Browsing and searching products

Browsing and searching products is made simple when using the computer-based catalogue, if you wish to see special offers or christmas items you only need to click on their respective tabs in the main tab menu. If you wish to search for products in the products view there are functions to make it easier.

On the product, offers and xmas products screens you will see on the left a menu system with headers that you can click. These are listed below.

Browse by Category

To browse by category, first click on the ‘Browse by Category’ header in the menu you will notice a list of category names, with either a red sphere and plus-sign icon or a blue sphere with no plus-sign icon. The red icon means the category is further sub-catagorized, the blue icon means it is not. Clicking on a category with a blue icon displays details of products within that category in the table view located on the right, clicking on a category with a red icon displays details of products with all of its subcategories and also displays a list of it’s sub-categories beneath it within the menu.

TIP: clicking the plus-sign icon located to the far left of the category name opens up the sub-categories underneath the the category without affecting the product details that are displayed. You can close the sub-category menu by clicking the minus icon, this will not affect the products display either.

Browse by Supplier

To browse by supplier, first click on the ‘Browse by Supplier’ menu header on the products screen. Once you have clicked you will notice a list of suppliers now shown underneath the ‘Browse by Supplier’ menu header.

Simply click on the supplier name and the products view will change to show details of all products by the selected supplier.

Search by Product Number

To search by product number, first click on the 'Search by Product Number' menu header on the products screen. Once you have clicked you will notice a form with a white text-box labelled 'Enter full or partial product number' along with a button labelled 'Search'.

Click on the white textbox to make sure it is activated and type in a full or partial product number that you want to search for then click the 'Search' button with your mouse or press enter on your keyboard.

If a product is found the details will be displayed in the products view.

Search by Barcode

To search by barcode number, first click on the 'Search by Barcode' menu header on the products screen. Once you have clicked you will notice a form appear with a white text-box labelled 'Enter barcode' along with a button labelled 'Search'.

Click on the white text-box to make sure it is activated and type in the barcode you wish to search for, then either click the 'Search' button with your mouse or press enter on your keyboard.

If a product is found the details will be displayed in the products view.

NOTE: this function will also work with a USB barcode scanner or equivalent. Simply follow the same steps as stated above but instead of typing in the barcode, scan the barcode with the barcode scanner.

Search by Text

To search by text, first click on the 'Search by Text' menu header on the products screen. Once you clicked you will notice a form appear with a white text-box labelled 'Enter search phrase' along with a button labelled 'Search' and also three round checkboxes, each of these are described below: -

Match whole phrase - this means that the function will take the entire phrase that is written into the search textbox and will only bring back a result if the exact phrase matches any of an item's description.
Match all words - This means that the search function will take each word and only bring back a result if all of the words are present in the item's description.
Match any word - This means that the search function will take each word and bring back a result if any of the words present in the text-box match any of the words in the item's description.

Once you have decided which option is best for your search, select it by single clicking on the circular icon next to the label, click on the white text-box to activate it and type in your search phrase, then click the 'Search' button.

If the search function gets any matches to the search phrase it will display the results in the product view table.

Advanced Search

The advanced search is different from the Browse and search methods used above in that it incorporates all of the search techniques (excluding the Barcode search) in one to try to gain a more controlled search result. To use the advanced search first click on the 'Advanced Search' menu header on the products screen. In the form that appears you will notice, at the top two drop down menu's, one for category and the other for subcategory. The subcategory drop-down menu is greyed out and not accessible when a category isn't selected in the Category drop-down or a Category is selected that doesn't have any sub-categories. Below the category drop-down menu's you will notice another for selecting a supplier and below that two white text-boxes labelled 'Enter full or partial product number' and 'Enter search phrase'. Below them is the 'Search' button and also text search option check-boxes as seen in the 'Search by Text' section of this help page. Change these fields as neccessary then click the 'Search' button.

If any results are found they will be displayed in the main product view