Instant Live Search with Typo Tolerance
Add-on ID: kv_instant_live_search · Edition: CS-Cart & Multi-Vendor · Latest version: 1.0.0 · Compatible with: CS-Cart & Multi-Vendor 4.17.2 – 4.21.x, PHP 7.4 – 8.3 · Changelog: view
Instant Live Search turns the search box of your store into a fast search-as-you-type dropdown and makes the search results page find what customers mean, even with typos. It runs entirely inside your store: its own lightweight search index lives in your database, so there is no external service, no API key and no monthly fee. The standard CS-Cart search only finds products whose text contains the typed letters exactly and lists them in catalog order; this add-on ranks results by relevance, understands typos, synonyms and product codes, and shows you what your customers search for.
- Search as you type: products with image, price (with discounts and customer-group prices), old price and stock status, plus matching categories, brands, pages and, on Multi-Vendor, vendor stores. “See all results” opens the full results page.
- Typo tolerant: “iphnoe”, “samsnug” and “kettel” still find iPhone, Samsung and kettles. One typo is allowed in words of 4 to 7 letters, two in longer words, and a word that is still being typed is completed.
- Relevance ranking: the product name counts most, then the product code, brand, categories, features and keywords. An exact product code (SKU) jumps to the top, with or without dashes. Popular products rank a little higher.
- Results page with the same ranking: the standard results page shows the same typo-tolerant matches, sorted by relevance (“Sort by Relevance”); filters, other sortings and pagination keep working as before.
- Synonyms and stop words: sofa = couch = settee, or one-way synonyms (a search for laptop also finds notebooks), per language.
- Helpful when nothing matches: “Showing results for …” when a typo was corrected, and popular searches plus popular products instead of an empty page.
- Recent and popular searches: shown as soon as the search box gets the focus. Recent searches stay in the customer’s browser only.
- Search analytics: top searches, searches without results (with a one-click “Add synonym”), click-through rate and the most clicked results, per storefront and language. No personal data is stored.
- Fast and cache friendly: suggestions are answered in a few dozen milliseconds and cached per query and customer group; the dropdown works with the full page cache of CS-Cart 4.21.
- Accessible: the dropdown follows the WAI-ARIA combobox pattern and is fully usable with the keyboard and screen readers.
Documentation
Section titled “Documentation”| Page | Contents |
|---|---|
| Installation | Requirements, installing, the first index build, cron, upgrading, uninstalling |
| Configuration | Settings: dropdown, results page, relevance, analytics, license |
| Usage | The dropdown, the results page, the admin page (index, analytics, synonyms, search preview), Multi-Vendor and Ultimate |
| Developer notes | Index design, ranking, endpoints, caching, hooks, file map |
| FAQ | Common questions |
Compatibility
Section titled “Compatibility”| CS-Cart / Multi-Vendor | 4.17.2 – 4.21.x (Ultimate and Multi-Vendor editions) |
| PHP | 7.2.5 – 8.3 (whatever your CS-Cart version supports) |
| Themes | Responsive and themes based on it (Bright, Nova and others): the dropdown attaches to the standard search box |
| Full page cache (4.21) | Supported: the page output is the same for every visitor, suggestions come by AJAX |
| Catalog size | Tested with 10,000 products; the index grows with the number of words, not with page views |