Products vs Cataloger

[seanho]

When to use which one? Appreciate your view on this if possible.

[Peciura]

Cataloger.
This is a non-ecommerce cataloging system. It can be used for artist portfolios, product collections, or other, similar uses.

Products.
this module allows maintaining a product database, along with prices, images, and various other attributes. It also has 'add to cart' and 'checkout' functionality

Cataloger adds spesific content types "Catalog Item" and "Catalog Category" and is ment for show only.

Products is usually used with Cart and Orders modules and some others. Quick guide about them can be found here
http://calguy1000.com/Blogs/8/60/cmsms- ... ow-to.html

[deactivated010521]

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[bryan]

When to use which one? Appreciate your view on this if possible.

I think it depends on the nature of what you're listing and how the client wants to manage their products. The biggest difference is that Products allows items to be managed independently from the page content where Cataloger treats items as a 'Content Type'. If you think your client would find it easier to manage items like they would pages, Cataloger might be a better choice. Products has a CSV import feature, making it easier to populate if theirs a large list of items available for import.

I've run into numerous limitations using both of them, but in general, I prefer Products because I can create item/category structures that are more complex than what cataloger is capable of. It's just more flexible and intuitive.

[seanho]

Thanks guys. All your comments are really useful.

I think it depends on the nature of what you're listing and how the client wants to manage their products.

I am building a Real Estate website for a client. What I would like to do it build a database of property listings, and have a property search form (much like the Property Finder show here: http://www.richardgodsell.com/). Will the Products module do what I want to do? I mean, is it possible to get the search form to interact with the data entered using the Products module?

Hope this makes sense.

[Peciura]

I haven't noticed search form in Products module (sorting only). But it is not so hard to do it your self. Any way i was going to use look for such function in a month or something.

If i am wrong please correct me, otherwise we will end up with nice UDT.

[deactivated010521]

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[bryan]

I haven't noticed search form in Products module (sorting only). But it is not so hard to do it your self. Any way i was going to use look for such function in a month or something.

If i am wrong please correct me, otherwise we will end up with nice UDT.

The Search module allows you to limit the scope of your search results to specific modules (see the help documentation). You could do something like this to display search results for property listings:

Code: Select all

{search modules='Products' searchtext='Search Properties'}

[jubber]

is there a search facitily on the cataloger haswell

[tyman00]

Filtering isn't a built in feature of Products yet, though it has been widely discussed. I don't foresee it happening unless someone sponsors it.

However with some clever structuring through the hierarchy and with the proper use of Categories you can do some simple filtering. I saw an example here one time (maybe in the showoff forum) but it was so long ago I can't remember how they did it.

I have used Products for the following: e-Commerce Shop/Cart, Dealership Inventory Listing, Shot Glass collection inventory and I am even working on a setup right now where I will use the Products module to organize all of the template syntax, css and files that I use for various module templates.

The module is super flexible and with the addition of various modules you have a lot of flexibility.