Hi there! So we are using Finsweet CMS Filter on our project since the beginning. Now we’re trying to implement something new and we can’t figure out a way how to possibly solve this (if there’s any way at all).
So what we basically wanna achieve is, that a user can choose if he want’s so include a category in the search (the items with this category will be shown) or to exclude them (the items with this category will not be shown). Here’s an example of that (unfortunately in german): ÖNB Digital
If you click e.g. on “Medientyp”, you can include or exclude a category from the search.
As I said we’re not sure if this is something that can be done with Finsweet Attributes at all, we’re really trying to think creatively here
Any help or thoughts would be very much appreciated! Thank you!
From your description, that’s simply a checkbox filter setup in FS Filter.
It’s one of the more common setups.
Checkbox filters run with OR logic, meaning anything checked will be included in the results if it matches. Anything not checked will be excluded, so the “X” doesn’t mean anything.
For example, this would only show Zeitung items. In FS filter, there’s no difference between Buch and Fotografie, They’re unchecked, so not included in the results.
In theory you could stylize it so that the X is highlighted automatically if the checkbox is not clicked, but it really doesn’t achieve anything, it’s just a stylized checkbox element. Your checklist would look more like this, with every item either checked or unchecked visually.
If you actually have a distinction between how “X” and un-checked are meant to behave, maybe you can describe the difference and I can guide you further.
One more note, this UI;
Can be built using a tabs element, so that your options are separated for Medientyp, Schlagwort, and Sprache, and you can write custom JS to handle e.g. a filter selection count. Make sure you think through the UX because items that are hidden from view might confuse users and give them results they don’t expect.
For that category list subfilter, it’s possible to do multiple FS filters on a page, but I’d prototype that first to make certain they don’t conflict, it’s would be a bit of an unorthodox setup to have FS filter 1 filtering filter controls for FS filter 2.
Thank you so much for your reply! I definitely get your point, but we wanna achieve something else and I might not have explained it properly (it’s already kinda complicated for us haha)
So let’s say I wanna filter the magazines by “Jahrzehnt” (decade) → “2010er”. If I do that, like it is now, it will show me all magazines that have the tag “2010er”. But what if I wanna filter all magazines that have the tag “2010er” except the year “2012”? Then I would need to add another filter which excludes the tag “Jahr” → “2012” from my results. With this I would be left with all magazines that have the tag “2010er”, except all magazines with the tags “2010er” + “2012”. Does that make sense to you?
FS CMS Filter doesn’t have an exclusion filter capability, so what you’re describing is rather complex.
In a well defined example like the one you gave I’d build the filter UX around what the user requires, and then have a hidden FS filter setup which my script translates requests for.
So for example, decade 2010 excluding year 2012 = filter years 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014… 2019. The UX is built how you like, and your JS ticks the appropriate hidden FS filter settings to apply it.
