@Tito

I know people have used Mercchello with large number of products. Most queries are already paged.

Merchello introduced collections in 1.11.0 and a collection picker in 1.12.0 which will allow you to manage things right in Merchello and then add the collections to content pages (categories).

1.12.0 also introduced IProductContent (virtual IPublishedContent). The PropertyValueConverter for the collection picker, returns a IEnumerable

I really appreciate the help on the translations!

Hi Rusty, I guess i can not use collections. I need to store information in each category, brand.. so its better to use umbraco content for this info.

So i would need to create a tree content picker in the product document type. Then could i query products for a determined brand or supplier, etc from Merchello using de IProductContent and querying the tree content picker property? how? That would be slow? I think it is a need to relate merchello product to Umbraco content without using collections.

@Tito - I am not quite following you here. Could you write up what your trying to do a bit more. I think there is probably a good solution ....

Hi Rusty.

I need to create a tree like this on the content section:

Categories      
      Category A
           -Subcategory A1
           -Subcategory A2
           -.....
       Category B
           -Subcategory B1
           -Subcategory B2
           -.....

Brands
      - Brand A
              -Model A1
              -Model A2
      - Brand B
      -....

Then, create a product document type with this properties:

   - Picture
   - Description
   -  Brand (content picker from brands)
   - Model (Content picker for the models)
   - Categories (Multinode tree picker for categories and subcategories, each product can be on multiple categories or  subcategories)

In merchello i could use this product document type for the merchello product and a collection for each category (there will be 4 or 5) and i guess i could map the category content node with the collection guid. I could create each product under each collection. Then i could map each product with the subcategories, brands and models using the pickers.

My question is, how could i search for products querying by category/subcategory, brand o or model? there will be a page for each brand listing the products under this brand. Note that under a category may be up to 25,000-30,000 products.

How could i search for a product by name or description? i guess using examine?

My client has sent me a csv file with the products so i have to programatically create each brand, model, product and map them all.

Hey Tito,

Collections are pretty versatile. You could also use a product collection for each of the sub-categories and add them to your category pages which could be either collections themselves or simply Umbraco content with have multiple collection pickers - so there would be no need to use pickers for this one. The MerchelloHelper.Query.Product has a get by collection which returns a paged set of results.

You could use the Manufacturer field on the product for brand (assuming each product can be assigned to a single brand). If you can do this, the MerchelloHelper.Query.Product does have a search by manufacturer query which returns a paged set of results.

I need to store an image, description, etc for each category, subcategory, brand... Do collections, manufacturers, allow this? if not, i would have to create all the collections and subcollections, manufacturers on Merchello and then replicate this on the Umbraco content and relate them? it seems a lot of work and not very usable isnt it? I cant tell my client to create a manufacturer there and then in the umbraco content.. I think i can go for collections for the main categories that are not manageable but i guess the rest of subcategories, brands/models, create them in the content section and use the pickers... For query i could go with Chris solution? (retrieving paged results): https://our.umbraco.org/projects/collaboration/merchello/merchello/72029-querying-products-in-1120

Hi @Rusty, I am trying this out. Have an Umbraco 7.3 with Merchello 1.13 installed. I have created a product document type and created some products for testing. Then, I am trying the search as Chris posted:

 var products = merchelloHelper.Query.Product.Search(1, 10).Items
        .Select(x => (ProductDisplay)x)
        .Where(x => x.Available && x.DetachedContents.Any(y => y.CanBeRendered));

I dont understand what DetachedContents is. I guess it is the content saved as the custom product document type? How can i retrieve the data to search for a property? How is it related to the new IProductContent?

Also, i cant find any documentation about the Merchello helper, Queries, Search, IProductContent, ProductDisplay, DetachedContents... i have downloaded the Baazar source and search for that terms in the code but i am stucked on this.

Hi Tito,

I got the detached content idea from Nested Content. It is the way, Merchello associates property data with a product. What happens is, when IProductContent is constructed, the associated content type is looked up and the property values are filled in from a key value pair data (JSON) stored in the merchProductVariantDetachedContent table.

So you want to return IProductContent, not ProductDisplay.

  var products = merchelloHelper.Query.Product.Search(1, 10).Items
                 .Select(x => ((ProductDisplay)x).AsProductContent());

Thanks Rusty.

So i can get IProductContent as this:

var products = merchelloHelper.Query.Product.Search(1, 10).Items
             .Select(x => ((ProductDisplay)x).AsProductContent())
             .Where(x=>x.Available);

And i get the test products, but i can access to product.Name but if i try to get some custom property like:

@foreach (var item in products)
{
    <div>
        @item.Name
        @item.GetPropertyValue("descripcion")
    </div>
}

I get null in description, may be it is a language issue? how can i access property content for current culture language?

By the way, is there any documentation out there about IProductContent, ProductContentFactory, MerchelloHelper, etc? I cant find it in the official documentation page.

Tito - Unfortunately I am way behind on documentation, it is going to be my next big push =)

I usually set the culture by handling an event in the ProductContentFactory

    protected override void ApplicationStarting(UmbracoApplicationBase umbracoApplication, ApplicationContext applicationContext)
    {

        ProductContentFactory.Initializing += ProductContentFactoryOnInitializing;
    }


          /// <summary>
    /// Sets the parent of Merchello virtual product content to the Home node.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="sender">
    /// The sender.
    /// </param>
    /// <param name="e">
    /// The e.
    /// </param>
    private static void ProductContentFactoryOnInitializing(ProductContentFactory sender, VirtualContentEventArgs e)
    {
        e.Parent = [Your root node];
    }

Thanks Rusty,

I have put this:

private static void ProductContentFactoryOnInitializing(ProductContentFactory sender, VirtualContentEventArgs e)
        {
            var umbracoHelper = new Umbraco.Web.UmbracoHelper(Umbraco.Web.UmbracoContext.Current);
            e.Parent = umbracoHelper.TypedContentAtRoot().First();
        }

But i cant retrieve a custom property, it still gets null. Edit: i see the english version of the property, but home node is set as spanish

@{
var products = merchelloHelper.Query.Product.Search(1, 10).Items
                 .Select(x => ((ProductDisplay)x).AsProductContent())
                 .Where(x=>x.Available);
}
    @foreach (var item in products)
    {
        <div>
@*Merchello property*@
            @item.Name
@*Custom property from document type*@    
            @item.GetPropertyValue("descripcion")
        </div>
    }

Can you check the umbracoLanguage table and see what the language culture name is? It may be it does not match the name associated in the merchProductVariantDetachedContent table.

There is an extension method on IProductContent "SpecifiyCulture" maybe try that?

The language iso code is es-ES and the culture name "Spanish (Spain)" The culture name in merchProductVariantDetachedContent is es-ES. I guess you are comparing it to culture name in umbracoLanguage table and should be compared to languageISOCode column instead.

item.SpecifyCulture("es-ES") works ok to retrieve the language, but i think the first option is the correct to not specify the culture each time and automatically take the current culture (ie for searching inside the items in a query)

Thanks Tito,

I agree, you should not need to specify the culture on each item.

I'll have to go back and double check that the languageISOCode column is being used - it should be.

Hi Tito, i've the same problem with culture. How did you solve it exactly? does't metter if i'm open a slug for PT or for en at the end the culture is always EN.

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