I need code written to change the way that search.php and search.tpl works. I have close to 1000 categories, several layers deep. I need eliminate this vary large drop down for category selection by using a tree , or dynamic sub category drop downs. gearheadgaragesale.com/search.php Any suggestions. I'm willing to pay for this. Let me know price, and time estimate. Thanks
It seems to me that you may be better off using the browse capability and not having a drop down search at all. Visitors can then identify categories more easily if they are already presented on the page in alphabetical order. You can arrange it so they drill down one or two levels or you could display them all on one page. Whatever way you look at it, you have a fairly flat structure for so many categories and that is going to make it hard to display whatever you do unless you take the browse approach. One thing you may also like to consider is replicating the search one level down which means a different search (pre filled with top level category) is presented in each top level category page. It may be possible to adapt a module we have called global search to do that.
I am perhaps wrong but I don't think the issue is display per se but display and search. If you are focussed on the search aspect as you are suggesting then the only place I think you can start is with something like the global search module and placing it within a set of top level categories as opposed to making it available at the top level - in other words a visitor clicks into a top level category and the first search is pre-selected. You would however need to adapt the module to your specific purpose. If it is a question of displaying (presenting your categories in a compact way) only then it is a different matter. A much simpler problem to solve.
