Free version working better than pro?

Anonymous

#22536

I’m trying to figure out what the difference is between the free and pro version. I purchased the pro version based on what I could do with the free, but it seems to work in a totally different way. As such, the results are displayed in an extremely different manner.

In the free version, the url was nice and clean and I could search my custom taxonomies with no issue. If I just searched for a “subject” it would show example.com/subject=… but with the pro version it doesn’t go to the archive or index for the chosen taxonomy, it just shows it’s own. Because of this, the display of the results is totally different than the free version.

While there is a lot I do like about the pro version (in addition to waiting for 2.0 with auto filter) I find that added options seem to make it harder to integrate in a clean manner.

Even though I force it to use my search.php template it still doesn’t display the same as a normal search on my site. Is the only option to use a dedicated page for the search results? (even though this page doesn’t look exactly like my other search results)

Ross Moderator

#22633

Hey there

Yeah there are a few big difference between free & pro.

To add all the features and functionality to pro some things from free had to go – because they were limiting the development of the plugin.

Mainly the way URLs change and results displayed.

In Pro, you have 1 search page for each form, which you define in your admin under “display results”. You can have multiple search pages/forms as you need/

In free, you cannot control the search page, but when selecting tags/categories/taxonomies, the free version “jumps” you to your tag and category archives – all this is built in to WP naturally –

ie

yoursite.com/category/boots

Just to add, all themes would/should support this structure out of the box as its native WP (which is why free works so reliably).

In the pro version, you create a single page and all the search params are added to the URL.

After all you don’t often see “nice” urls in search engines, take a look at what happens in google – there is just so much potential data flying around in the URLs that its problematic to perform complex searches on what are actually your WP archive pages.

The #1 issue people have when moving over to S&F Pro is mentioned here:

http://www.designsandcode.com/wordpress-plugins/search-filter-pro/faqs/#h-bad-template

The issue is, your theme isn’t using the default WP loop and creating custom queries within the template files. These custom queries overwrite S&F pro results so you don’t see them update or you do see other issues.

The reason the free version works is because although there are custom queries in the templates, they have already been considered by the developers of those themes and integrated into their custom queries.

Therefore you must follow the instructions at the above link.

I’ve also heard that archive.php may use the default WP loop, so this could be a good place to start (this was some time ago).

Thanks

Anonymous

#22664

Makes sense, I’ve just used a page so I guess it’s just a matter of somehow getting it to display like my default search page, archive.php didn’t work either I tried it.

I don’t mind the url as much, I changed the custom slug so that part is fine, it was just the display of the search that’s throwing me off since it didn’t look like the free version. Your explanation helped, sounds more like an issue with how my theme is working.

I’ll look deeper into it

Any room left on the beta for the auto filter testing?

Anonymous

#22665

FYI, my issue isn’t that the results won’t show using search.php, it’s just that they don’t show on the same page template as the regular wp search or the free version. My background changes (disappears) and the widgets are all out of place, etc.

Anonymous

#22685

This reply has been marked as private.

Anonymous

#22686

I found another post on here where you mentioned making a custom results template, so that’s what I’m working on now, looks to be what I want after all since I’m using custom taxonomies for these results and they wouldn’t normally show under the posts in a regular search, but I can set them to show up with a custom results page.

Ross Moderator

#22841

Hi there, is this method working out for you?

Thanks

Anonymous

#22884

Yes it’s currently working out well, any chance of testing the 2.0 beta still or any info on when it will be ready? I know you get that a lot but it’s definitely a huge part of the site I’m building right now and one of the main reasons I went with this plugin over others.

Ross Moderator

#23186

Hi there

Its confirmed now the release is due in the week beginning 24th August – sending more betas out today

Thanks

Anonymous

#23212

Cool, thanks.

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