Creating a review website with advanced search??

Hi there,

I’ve been using MODx (Evolution and now Revolution) for about 18 months for all sorts of different websites. So I’m pretty familiar with the way things work, and used most of the common snippets.

However, I’m now attempting to build a site with some more advanced features. I want to build a site based around reviews (of restaurants!). Ideally I’d like to be able to add restaurants under certain sections (British, Italian, Chinese etc...), add a short review, give it a series of ratings (value for money, food, service etc...) and allow others to write their own reviews. Now I know I can achieve most of this with getResources and Quip (and maybe CSS Star ratings for the ratings, not used this before).

One of the things that I have no idea how to accomplish is having a solid search mechanism for the site. I’ve used Simple Search before, but I think I’d need something customised? Basically, I want the user to be able to search for a restaurant that fits certain parameters. So they might want to search for all chinese restaurants (by choosing from a dropdown) for example. How would I achieve this? I know its generally quite straightforward with a completely custom system (I’m familiar with basic PHP and SQL) but how would I achieve this within MODx (doing it dynamically based on the categories each restaurant is)? I’m sure this is possible in MODx (as everything else is!) just wondering how much PHP and SQL I’m going to have to write myself to get this done!

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I’m sure I’ll have tons more questions when I start building this. Just wanted to get a heads up.

I too would be interested in a customizable search form!

Maybe you could do something customized with the [[getResources]] snippet!


take a look at it.

Well I’ve started building this site now, so I’ll be back soon with more questions!