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VMF manual
Reqirements

  1. Joomla 1.5.x

  2. Virtuemart 1.1.0 to 1.1.9 (has been tested in these versions).

  3. PHP 5x

  4. MySQL 5 +

  5. Mootools 1.1
 
Installation

The installation is the typical installation of every joomla extension.

Into the vmf folder there are the com_vmFiltering and the mod_vmFiltering.

 

Go to:

Extensions -->Install/Uninstall-->Browse to find one of these files in your hard drive

and then press Upload File & Install.

 

*Do the same for the other File.

 
 
Update

If you are using the previous version of VMF you can update it without uninstalling the component and the module.

1) Download the latest VMF package and unzip it.

2) Install the latest version of the component and the module. If there is an older version installed will be updated automatically.

3) Go to VMF module's settings, check if there is any new and save it.
 
VMFiltering Component - Usage

Notice:

In order to use the VMF component it needs the existance of Categories in the Virtuemart component.

Features

Features indicate the features of each Category of the Virtuemart.
Each category contains certain products and certain properties that enrolls them in this category.

New

Pressing the New Button helps the user navigate to a form of creating the New Feature.

From there the user can :

  1. Give Name to the feature.
  2. Select the Virtuemart Category to which it refers to.
  3. Give Multiple Values to this Feature.

To give Values to a feature go to the Values Section to the right of the form:
  1. write the Value you want.
  2. Press the Add Button

Do the same as many times as you want.

To delete a Value :
Press the delete icon to the right of the Value

 

Notice :
The delete icon deletes a value even if you do not press Apply or Save.

If the Value has been saved, will be deleted when the progress bar finishes.



To edit a Value :
Press the edit icon to the right of the Value

When you have finished then press Apply or Save

Values

In this page/view you can see all of the Values of each Feature.

Edit & Assign Products

Pressing Edit & Assign Products you can assign Products to each value.
You can select multiple products together.
Also  Edit the Name, Order and Publish properties of the Value.
 
Configuration

For configurating VMF press the 'Parameters' button placed at the top of the 'Values' page.

notice-info2This button is visible only to Super Administrators

vmf_params

The main parameters here are:

Products per row. Defines the products of each row of the results page.

Matching of selected values. This is a very important parameter as it defines the filtering type you would like to have.
The Relative means that the results will contain every product that match at least one of the selected criteria.

In this case you can use the Best Match sorting option to display higher the products that match to more selected criteria.

The Absolute means that the results will contain only products that match to all the selected criteria.
 
Uninstalling VirtueMart

Its strongly advised to uninstall the VMF component if you uninstall Virtuemart.

If you don't want to loose your data concerning VMF, you can empty (trancate) the table
#__vmfprodsubcategory from your database.
 
VMF Module

The module displays the filtering form for your e-shop.
Its the user's tool for filtering the products.

 

Parameters

module_params

The module comes with a set of parameters concerning its display style and its functioning.

From the extensions-->module manager the user could select :

1) Display Features. Set it to display or not the features drop down.

2) Dislpay Manufacturers.Set it to display or not the Manufacturers drop down.

3) Display Price field. Setting it to yes will display the price filtering fields (From , To).

4) Display Values with no Products Assigned.

This parameters decides if will be displayed feature's values that have no products assigned.

*If the end user selects only a Value that has no products assigned
the vmf won't return-display any products.

 

Appearance Section

1) Module Class Suffix. The suffix of the module's class. Could be use for styling the module

2) VM categories ids. Using this setting the user could select the VM categories that he want to be displayed in the front end.

notice The categories ids should be separated with  a comma.Example: 6,9,11

notice The categories are being displayed in the order that the user has entered them.

3) Categories selection type. Single for radio buttons (only 1 possible selection). Multiple for checkboxes (multiple possible selection).

notice If you enable the Multiple selection you should also activate the Relative matching from the vmf component->values->parameters

4) Hold selected filters in the results page. Display all the selected criteria in the VMF module after the search (In the results page).

5) Background Color. We are offering 5 different background colors for the module.

If these colors don't  fulfill the user's demands, the module styling could easily change from a css  file (css/stylesheet.css) included inside its folder.

6) VM categories ScrollBar. With this setting the admin could define a certain height after which a scrollbar will be appeared to the categories box.

notice The units should also be included in the text field. Example : 180px

 

6) Features and Manufacturers Appearance

a) Horizontally
Every feature and it's Values appears in a row.


 

b) Vertically
Every feature and it's Values appears in a column.

 

The same happens with manufacturers values


6) Currency Symbol Position. With this setting the admin could define the currency symbol position for the price filtering text boxes.

Currencies have different symbol position that the admin has to define. Example: 100€ or $100

 

 

The Module is 100% HTML, CSS Valid !!

The appearance of the module has been checked in all major Browsers. Any distortion happens because of css from the template you use ,is not our Responsibility.
 
Language Installation

The language files doanloaded from the download area can be installed using the joomla installation proccess.

Extensions->Install/Uninstall
 
Use of SEF extensions
noticeIf you use a sef extension the vmfiltering component has to be excluded (skiped) from the sef process.
 
Hide the categories drop down

If you don't want to display the categories drop-down in the VMF module, there is another vesrion of VMF module available for download.

The name of the module is mod_vmfiltering_no_categories and there is inside the VMF 1.5.x suite