solution.

Idea

The search request is made on the concrete product index, which is extended with attributes, to allow filtering by those, and with abstract product data to fulfill the required abstract product information for catalog display.

Implementation plan

  1. Update product concrete data loader.
  2. Update ProductConcretePageSearchPublisher to load into ProductConcreteTransfers more data, needed to populate abstract product data.
  3. Update ProductConcreteSearchDataMapper to use productAbstractMapExpanderPlugins.
  4. Update the query plugin used to point to concrete index, using ProductConcreteCatalogSearchQueryPlugin in CatalogDependencyProvider::createCatalogSearchQueryPlugin.

Downsides

You get duplicate abstract products in the search results, accompanied by a single concrete product.

Consider merging duplicated abstract products, if you don’t want duplicates on the page.