Update: Version 4.8.0 with the faceted search feature has been released officially on October 5th 2017 (see the release notice)
After months in development, we are excited to share the new feature in the upcoming 4.8 version of Content Views Pro. The beta version has been built and ready to be downloaded on this page or in the Downloads section of your profile page. To help ensure that there are no problems with 4.8, we would like to invite all Pro customers to help test the beta version.
The 4.8 version includes a very new feature “Live Filter”, which supercharges the frontend search & filter functionality of Content Views Pro. It helps you to show faceted search to your site visitors easily without any line of code. Let’s take a look at some benefits of Live Filter.
You may be familiar with Shuffle Filter feature, that useful feature has a nice animation to filtering WordPress posts by category, tag and custom taxonomy. You can find the demo of Shuffle Filter here. But Shuffle Filter has some limitations:
doesn’t handle the URL parameters. For example, you are using shuffle filter on your shop page, the filter will not return the posts of Summer category when you visit http://yourdomain.com/my-shop-page?category=summer
doesn’t help you to show custom field as faceted filters. For example, filter by custom field color (red, blue, white, green…)
doesn’t help you to show custom field as sort options. For example, sort by price (low to high), price (high to low)
doesn’t support numbered pagination. Shuffle filter only supports load more and infinite scrolling pagination which you might not want to use in some cases.
That is why Live Filter is built. With Live Filter, you have another powerful option to help your site visitors to find relevant content by category, tag, custom taxonomy and custom field.
There is no need a developer to set up, no need coding skills to show faceted search to your visitors, that is what we aim to do with Live Filter. You can show any taxonomy (category, tag, custom), any custom field (supports ACF, Pods, Types…) as faceted search options without any line of code.
1) Show taxonomy (category, tag, custom) as faceted filters
To show taxonomy (category, tag, custom) as faceted filters, in Filter Settings tab, select the Taxonomy (Categories, Tags...) checkbox, then select the taxonomy you want to show (for example: Category). After that, select the Show as filters to visitors checkbox:
Notice: In each View, you can show 1 filter for each taxonomy. For example, you can show 1 filter for Category taxonomy, 1 filter for Tag taxonomy and so on.
2) Show custom field as faceted filters
In your WordPress website, you may have many posts, products, events, portfolios, team members… Each of them can have many custom fields. Live Filter will help you to show these custom fields as faceted search to your site visitors easily. We aim to make it as much simple as possible for you: simply select name of the custom field, select its value type, then select Show as filters to visitors:
And you will have the custom field showing as a faceted search option to your site visitor, like this:
In version 4.8, you can show custom field in one of following types:
Checkbox
Dropdown
Radio button
Buttons group
Range slider
Date range
Text search
Each type has extra settings to help you to customize the behavior and appearance of the faceted filter.
3) Show custom field as sort options
Sorting is another useful feature you can offer to your visitors. Showing a custom field as sort option is quite similar to showing it as a faceted filter: select name of the custom field, select its value type, then select Show as sort option to visitors:
Then you will have that custom field showing as a sort option, like this:
4) Show search box to search by keyword
Your visitors might want to search your content by specific keyword, and the Live Filter will help you to show a search box easily.
In Filter Settings tab, select Keyword in Advance group, then select Show search field to visitors checkbox:
Then you will have a search box shows above your content.
II. Design the look & feel of faceted search results easily
With the new Live Filter feature, you can enable faceted search and design the search results layout in one single place. All Live Filter settings come under the Filter Settings tab. And you can design the layout in Display Settings and Style Settings tabs.
Display Settings – Design the layout
Enable pagination
Style Settings – Custom font, color… without writing CSS
There is no need of adding PHP code to theme template file or writing custom CSS. You can design your faceted search results with friendly settings, no coding required, effortlessly.
No PHP code required
No custom CSS required
Testing the beta
To ensure that the new feature is working properly, we would love your help with testing the beta version of 4.8. You can download this beta version on this page or in the Downloads section of your profile page.
If you have any questions or issues with the beta, please let us know by leaving a comment below or contact us here.
Note: Beta version is recommended to use in your test/dev site. If you already installed & activated Content Views Pro plugin in your site, please deactivate & delete it in your Plugins page, before installing the beta version.
Content Views Pro
