Bracketed Facets States

Scenario

A bracketed facet is defined, for example, on the price attribute with the following ranges:

• 0-10
• 10-100
• 100-1000
• >1000

The price attribute is of type float, and the facet is configured with lateral (stay) behavior. The facet is configured as below (FAS version 22.2.0):

What is lateral behavior?

Lateral behavior is a feature that defines whether a facet stays available after a selection on it has been made (usually to allow navigational side-steps). 

Which are the possible states of a bracketed facet?

1. Regular (drill down)
   In this state, a selection acts as an additional criterion. After selecting, only the remaining options with a non-zero number of results are shown. The facet is displayed if at least k options are available in the current result set, where k is the number of values configured in the facet's display conditions.
2. Lateral (side step)
   In the lateral state, all options matching the prior selection are shown. A lateral facet is only shown when one of its options has been selected. The XML displays the filter selection with the attribute selected="true".

The regular and lateral states are not mutually exclusive. A facet is returned for each state in case of overlapping ranges.

 

Expected state when performing a selection on an existing option

If a selection, which matches one of the existing options, is performed and the facet is configured with lateral behavior, then the facet is returned in the lateral state. For example, when fh_location=//catalog01/en_GB/0.0<price<10.0, the preview pages (breadcrumb and facet) and XML display the following:

						<filter on="price" facetid="facet_14" basetype="float" show_number_values="4" selected="true">
							<title>Price</title>
							<filtersection nr="2313"  selected="true">
								<link >
									<name>£0 - £10</name>
									<url-params>.....</url-params>
								</link>
								<value>0.0&lt;price&lt;10.0</value>
							</filtersection>
							<filtersection nr="13769" >
								<link >
									<name>£10 - £100</name>
									<url-params>.....</url-params>
								</link>
								<value>10.0&lt;price&lt;100.0</value>
							</filtersection>
							<filtersection nr="1712" >
								<link >
									<name>£100 - £1000</name>
									<url-params>.....</url-params>
								</link>
								<value>100.0&lt;price&lt;1000.0</value>
							</filtersection>
							<filtersection nr="5" >
								<link >
									<name>£1000 or more</name>
									<url-params>.....</url-params>
								</link>
								<value>price&gt;1000.0</value>
							</filtersection>
							<url-params-base>......</url-params-base>
						</filter>

Expected state when performing a selection which does not match an existing option

If a selection is performed, which does not exactly match an existing option, then the facet is returned to a regular state. For example, when fh_location=//catalog01/en_GB/0.0<price<100.0, the breadcrumb and facet are displayed as below:

						<filter on="price" facetid="facet_14" basetype="float" show_number_values="2">
							<title>Price</title>
							<filtersection nr="2313" >
								<link >
									<name>£0 - £10</name>
									<url-params>.....</url-params>
								</link>
								<value>0.0&lt;price&lt;10.0</value>
							</filtersection>
							<filtersection nr="13769" >
								<link >
									<name>£10 - £100</name>
									<url-params>.....</url-params>
								</link>
								<value>10.0&lt;price&lt;100.0</value>
							</filtersection>
							<url-params-base>.....</url-params-base>
						</filter>

Expected behavior in case of overlapping ranges

When a selection for 0.0<price<100.0 is performed, the conditions for both regular and lateral states are matched. To be more precise, a lateral facet can be displayed because one of the existing options has been chosen (0-100), and a regular facet can be displayed because there are still available options in the result set (0-10 and 10-100) (provided that the number of values configured to display this facet is at most 2).

<facetmap universe="catalog01">
	<filter on="price" facetid="facet_14" basetype="float" show_number_values="5" selected="true">...</filter>
	<filter on="price" facetid="facet_14" basetype="float" show_number_values="2">...</filter>
	.....
</facetmap>