Skip to main content

How to Use Filter Sets

Filter Sets group together multiple filters which can be assigned to specific pages on your website. The Add Filter Sets and Edit Filter Sets pages enable you to add new filter sets and edit existing ones.

To see a list of existing filter sets, go to The Filter Sets Page. If you used the Config Wizard then the list will initially contain one, the ‘Global’ filter. If you chose ‘Manual Setup’ then the list will initially be empty.

How to Add Filter Sets

Clicking the ‘Add New’ button at the top of the The Filter Sets Page will take you to the Add Filter Sets Page. Here you can add a new set of filters that you can associate with pages in your store.

First you need to enter a few settings for the Filter Set:

  1. Label. Enter the heading for the Filter Set as it would appear on the Store pages
  2. Hide empty options. What to do with filter options that would return no results. Choose between:
    • Show All – Show all filter options, even those that will return no products. Empty options will be greyed out and cannot be selected. If product counts are enabled they will show as zero:
    • Hide on Load – Hide all empty options when the page loads (the default setting).
    • Also Hide When Filtering – If any options turn to zero as a result of the shopper making another filter selection, then hide those options.
  3. Clear All Text. Label for the Clear All option.
  4. Hide out of stock products. Checking this will hide out of stock products from the filter results.

Note: There is also a setting in the menu item WooCommerce > Settings > Products tab > Inventory to hide out of stock products from the customer. This setting does not work reliably for variable products where all variants are out of stock; whereas the Acsell Product Filters setting does correctly exclude these from the product list. If you are using both settings and you have some products with all variants out of stock, you may see some changes when opening a page. The WooCommerce-supplied product list will be overwritten with the Acsell Product Filters list, so that products with all variants out of stock are removed from the list. This change will be applied after a fraction of a second, dependent on how long it takes for the Acsell Product Filters JavaScript to start up.

Once you have defined the main settings you can begin adding filters to the set.

Adding Filters to a Set

To add filters to a new or existing Filter Set, click the Add New Filter button. You will see the following panel:

Note: if a Filter Template exists for the selected Filter Type (See ‘How to Use Filter Templates’) then the option ‘Use default filter template’ will be selected. If not, then ‘Create a custom filter’ will be selected. In this case there will be more options in view – see below.

Next, define the settings for your new filter.

  1. Filter. Choose a filter type from the list. The list will auto-populate based on the Attributes assigned to your store products.
  2. Panel visibility. Choose between:
    • Expanded on initial page load – All filter options will be displayed
    • Collapsed on initial page load – Filter options appear collapsed on page load. Only the filter heading will appear, with an ‘expand’ icon:
  3. Pick a template. Choose between:

    • Use default filter template – Use the existing Filter Template. Only available if a Filter Template has been defined for this filter type.
    • Create a custom filter – Modify the individual filter settings. If selected, all settings for the selected Filter Type will become available (see ‘Custom Filters’ below).
  4. CSS Classes. Text entered here will be added as a CSS class to the ‘input’ tag of the filter and can be used to help style it.
  5. Summary. Only displayed if ‘Use the existing Filter Template’ is selected. Shows a summary of the main settings defined by the Filter Template, with a preview of how the filter will appear in your store pages.
  6. Display On. Choose whether the filter should be displayed in both Desktop and Mobile view, Desktop Only or Mobile Only.

Custom Filters

A custom filter overrides the Filter Template for the Filter Type. If ‘Create a custom filter’ is selected under ‘Pick a template’, then all filter settings become available for editing, including those that would normally be controlled by the Template.

If no template is defined for the selected filter type then this will be the only option.

The additional settings are as follows. See How to Use Filter Templates for a more complete description of their functions.

  1. Title. The title of the filter as it will display on the site.
  2. Description. You can enter a description of the filter if you wish to.
  3. Clear Button Text. Label text for the ‘Clear All’ filters option.
  4. Empty Options Text. Text to display when a filter has no matching results.
  5. Mechanism. Choose how you want to display the filter on the site.
  6. Show Counts. Will show the number of products that match each filter option.
  7. Sort Values. Define the order in which the filter values will appear. You can have them sorted automatically by number and then text; or drag and drop them into the order of your choosing.
  8. Labels. Change the label for each value.
  9. Columns. Display filter values in 1 or 2 columns, or as a fluid list that wraps to the next line as the space requires.
  10. Search Box. If set to ‘Yes’ then a search box will appear at the top of the list of options. Typing characters into the search box will limit the options to those that match’. This can be useful for filters with a large number of options.
  11. Show search box when more than… Set a value higher than 1 if you don’t want the search box to appear when there are only a few options. For example, if you set the value to 10 then the search box will only be displayed if the number of valid options for the filter is 11 or more.
    The settings for the search box are specified separately for Desktop and Mobile displays.
  12. Use Show More/Less: at. If a filter has a large number of options, you can choose to display it initially in a partially-compressed style, showing only the first option and a ‘Show More’ link:

    If the shopper clicks ‘Show More’, the filter will be expanded to show all the options, and a ‘Show Less’ link will appear at the bottom.
    Note: The ‘Show Less’ link will be hidden if any option for the filter is selected. This style of presentation can be used as well as, or instead of, the Search Box.

  13. Preview. Will show a preview of how the particular filter and its options will appear on the site
  14. Save as Default Filter Template. If there is no existing Template for the filter type, ticking this box will save your filter as a Filter Template. Making changes to a Filter Template will automatically update the filter wherever the template is used across the website.

Once you are done creating all the Filters you need in a particular Filter Set, scroll up to Publish.

By default, the first Filter Set will be auto-assigned to all the pages on your website. Once more sets are created, you can change which Filter Set is assigned to which page. See ‘Filters By Pages’.

Organise and Overview Filter Sets

To get a quick overview of all the filters in a Filter set, select Close All; or Expand All to analyse them individually. To expand or collapse an individual filter use the arrowhead icon to its right.

Use the burger icon (3 dashes) against each filter to re-arrange them in order of the preferred appearance on the website.

How to Edit Filter Sets

Clicking a Filter Set name or its ‘Edit’ link in the Filter Sets Page will take you to the Edit Filter Sets Page.

Here you can change the Filter set information, change the existing filters in the set, and add new filters to it.

For a full description of each setting in the Filter set information and the Filter type information see How to Add Filter Sets.