Categories: <checkbox> instead of <select>

[mediaboss]

Hi there,

Is it possible to link categories to checkbox instead of using the pulldown menu <select>? Our old search engine isn't too user friendly and I'm hoping to somewhat automate it with Zoom using what we currently have.

I know how to change it in the code (Ref from search.asp - see below) but wanted to know if there was any other way.

Thanks!


Code reference:
<--snip snip-->

if (UseCats = 1) then
Response.Write(STR_FORM_CATEGORY & " ") & VbCrlf
Response.Write("<select name='zoom_cat'>") & VbCrlf
Response.Write("<option value=""-1"">" & STR_FORM_CATEGORY_ALL & "</option>")
for i = LBound(catnames) to UBound(catnames)
Response.Write("<option value=""" & i & """")
if (i = cat) then
Response.Write(" selected=""selected""")
end if
Response.Write(">" & catnames(i) & "</option>")
Next
Response.Write("</select>") & VbCrlf
end if

[mediaboss]

Just to further comment on my posting, the reason why I want to have checkmarks instead of the select option is so that the search engine can look in different folders.

For example, lets say I have 5 libraries. For a specific search, I just want to look into either all of the libraries or just 3 out of 5.

Thanks again! :P

[Ray]

A better way to modify the search form would be to define your own HTML form and turn off the one that is generated by the script. See:
http://wrensoft.com/zoom/support/faq_howto.html#searchform

But you should note that changing the categories from a dropdown menu to checkboxes will not allow you to search in multiple categories. The current version of Zoom does not allow this, unless you modify the script heavily.

If however, the situation you described is the only search scenario (ie: the user can only either search "all" or "3 out of 5 libraries"), then you can setup a category which groups together the 3 different folders as one. In this case, you would have 3 options available to the user: "All", "3 out of 5 libraries", "remaining 2 libraries".

[mediaboss]

Thanks Ray for the swift response!

Do you know when Zoom will offer this option?
(checkbox instead of the drop down)

Thanks!

[Ray]

We have no immediate plans for searching multiple categories at this point. It usuallly depends if there is much interest from other users as to which feature takes priority, but we have added this to our list of things to consider for future versions.

[Anonymous]

Searching across multiple categories would be a powerful feature. When dealing with many categories, it's not practical to make a new category for every possible combination.

Check boxes would be a nice feature for future releases :D